Tag: Victoria Marathon

2018 week fifty two

My year in running

My goal for 2017 was to run 2,600 KM. In the autumn I hurt my knee a couple hours before flying to Denmark to race the Copenhagen Half Marathon. An aggravated injury meant I didn’t meet my 2017 goal. I was still recovering at the beginning of 2018, so I set a more reasonable goal to run 2,018 KM. Then in August I hurt my other knee. Then in September, on a crap knee, I passed 2,018 KM. And then, in October, with a crap knee, I raced the Victoria Marathon and barely walked let alone ran again for a few weeks. In mid-December I was easing back into decent weekly milage and noticed that 2,600 KM for the year was within reach. So I went for it, and on December 29 I ran 11.8 KM around Oak Bay for 2,601 KM for the year.

Running races

I ran ten races in 2018, set a bunch of personal best (PB) times, and earned my first age-group podium finish.
First Half 21.1 KM – 1:43:04
West Van 10 KM – 44:06 (PB!)
BMO Half 21.1 KM – 1:34:52 (PB!)
Helsinki 21.1 KM – 1:39:09
Scotiabank 21.1 KM – 1:32:37 (PB!)
Kamloops 21.1 KM – 1:32:20 (PB! & Age group 1st!)
Eastside 10 KM – 41:23 (PB! + PB!)
North Van 10 KM – 43:46
Victoria 42.2 KM – 3:25:59 (PB!)
Moustache Miler 5 KM – 20:28 (PB?)
The Moustache Miler was two firsts for me: it was my first 5 KM race, and the first time I’ve raised money for charity. I expect more of both of those In spite of the Moustache Miler being my only 5 KM race to date, my fastest 5 KM time is 20:21 over the first 5 KM of this year’s Eastside 10 according to Sportstats.

Going places

I’ve drawn a circle around Stanley Park over 200 times and I still love that loop but this year I got to do a few new loops that were a lot of fun. These four are my favourite.

Final run in Helsinki. I thought this city was okay when I arrived and by the end of the week I didn’t want to leave. Some amazing running history there, too.
And then I fell in love with Tallinn. Didn’t hurt that the weather was unusually amazing the whole time we were there.
Stockholm is the first city I took my running stuff along on holiday, and I’ll never holiday without my running stuff again. I didn’t get a Sodermalm loop on that 2016 visit but I did this year.
Surrey?!? I KNOW! But this run was so much fun — down the hill then over a free ferry to Barnston Island. Plus I (currently) have the 3rd overall time looping Barnston Island (and it’s nowhere near my 10 KM PB). If I find myself marooned at the Surrey Sheraton again I’m definitely going for the crown.

Missing in action: the Helsinki City Half Marathon and the Victoria Marathon. I loved idea of racing Helsinki but the route just wasn’t my favourite. Victoria, in spite of setting a pretty huge personal best of over eight minutes, the race was a disappointment and I’m still bitter.

The numbers according to Strava:

Total Distance: 2,601.3 KM
Number of Runs: 226
Average KM/Run: 11.5 KM
Total Time Running: 212 Hours, 50 Minutes
Average Time Every Damn Day in 2018: 35 Minutes
At the beginning of the year I joined a group challenge to run the elevation of Mount Everest — 8,848 metres — and then forgot about it until I was crunching numbers the other night. I ran 38,419 metres of elevation in 2018, or the Everest summit 4.3 times.

Running’s free right?

When I first started running I bought a pair of adidas shoes at Costco for $40 or something, and Joe Fresh shorts and a top from the Superstore. I still wear adidas. JF not so much. I spend a lot more on running now. This year I decided to see how much.
Shoes: $1,434
Clothes: $970
Health: $619
Nutrition: $230
Race Entry: $724
Other: $665
TOTAL: $4,642
These dollars have caveats, of course. My shoe budget includes orthotics that I was not expecting, and I probably have shoes covered for 2019. I exhausted my extended health coverage and kept going to physiotherapy anyway. Race entry includes fees paid this year for races in 2019, but then excludes a few 2018 races paid for in 2017. Other includes a new Garmin watch, which had better not be an annual expense. The bloated Clothes expenditure is just embarrassing. I expect my 2019 total to be a lot less, but I’m a very recent convert to technical running socks.

Next week: New year — reading & running goals for 2019.

2018 week forty two

Book Read:
47. Split Tooth — Tanya Tagaq

Kilometres Ran: None
To date: 2,161 KM

Kilometres Bicycled: 274.2

Tanya Tagaq is probably better known as the Inuk throat singer who won the 2014 Polaris Prize for her album Animism. This is her first book and don’t be surprised if it takes home a few awards too. (Long-listed for the 2018 Giller Prize it did not make the short list unfortunately.) Like her music, Tagaq smashes together multiple genres, telling the story of a young girl growing up in Nunavut in the 1970s. I like this book a lot. I like how she weaves memoir and mythology with bit of poetry to tell the her story. I look forward to more lit from her.

View along the way from Braid Skytrain Station into the office in Port Coquitlam. No bad days with a start like this.

Another week without any running as this nagging injury continues to nag. Worst of all, the weather this October has been nothing short of spectacular. In fact I think that the only day of rain the entire month so far was the day of the Victoria Marathon. With weather like this I’ve done all I can to take advantage and with this knee pain that does not seem to want to go away that means riding my bicycle as much as possible. So I commuted to and from the office every workday this week, plus rides around UBC and Stanley Park. I figure I’ve only got another couple rides before the weather turns. Daylight savings is right around the corner too which isn’t going to help on the long ride home in the evenings. While it’s been fun pedalling around, setting new segment PBs on Strava, and trying to maintain my fitness, I really long for a good run. I missed the Ghost Race this year (which ended today) and I had a couple fun races for fall that I was eying up. Fortunately, it seems, I didn’t pay the entry. But I did pay for the Fall Classic, and it looks like I’m going to be two-for-two tapping out of the half marathon. It’s coming up in just two weeks and I just don’t see it happening again this year. I’m sure I could finish but I’m not interested in prolonging another injury through the winter. That could change but I’m resigned to the notion that my next race is going to be the Icebreaker 8K in January, followed by the First Half when I’ll have another shot at a sub 90 half marathon. Any I’m okay with that. Mostly okay.