Tag: Top Age Group

2020 week ten

Books Read
5. Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club – Megan Gail Coles
6. The Houseguest – Amparo Dávila

Kilometres Ran
week ten – 69.7

2020 to date: 591 KM

“February in Newfoundland is the longest month of the year.” So opens Small Game Hunting‘s synopsis on its House of Anansi page. Thank gawd February is over. I wanted to like this book and it was such a slog and I spent so much time wondering just WTF was going on that I just could not. It reminded me of reading Faulkner in undergrad, the echo of people much smarter than me lamenting greatness like tinnitus all the while just wondering what the hell is happening. Sometimes I get the urge to pick him up again. This reminded me maybe nah. Moving on, below the flat we let in Mexico City was an English language bookstore that -of course- I stopped in to browse. Inside was a wide selection of children’s books, high school and university textbooks, and various exam prep, as well as a small selection of local authors in translation. I picked up a few but this Dávila collection of short stories had a blurb that included comparisons to Hitchcock and Kafka. I like Hitchcock and Kafka. This collections didn’t disappoint, and Dávila’s comparison to Kafka is apt. I liked it quite a bit and it was fun to recognize references I would have never understood before visiting Mexico City. In a city with so much to discover, this was a pleasant surprise.

WestVanRun race weekend, about a mile into the Sunday 10K. The smiling did not last much longer. Photo by Debra Kato.

Race weekend in West Vancouver for the WestVanRun 5K on Saturday and 10K Sunday (today). I set a goal to run a new personal best and aimed for an under 19:00 finish. I had a pretty good morning. I got into a slightly uncomfortable pace that I thought I could hold onto. The course starts at the top of a pretty steep hill and then runs pretty much flat out through the Park Royal mall parking lot and then back along the West Van Centennial Seawalk to the finish. My middle splits were pretty even and I managed a bit of a kick to the finish and crossed the finish line 19:03 with not a lot left to give. When I checked my finish online it said I placed fourth in my age group. A couple hours later friends messaged to say I missed claiming my third-place age group award. The runner who finished second overall was first in my age group and instead of double-dip, the organizers bumped everyone up a spot. So I was third in my age group even though I was fourth. It seems so strange to claim an award that I got but didn’t actually earn. I guess now I know how people who wear those fancy Nike shoes must feel all the time…. Anyway! I am now 3/3 not being on hand to accept my age group award.

WestVanRun Saturday 5K PB times three for John Hamilton (L), Walter Downey (R) and me. Photo by Lindsay Maciver.

This morning was the WestVanRun 10K and after a 9/10 effort to get to 19:03 in the 5K 23 hours earlier (thanks, Daylight Savings Time) I dialed back my expectations. I’d wanted to try to go under 38:00 but that was a pretty lofty goal at the best of time let alone the day after a hard race. I decided instead to go out at 3:55/km pace for the first 5K and then hang on for dear life and at least beat the 40 min pacer. I hit half way in 19:36 – one second behind pace – and the hang on began. I dipped a bit through 7 and 8 KM then traded lead back and forth with Michael Prince. I thought I had him beat but he had a better kick to the line; I crossed the finish a few seconds behind him for 39:30 chip time and my second fastest 10K and second time running sub 40:00.

Mike Prince out kicking me at the WestVanRun 10K finish this morning. Photo by Maddie Wiseman.

Later today over-analyzing the weekend (as I tend to do) I’m sure that I have it in my to run a sub 38:00 10K but I have a bit more work to do to get there. I was really happy with how well I recovered between races, all things considered, and I wonder how I could have done in the 10K today if I hadn’t raced the 5K yesterday. I felt like my Saturday was a better day, but when I looked at the stats I found that today’s 10K was actually a better performance, which I still find really (pleasantly) surprising. I certainly do not regret racing both. I’ve decided to pass on the St. Pat’s 5K next weekend, and the Vancouver Sun Run in April and just focus on the half marathons I have lined up between now and summer. Summertime will bring the Mile2Marathon Chase the Pace 5K on the track followed by the VFAC Summerfast 10K around Stanley Park so I won’t have to wait too long to take another shot at going faster than I have ever before. Next up though, is the gruelingly hilly April Fool’s half marathon on the Sunshine Coast. If I can set a new PB there I’ll be ecstatic.

