Tag: Travel Running

2019 week twenty

Book Read
None

Kilometres Ran
44.8

2019 to date: 976 KM

We flew to Paris then took a train to Basel and in that 13 hours of travel plus the waiting around time — and there was a lot of waiting around time — I read virtually nothing. But I’m a bit ahead on the book count so I feel like that’s okay. A bit of a lost opportunity. I started a new novel but as is prone to happen I was not inspired to do much reading at all. But I ran. Our first full day in Basel was Friday and I did an 8 KM loop along the Rhine and over a couple bridges and only got lost a little bit within the last couple blocks near our rented flat.

The Dreiländereck spire at the corner of France, Germany and Switzerland.

Saturday I waffled back and forth over whether to run or rest but decided to run so that I could check out a monument called Dreiländereck that is situated a bit north along the Rhine at the end of a pier in an otherwise industrial area. The spire marks the intersection of France, Germany and Switzerland. (The actual point is in the middle of the river.) My plan was to go to bed a bit early and get a good sleep before the race but our neighbours upstairs had a plan of their own, which included a sing-along dance party to go with the Eurovision song contest finale. Apparently Switzerland placed fourth. I remember at one point Like a Prayer started and I thought it was the worst Madonna cover I’d ever heard (it was Madonna). The party finally finished at about 1:30 a.m.

Race package pick up at the Rathaus (Basel Old Town Hall).

The 3Laenderlauf half marathon started at 9:45 on Sunday morning from the Rathaus in Basel’s Market Square. I left the flat at 9:00 for a 1 KM jog to the start. It was a bit hectic there and the queue to check gear was a bit disorganized and spilled out onto the start area for the 10 KM event that started at 9:30 but the atmosphere was pretty great. The field wasn’t very large, and the two 1:44 pacers had positioned themselves close to the front of the corral, so I seeded myself a bit closer to the line. (It didn’t matter much — once the gun went off I both ran over and was run over by people who’d seeded themselves poorly.) I went into the race hoping for a decent run, but also knowing that just two weeks out from a new marathon PB and still pretty tired from all the travel not to mention the neighbour’s late night dance party, I probably wasn’t going to have a great performance. A 4:20 pace would give me a new half marathon PB but wouldn’t quite reach my sub-90 goal for 2019. I thought 4:20 was pretty lofty, but decided to aim for it and just see how long I could hold it for. Turns out, barely 5 KM.

Coming up to Dreirosenbrücke.

I sent Stephanie the Strava and Garmin beacons so that could track me but neither one worked. She was there anyway at the Dreirosenbrücke crossing the Rhine (race bridge number two) at 3.5 KM. I was running around 4:15 but knew that I was not going to hold that pace much longer. Crossed the river and went north into Saint-Louis, France, then a couple hundred metres before the 6 KM marker my Garmin vibrated 7 KM and I stopped paying attention. At 10 KM I checked the time: 45 minutes — I started thinking about my other two races in Europe and decided to try to chase a Europe PB. By 15 KM I was running on fumes; I needed to be under 1:10 and my watch said 1:08:16 but I was fading pretty hard.

Passerelle des Trois Pays – ramp or stairs?

This race course had a bit of everything, including a couple odd route choices. At the Passerelle des Trois Pays footbridge from France into Germany (race bridge number four) there was a switchback ramp but the route instead took us up the stairs. A couple kilometres later the route took us up a steep worn dirt path from the lower road up to Friedensbrücke (race bridge number five) over the Weil am Rhein train station lines. (A spot, I’ve discovered, that Google Street View has never filmed.) Next a couple kilometres through an open field in Platz der drei Länder park and then a few more along the gravel path beside the Wiese river, crossing back into Switzerland, and crossing the Wiese as it met the Rhine (race bridge number six). By now I was just focusing on being mindful of the experience and not worry about the time but when I crossed the Wiese I realized I was in the industrial area that I had run the day before and that familiarity gave me a bit of a lift with 4 KM left to go. The last leg followed the Rhine south then climbed up over Wettsteinbrücke (race bridge number seven) before a right turn and a nice decline for the sprint to the finish line back in the old Basel Market Square.

High fiving kids on the streets of Basel, CH.

Last year I ran 1:39:09 in Helsinki, and in 2017 I ran 1:38:27 in Copenhagen (a PB at the time). I figured it was pretty close but didn’t see the finish clock and didn’t trust my watch. I found Stephanie and collected my gear, finishers medal and shirt, and took a few photos. I didn’t see a place to check times so we hopped a LRT back to our flat. After a shower and something to eat I went online and found that I’d finished 1:37:43 which is over five minutes off my current PB, but a new fastest in Europe. Plus I had a ton of fun.

