Tag: Victoria Marathon 2018

2018 week thirty five

Book Read:
42. Autonomous — Annalee Newitz

Kilometres Ran:
week thirty five — 76.4

To date: 1,868 KM

I don’t know why speculative fiction seems to never get its due respect amongst literary genres. Unless it’s Atwood or Stephen King, though I think even King is relegated to the not-so-serious pile more often than he should be. Which is ever by the way in case you were wondering. What I find the most impressive about speculative fiction is, done well, the seamless creation of fantastic realities that make sense. The book doesn’t even necessarily have to be all that great for the affect to be achieved. And, well, Autonomous is one. The book is okay. The story follows Jack, a pharmaceutical pirate, who is being hunted by Elias and his military robot Paladin. Newitz creates a world that is vivid and interesting, and explores AI morality, gender, sexuality, pharmaceutical and patent ethics but when it’s all smashed together it’s just okay. Okay is better than most, but it’s still okay.

On Wednesday I decided that on Friday I would ease into the Labour Day long weekend by running home from the office. I’ve wanted to do this run for some time but never got around to it last marathon training cycle for the stupid reason that my marathon training schedule called for my long run on Sunday and definitely not on Friday. Friday was to be rest day. And while that was my first marathon and was probably not the time to be fiddling around with training schedule on the freshman attempt, I ignored one of the most important rules of just about any sort of plan, which is to write your plan with a pencil. So I ran home on Friday, and it sucked. About 15 KM into what turned out to be a 35.5 KM run my body said okay that’s enough let’s just read a book for a bit now. So for the next 20 KM it was pure willpower. Which was a great test and I feel like I passed but I also have growing concerns about my knees cooperating come the Victoria Marathon on October 7, and my body not deciding that just over a third to the way through it is time to check out. And maybe probably possible that’s a good thing. With five weeks to go there’s still time for a little under-confidence motivation. Friday sucked. I’ll probably do it again.

2018 week thirty two

Book Read:
40. The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle — Stuart Turton

Kilometres Ran:
week thirty two — 76.7

To date: 1,660 KM

I received a review copy of this book back in June, which was followed by a note a bit later in a Fight Club like tone that I was not to talk about the book until a month before publication. Which is in about a month from now. More or less. Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life is one of my favourite novels. Nietzsche and Kierkegaard are two favourite philosophers. Groundhog Day is one of my favourite films. But enough about me. In 7½ Deaths Aiden Bishop is stuck in a loop he cannot escape until he solves the murder of Evelyn Hardcastle. The twist is that he lives the same day seven times from seven points of view and if he cannot solve the murder then he has to start all over again, with no memory of the previous attempt. It’s a new twist on an old idea. Why 7½ deaths? It seems the half was added due to some confusion in the US around this and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo because I know how simple it is to confuse husband with death…. I liked this book’s gothic elements and its relatively fresh take on the repetition concept. Unfortunately, I just did not like Aiden Bishop very much for no particular reasons I can give without spoilers, and I found the conclusion a bit dissatisfying. That said, it a pretty great debut novel from Stuart Turton, and I will look forward to more work from him.

There’s this park in Hastings Sunrise that has, I think, one of the nicest views in the city. This photo doesn’t do it justice obviously.

Yesterday was long run number three on the road to my BQ at the Victoria Marathon in October. I set out to run 32KM and decided to mix it up a bit; rather than a long, slow, slog I would run 5KM easy and then 5KM at race pace and repeat that three times, then finish with a 1KM sprint and a 1KM jog home. But by 30KM there was nothing left to sprint 1KM so the final jog ended up being a little less under a mile. Afterwards analysis and all in all it went pretty well. My goal race pace for Victoria is 4:37/KM. My first five at race pace I managed to average 4:38/KM, second at 4:31, and the third was right on 4:37. I had no idea at the time; I felt like my pacing was all over the place. And it was to a degree, but it all averaged out in the end. So that felt good, even if not much else did. I spent a few hours afterwards thinking about my long runs last year while training for my first marathon and trying to remember if at the end of them I wanted to die then, too. If that’s the case, and I’m sure [hopeful] that it is, I seem to have blocked that part out. Eight weeks to go.

2018 week twenty eight

Book Read:
35. Runner: Harry Jerome, World’s Fastest Man — Norma Charles

Kilometres Ran:
week twenty eight — 47.0

To date: 1,414 KM

Weeks like these I’m very glad to be ahead in my reading goal. I didn’t know this was a children’s book. I just knew that it was nominated for a 2018 BC Book Prize. That it is a children’s book I figured out in the first few paragraphs, unlike, for instance, by the fact that it was nominated for the Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize. Anyway, the book is a biography-as-novel that tells the true story of Harry Jerome, a kid from Winnipeg whose family ends up in Vancouver, and who goes on to crush the 100 metres in the 1960s, earning the title World’s Fastest Man. There’s an excellent bronze statue of him at the 1 mile marker on the Stanley Park Seawall. I liked this book because I like Harry Jerome. I also like how well Norma Charles did capturing and presenting the ugly racism that Jerome faced throughout his career, and especially her presenting it in a way accessible to young readers. The book is a quick read–it is a children’s book after all. I think it’s worth reading at any age. I’ve made habit of late of linking the book I write about back to its publisher’s page whenever possible, and I have here as usual. I wanted to buy my copy straight from Red Deer Press. The problem is that the list price for the book is $12.95 but the shipping was an additional $19.07 so I bought it from the devil for $12.95 plus free shipping. I still feel bad about it. Sort of.

Slacking off in the sunshine.

Weeks like these I’m very glad to be ahead in my running goal. I’m 331 KM ahead of pace to reach 2,018 KM this year. However, I am 329 KM behind pace to reach 2,018 miles this year. And if I’m going to achieve my BQ goal in twelve weeks I’m going to need to have no more 47 KM weeks for at least the next 10 or so. The excuses for the paltry running this week are threefold. First, I spent today, AKA long-run Sunday, at the office, and now I’m typing instead of running. Second, instead of 8-12 KMs of hills on Thursday, I did the Grouse Grind, which is only a couple KMs. Or, according to Garmin, 1.9 KM. And third, my knee is acting up. This is the very frustrating since bad knee is right, but current acting up knee is left. So I’m trying to be careful with my load, while at the same time loading for Victoria Marathon, and staring down a 21.1 KM race in Kamloops in seven days. I was born and raised in Kamloops, but I’ve never run there unless you count my single day on the high school track team where I ran the 200 and 400 metres 25 years ago. So we’ll see what happens on July 22. The course is flat and fast, but it’s at elevation (only 345 metres, but that’s about 300 more than I’m used to) and, as usual for summer in B.C.’s interior, it’s going to be about 34 C and forest fire smokey. Should be great fun.