running together

Posted on episode 261

That [insert adjective here] Guy

Earlier this evening we went for a winter holiday walk with a small group of friends. A couple streets tucked away in various places around the city decorate to the nines and attract curious light-lookers to wander and glimpse the decorations.

It wasn’t my idea but I organized it.

I organize a lot of things for my group of friends.

Without asking how would
people describe you in 2021?

I’d describe myself as mostly modest, but if you asked a dozen or so people who like lacing up and running local trails all year long I think they’d probably describe me as the guy that keeps it all together.

It’s a small thing. I set up run plans. I plot summer adventures. I make sure there are occasional social events. I’ve organized snowshoe outings. I’ve ensured that numerous beer nights have seen maximum raised glasses. I have everyone’s birthday in my calendar.

Small things. Itty bitty. Clinging firmly to a tiny group of friends and holding it all together.

Small, but maybe important. At least that’s how I’d like to think they’d describe it.

Thirty one topics. Thirty one posts. Not exactly a list… but close. In December I like to look back on the year that was. My daily posts in December-ish are themed-ish and may contain spoilers set against the backdrop of some year-end-ish personal exposition.

Posted on episode 229

Daylight Savings Vote

A few of my friends and I met up earlier this evening, er, late in the afternoon for an after work run around the neighbourhood.

As the winter approaches, daylight runs are going to get increasingly rare, and I’ll need to fish my running headlamps from storage and make sure they are charged up.

Of course, the unusual hour for our meetup prompted a long conversation on the subject of daylight savings time, that twice-per-year ritual of shifting our clocks by one hour.

Spring ahead. Fall back.

And also because tagged onto the upcoming municipal election ballot for next Monday is a province-wide referendum on the very existence of daylight savings time asking the population of the Canadian sliver of this timezone if we wish to continue the ritual.

Perpetually staying on one time, never shifting to adapt our clocks to the shifting wax and wane of the seasonal daylight flux would be less exhausting for at least two days of the year.

I would also mean that the diminishing daylight hours would lock into a regular cycle wherein the sun may not rise until late in the morning during the deepest days of winter, or alternatively set in the middle of the afternoon.

I’m used to running in the dark in the winter, but even I have to pause and wondering what the right answer will be when I vote on Monday.

Or what I’ll tell my grandkids some day: y’know we used to flip flop our clocks back and forth twice a year, everyone was late for work and grumpy, and then one day…

Posted on episode 225

Boston Pi (Virtual)

Most everyone I know in the running community knows that in addition to Canadian thanksgiving, this weekend is also the Virtual Boston Marathon.

At least five people I know signed up for the race, which thanks to the pandemic was a once in a lifetime opportunity to run through your own streets, track it on the Boston Marathon app, and call it an official run.

I did not sign up.

… but I did go out on the dawn trails with a trio of friends who had signed up to run the pandemic version of the famous race.

When three of us tag-alongs met up with them early on Saturday morning near a local park, the sun was just peaking over the horizon and they had been at it for almost ten kilometers already.

We trotted into step with their route, followed it as it wend its way along the river, up in the neighbourhood, down into a local recreation area, and around the back side of a golf course. After about eight kilometers of support running, we turned back to where we’d left our cars … and ultimately logged just over thirteen klicks total even as we zoomed past a half dozen other virtual Boston’ers with their race bibs or support cyclists or multi-coloured tutus plodding along with fierce determination through the morning trails.

Our thirteen was not quite a marathon. Obviously. Not even quite a half marathon. I later calculated that my logged distance of 13.43 km as per my GPS watch, worked out to almost exactly one pi of a marathon. Weird. After all, forty two point two kilometers divided by thirteen point four-three kilometers equals three point one-four, or pretty much as close to one pi of a marathon as my technology can measure.

Mathematics and adventure collide on a Saturday morning in a curious way, it seems.

And then the event ended, and we cheered in the actual racers across the finish line via text message, as they completed their virtual distance … and won their real medals.

Posted on episode 211

Terry Fox-ish

Every year on this weekend for a generation Canadians go for a run.

Forty years ago a young man named Terry Fox, long since deservedly held up as a national hero, attempted to run east to west across the country. He was in remission from cancer, and had lost a leg to it, but set anyways out to raise money and awareness.

He made it about a third of the way before ending his run and passing away shortly after.

The Terry Fox run is usually held annually on this very weekend and brings out countless folks from across the country to continue the run in spirit and memory.

It was a virtual run this year thanks to a lingering global pandemic.

So. It was pretty much a normal Sunday Runday for us.

Except.

Except a couple years ago one of our run crew passed from cancer.

Her family put up a memorial bench in the local dog park in our river valley, a convenient distance away for a modest Sunday run.

We might not have specifically run for Terry Fox this morning, but I’d like to think that ten of us adventuring down to find the bench, running through the autumn trails, and finding the memorial for our fallen crewmate was kinda a parallel effort in the right spirit of the day.