Tag: Sub-20 5K

2019 week nine

Book Read
9. The Friend – Sigrid Nunez

Kilometres Ran
week nine – 35.4

2019 to Date: 363 KM

The Friend is a first-person narrative of an unnamed woman whose life-long best friend takes his own life and leaves her to deal with the aftermath, including the forced adoption of his Great Dane named Apollo. In between a life adapting to having a large dog in a small apartment with a no-pets policy, the narrator explored aspects of suicide, grief and loss, as well as the life (her friend’s, and hers too but less successfully) of a writer and academic teaching in a higher-ed creative writing program. “Writing in the first person is a known sign of suicide risk,” the narrator says. I didn’t fact-check it. I read many short stories – two collections already this year, and too many on the to-read pile – and I was neck deep in one noticed that every single depressing story was written in first person. I’m probably forever going to think of Sigrid Nunez every time I read anything in first person again. I’m okay with that because I loved this book and I know that I say that often on here but this book really has found its way into my favourite books mental list.

Ready to go!

It was a big weekend with two races and we’d (more coach than me) decided to pick one to run and one to fun. (And yes I wrote “coach” and yes I have been alluding to that for the past couple weeks and no I don’t want to talk about it yet.) After running the Chilly Chase 5K in 20:09 in January I opted to chase a sub 20:00 in the Saturday WestVanRun 5K and then have a fun run for the Sunday 10K. I had a plan and all everything was perfect. This week’s training was great and the weather was perfect. I planned to go out over the first 3K with the 20 minute pacer and then drain the tank over the last two kilometres. The Canadian National Railway had other plans. Or the race director didn’t check what CN’s plans were and adjust accordingly. My splits were perfect – 1K 3:54; 2K 3:59; 3K 4:01 – I was feeling great and I let loose down Bellevue Ave then a right turn over the railway tracks then another right and less than a mile down Argyle and the West Van Seawall to the finish line. Except before that last bit we had to wait for a train to cross.

Key words: Moving Time. Photo by Debra Kato.

I paused my watch and restarted but it didn’t really matter. The train delay added 2:30 to my time, for an official race finish time of 21:48. Because I paused my watch, Strava gave me a “moving time” of 19:18 but that’s not official at all, so my official personal best remains stuck on 20:09.

Let’s try that again, but in black.

Today’s 10K was supposed to be a fun run but after the let down yesterday mixed with the frustration about how well I actually ran I decided to disobey and go for it today. I didn’t get my 2019 goal of a sub 20:00 5K yesterday, maybe I had enough left in the tank for my other 2019 goal of a sub 40:00 10K today. It was worth a shot, and I gave it a shot. I knew right away it wasn’t going to happen, but I left it all out there anyway. Yesterday’s 5K I noticed the people around me heavy breathing but my breathing was calm until I really let go after the train. For today’s 10K my breathing elevated almost immediately. My watch ticked over to 19:50 as I passed the 5K marker, and I managed to hold the pace for another kilometre but I ran out of gas. Seven and 8K were a mess but I managed to pick it back up a bit for the final two. It was all heart because I had nothing left. I crossed the finish with an official time of 40:29. It wasn’t under 40:00, but it’s a huge new personal best by a minute. Plus, technically I ran 5K under 20 minutes twice in two days. Not a bad weekend.

2019 week four

Book Read
4. The Third Hotel – Laura van den Berg

Kilometres Ran
week four – 30.1

To Date: 158 KM

This was a case of seeing this cover on a whole bunch of best of lists or best selling lists or some such case of Baader-Meinhof phenomenon so I picked up a copy and read it and oh boy ghosts again? That or Van den Berg’s protagonist Clair had her own BMPh for her recently-deceased husband but then they do it. Like do it do it. Like what Amethyst Realm claims to have done 20-something times IRL before settling down with one lucky spook. Except Clair is monogamous and I don’t know why I seem to be fixated on spectral sex right now either because this is a pretty great novel. Although rather surreal and I think I got lost a couple times following Clair following her dead husband around Havana, Cuba. (And re-tickled my travel itch.) This book seems rather polarizing, with people either loving it or really not. One thing everyone seems to agree on is that it is a weird work, extremely well written. And I agree. I think that once some of the best-of sheen wears off a bit The Third Hotel is going to get a lot of positive, non-popular attention. So watch for it in your kid’s kid’s Lit class assuming universities still have Humanities then.

So to recap, at the beginning of this year I set a goal to run a race per month and then I hurt my achilles and went to my physiotherapist who said “no running farther than 5K,” which meant no Icebreaker 8K race, which meant no January race, which meant my 2019 goal was, well, what Amethyst Realm would call “ghosted.” Then, in what can only be described as my own case of the BMPh I stumbled across the Try Events Chilly Chase, which featured a 5K distances. Armed with this new information I went to physio and asked for permission, and permission was granted. Hurray! Another goal for 2019 is to run a sub-20 minute 5K and I thought that, although I’m injured and not in optimal shape and currently my nose runs faster than I do, with a good day I had a chance. The race left the community centre in Olympic Village and followed the Seawall around Science World to David Lam Park, and then back. The 5K left at about 9:15 a.m. following staggered starts for the Half Marathon, 15K and 10K distances. I had a great start but quickly caught up to the slower 10K-ers whom it seemed had never been told to please not run six abreast, let alone stay to the right. So there was a lot of pylon dodging for the first two and a half kilometres. (Coming back was better.) I turned on my watch to record the run and then didn’t look at it until I crossed the finish line and turned it off to see it display 5.04 in 20:13. I didn’t sub 20 but I ran a new personal best in 20:09 official time, good enough for fourth place overall, and my best finish yet.

I wonder if I would have had just a bit more to give over the last kilometre if I’d checked my watch and seen how close I was to 19:59 and I’ve spent a lot of today thinking about it and I really don’t know the answer. What I do know is that sub-20 is well within my reach when I get my next chance at the WestVanRun 5K in March. I’m excited already.