Tag: Talonbooks

2019 week forty

Book Read
Nope

Kilometres Ran
week forty – 85.7

2019 to date: 2,040 KM

It’s not that I didn’t read anything, rather I didn’t finish the book that I’m currently reading (that seems redundant). It’s a good one, though. I’ll finish it in time for next week and then I will be two books behind in my 2019 reading goal. Twelve weeks to go. I can do 14 books in 12 weeks. Talon’s fall launch is on Wednesday, and features new releases by favourites Oana Avasilichioaei and Danielle LaFrance. I’m not sure how I’m going to make it, what with Mile2Marathon track workout Wednesday eve. I need a doppelgänger.

NorthVanRun 10K a little over half way, with Shauna Gersbach out front, and Jordan Hurdal drafting me. Gersbach would finish W3 overall, and Hurdal passed me with about two to go, finishing AG 2nd. I settled for AG 3rd but more importantly to me 39:22 crushing my sub 40 goal. Photo by Dave Mallari.

On the running side of things goals are coming along just fine thank you very much. Earlier this summer I broke six minutes in the mile, which I don’t think was a stated 2019 goal, but became one when the opportunity to run it presented itself. Then after finally crossing an official timing mat to break 20 minutes over 5 kilometres in the Eastside 10K a couple weeks ago, and breaking 40 minutes at the NorthVanRun 10K last weekend, this week crossed another goal off my list, surpassing 2,019 KM (so far…) this year. In 2018 I surpassed 2,018 KM a few weeks earlier, but I was also running hurt (and dumb) at the time. This year started a bit slow dealing with an achilles injury, and the build for the BMO Marathon in May was pretty cautious in retrospect, or to spin it, quality kilometres over quantity.

Finish sprint down to the end of The Shipyards pier, and arguably the coolest race finish line in the Lower Mainland. Photo by Jan Heuninck.

I’m heading over to Victoria for Thanksgiving weekend with my sights set on running a sub 90 minute half marathon and I’m riding pretty damn high on confidence. I’ve never run the half event, though I’ve run every bit of the course, from many weekends escaping to Oak Bay to visit family, and getting chewed up and spit out running the marathon last fall. Weather and wind can both play huge factors, and weather apps indicate next Sunday will be wet. I can thrive in wet. Downpour less so. Headwind could spell disaster. But whatever. I’m ready to give it my all and see what happens. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Easing Into Autumn

Books Read:
30. Rue — Melissa Bull

Kilometres Ran:
week thirty eight — 51.3
week thirty nine — 55.5

To date: 2,247 km

A rather warm and lovely autumn day and I strolled on down to the Vancouver Public Library for the annual WORD festival and I ran into Brian Kaufman at the Anvil Press table and I think I called him Kevin and I picked up a copy of Melissa Bull’s Rue, which is really great, as well as a copy of the late Jamie Reid’s posthumous book A Temporary Stranger, which I’m told is really great, and I hope to get around to reading it soon. I stopped by Talonbooks’ table and said hello to Kevin Williams but I don’t think I called him Brian. The weather was really nice, especially for an otherwise cursed WORD and yet Elee Kraljii Gardiner managed to find a table in the shadows from which to shiver and hawk her new chapbook Trauma Head. And so another onto the to read pile. I made it to 30 at 39 weeks. I have 13 weeks to read 32 more books to beat last year. Or 65 to reach my goal. Neither seems likely.

However, surpassing my running goal does seem likely. At the end of 39 weeks I should be at 1,950 kilometres. So I’m about 300 ahead, which is good because my knee has been bothering me since Copenhagen and I finally went to see Timberly at City Sports & Physiotherapy today and she basically (not really basically, ahem…) told me that she doesn’t want me running for a couple weeks, which she also acknowledged with perhaps a slight sideways eye that I probably was not going to follow so maybe no more than 5 km no more than two or three times per week for the next couple weeks but she’d prefer I just ride a bike, which is all going to really throw off my plans to set a new 10 km PB at the Granville Island Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Monday morning. Also I think that this might be my last 10 km race. I don’t really like the distance, and I’m pretty slow. I much prefer the longer runs. But also if you’ve been following this you’ll probably have found that I tend to say I’m not interested in doing that and then doing it anyway *cough* marathon *cough* so who knows? To be honest I only signed up in order to get the RUNVAN Hat Trick.

Summertime Slacker

Books Read:

25. Hysteric — Nelly Arcan
26. Chinese Blue — Weyman Chan
27. Forthcoming organized labour history book

Kilometres Ran:
week thirty — 58.3
week thirty one — 56
week thirty two — 69.7
week thirty three — 56.6

To date: 1,922 km

So rather than read and write about it I decided that since I’ve barely read anything there wasn’t much point in writing about how I’ve barely read anything. So I didn’t. As you can see. Does anyone enjoy reading Nelly Arcan? Are you even allowed to enjoy reading her? I think I have two left to read of hers. Her work is so good but so heavy and depressing. I got to see and hear Weyman Chan read at the Talonbooks launch for Human Tissue, which I also purchased along with Chinese Blue but haven’t read yet. But I will, not least because Chinese Blue is so damn good. Trudging through nearly 400 pages of MS Word manuscript is rarely enjoyable, but I find the subject matter very interesting. I hope it gets published. And properly edited. You know, unlike this blog.

In three week I fly to Copenhagen for the Copenhagen Half Marathon on September 17 and I’m pretty excited about that. Travelling gives me an excuse to update my wardrobe, so travelling for a race must mean new running gear, right? It’s not like I need a new pair of racing flats but that didn’t stop me from picking up a second pair of the Adios 3. Plus they were on sale. I’ve been very curious about On Running shoes since their propaganda somehow started ending up in my Gmail inbox. They’re a bit pricey to just take a chance on, which makes me lament that there’s no test drive for running shoes. And then, as if my mind had been read, on Thursday at Forerunners on West 4th’s sunset run On was supposed to be on hand to demo their line up so I showed up. On, however, did not. But I had a good time anyway, with a short 9 km out to Spanish Banks and back to the store. The group is really friendly, and the run met at 7:30 p.m. rather than the typical 6:00 p.m. that every club seems to love but precludes me from being able to participate. I make it sound as if I would if I could. I’ve written here before, and numerous times, how I enjoy running for its solitude, But once in a while it’s nice to get out and be around people that also like to run. I do not know very many.