2018 week twenty nine

Books Read:
36. Nightwood — Djuna Barnes
37. The Book of Repulsive Women — Djuna Barnes
(Links to free PDF from Green Integer Press.)

Kilometres Ran:
week twenty nine — 45.8

To date: 1,460 KM

Back in June the Lit Hub Daily newsletter reminded me that 126 years ago Djuna Barnes was born, and of course I’m using reminded loosely, and I was reminded that I should probably get around to finally reading Nightwood and why not follow that up with some Repulsive Women. Nightwood is a rather dense peice of metafiction that primarily follows Robin Vote around Continental Europe during the years between the two World Wars. I made the mistake of underestimating its under 200 pages. I found this book to be a lot of work, but worth it in the end. At the polar opposite of the spectrum, and Barnes’ career for the matter (one if not her first book) is The Book of Repulsive Women, which is comprised of eight poems accompanied by five ink drawings. This you can read in a single coffee. The imagery and themes in the pages of Repulsive are fully fleshed out years later in Nightwood.

At the start line, with the pulp mill cloud maker on the hill hard at work.

This morning I woke at 4:30 a.m. to prepare for a short drive from downtown Kamloops over to the North Shore and MacArthur Island Park for the 6 a.m. start of the Kamloops Marathon half marathon because Kamloops is hot at the end of July and I happened to be in town and I was born and lived there for over 30 years so I thought it would be fun to run a race there. So let’s unpack that ramble. The race started at 6 a.m. because on a normal July weekend it would be nearly or over 30 degrees by noon. I assume they were aiming for a cool morning start. At 6 a.m. there are also fewest monster trucks on the road that the race shares. It was a perfect morning, clear, calm and about 14 degrees. Kamloops sits in the Thompson River valley and the mountains were still shading much of the course. The course loops out of MacArthur Island Park, through North Kamloops out-and-back along Westsyde Drive and along the shore of the North Thompson River to where it meets the Thompson and back into MacArthur Island Park. It’s a very scenic course, not to mention flat and fast. Well mostly flat. There’s one hill at 5 KM and I wouldn’t characterize the City’s infrastructure “well maintained.” There was some pothole dodging.
I thought the vintage Joy Division t-shirt was a nice touch.

I set a goal this year to run a sub 90 minute half marathon and after having to adjust and realign I decided to chase that in Kamloops today. It started well and I was having a good time and making good time for the first half or so and then things started to fall apart a bit. I’m not making excuses, because I’m chalking these up to learning experience. Two things: fuelling, and O2. Fuelling: This is my third race not at home. My previous two I’ve rented suites with a kitchen. This time around, I stayed in a hotel and I did not eat properly Friday and Saturday. I paid the price when I started to bonk. I set out to run 4:16/KM splits, and ran 4:33 at 12 KM. I tried to recover but my tank was mostly fumes. O2: I train at 0-50 metres elevation. Kamloops is around 350 metres. I thought it might be a factor, but I didn’t really think it would be a factor. Then at around 15 KM I started to feel like as asthmatic. I couldn’t catch my breath and by 17/18 KM I had a bit of a wheeze on my inhale. It was a really strange experience. I can fix the fuelling, but other than acclimatizing I’m not sure how to handle the O2 piece. If that’s even what it really was. Who knows?
Missed the ceremony to get back to Vancouver but still got the Gold AG Medal.

So I didn’t run sub 90 minutes. But I had a great time on a great course and in the midst of not doing what I had set out to do I did a some other firsts. I ran a new personal best, shaving a hair thin four seconds off my previous best time, and in the process I was first in my age category (my first award finish) and I finished 11th overall. I make fun of Kamloops, but this was a really great race. It’s very well organized and the course is pretty great. It’s a hidden gem. I will definitely run it again. Especially since I have both a title to defend and some unfinished business.