2019 week nineteen

Book Read
21. Dear Current Occupant – Chelene Knight

Kilometres Ran
week nineteen – 26.4

2019 to date: 931 KM

Dear Current Occupant is an award-winning creative non-fiction memoir that I had in my poetry pile to read during National Poetry Month and then found that it’s not actually poetry, but it has some poems sprinkled here and there. Knight traces her childhood growing in Vancouver by retracing the places she lived and writing to people currently living there. I don’t know if she ever actually gave any of the writing to the current occupant. It doesn’t matter. I liked this book. It’s a bit weird to me that such a Vancouver-centric book has a Toronto publisher. It does make me wonder if it was turned down by any local publishers. And then it goes on to win the 2018 City of Vancouver Book Award. I liked this book very much. If you follow the link above you can see a video of Knight reading from it. And then you can roam around the Book*hug website because don’t let Toronto fool you, they’re pretty great.

BMO Vancouver Marathon 2019, at about 37.5 KM just before Lumberman’s Arch. Other than the salty shoulders I look way better than I felt. Photo by Taylor Maxwell

A week ago was the BMO Vancouver Marathon and I’ve spent most of the week riding a rather high runner’s high expecting a crash that still hasn’t come. One reason for the continued high is the number of people that sent photos from the race. The BMO Vancouver Marathon uses the running photography cartel Marathon-Photo but I often get suckered. There’s usually one or two that are just okay but on the whole the photos are terrible. I don’t know how they manage to be so terrible so often. So I am so extremely grateful to the people who saw and recognized me on the course and snapped a photo and then sent them to me or posted them online. I’ve reposted a bunch on my Instagram but included my three most vanity stroking selections above and below.

In the finish area, post-race-drunk-talking to Debra Kato and Walter Downey. When I first saw these photos I couldn’t remember this moment at all. Bits are coming back now. Photos by Debra Kato.

I didn’t run much this week but I managed to put around 115 KM on my bicycle. I ran Wednesday and today (Sunday) and both days the legs were lead but the runs were really enjoyable, especially considering the last time I ran a marathon I could barely walk afterwards, and couldn’t run for nearly a month. In three days I’m getting on a jet plane and flying to Paris and then getting on a train ride to Basel, Switzerland where in seven days I’m running the Dreiländerlauf half marathon, which starts and ends in Basel and passes through France and Germany. How cool does that sound? It doesn’t look like a very big race but that suits me just fine. It does look pretty flat, though it’s a couple hundred metres above sea level. Maybe those factors will even out? Maybe there’s a new HM PB? Maybe I’ll just go have fun? Definitely I’ll let you know how it went next week.

2018 week twenty two

Books Read:
28. Hunger — Roxane Gay
29. Ayiti — Roxane Gay

Kilometres Ran:
week twenty two — 67

To date: 1,065 KM

I received an advanced copy of Ayiti from Grove Press. It came out in 2011 but now Roxane Gay is a pretty big deal so Grove is rereleasing it with two additional stories, which begs the question whether it’s an advanced copy or not. Regardless it seemed as good a time as any to finally read Hunger. I’ve wanted and not wanted to read it since it came out, so it has just sat and stared at me as I pick up other books. I didn’t find it difficult to read but I do find it difficult to write about. It’s probably too cliché to quote Atticus Finch but I do feel like I took a jog in Roxane Gay’s point of view. The memoir explores her relationship with food as the result a way to deal with trauma from rape. It’s a heavy book, no pun intended. In early 2014 I went through my own trauma when my partner of a decade decided she’d rather be with another person, then a bit later told me. I can see how I could have eaten through it. Instead I drank through it. And started running through it. Hindsight is a funny thing. A question arose in my mind while reading Hunger, which was to wonder its fate if it had not been written by Roxane Gay. Perhaps another way to look at it is that Ayiti makes way for Hunger. Ayiti is Roxanne Gay’s debut short story collection featuring fifteen pieces, opening with “Motherfuckers” and never lost my attention. The writing is excellent, the stories humorous and tragic. This is an excellent debut that is worthy of reissue. I really like this collection and recommend it. Thanks to Grove Press for the advance copy.

Stockholm City Hall,  and me repping the old Eastside 10K tee, before the UA sell out.

Last week I wrote about travel running but I didn’t write about public toilets. Probably the first thing I learned about running, before “no, shoes are not all the same” and “don’t wear cotton” was that running can lead to needing to find a washroom. I flew home from Sweden yesterday after running nearly 130 KM (plus a 21.1 KM race) around Helsinki, Finland, Tallinn Estonia, and Stockholm, and one thing that I noticed is a dearth of public washrooms. Sometimes just noticing that there are ample facilities along the route is reassuring, whether they’re needed or not. On that note Helsinki was not so bad. Tallinn was not great. In Stockholm though, and this surprised me, the only public WC I saw was 200 metres from the flat I’d let. (Stockholm is also, incidentally, the only place I ended up having to, ahem, cut a run short.) This morning I ran just over 18 KM over a couple bridges and around Stanley Park and I passed eight washrooms (one twice). In fact, on the various routes that I run there are around 35 public washrooms. So I created a map in Google Maps and mapped them. I’m going to embed it on this blog somewhere, but in the meantime you can view/copy/share it here: Vancouver Washrooms.