It ended over a month ago, so I suppose I should talk about my virtual race across Tennessee. Now, the goal was to run across Tennessee, which would be about 1021km. Based on the time frame of May through to the end of August, I could do that without changing my running habits at all. But, there was a stretch goal of doing a there-and-back-again. To do that, I would need to increase my daily mileage to about 16km. That is a little higher, but doable. 1042km.
For three months I ran more than I have ever run before; each month I ran more than the last. So, yeah, a lot of running.
There were some benefits to this. (Health was not a benefit. Running this much can’t be good for you.) The one I noticed the most was that I had an opportunity to target further CityStrides streets on my runs. By June I had officially covered as much of Vancouver as was possible. (Certain streets are simply not accessible without MAJOR security clearance.) But, although I had “covered” Vancouver, that was only in a quantifiable metric of intersections. I then used the fact that I was doing longer runs on weekdays, to try and fill in some of the missing streets within 8km of home. That has helped clean up my map of Vancouver a lot. As of this date, I still have a lot of Vancouver to go, but the missing blocks are all far enough that I have to cover them when I am doing a long Sunday run.
I finished my first crossing well before the end of June, after 53 days. Unfortunately, I left town before I had a chance to respond to the organizer about my preferred reward. I was gone for a month and when I came back, I had received the belt buckle instead of a medal. It IS a nice belt buckle, but we all know I’m never going to wear it. (Honestly, I don’t even think I know how to attach one to a belt.) At the same time I got the t-shirt.
I did not initially wear the t-shirt after I received it. The first time I wore it was when I was going to do my last day of running to finish the return journey. Surprisingly, my t-shirt was recognized almost immediately by someone as I was getting ready to start my run. That felt special, and made that final run better.
The whole shebang took me 105 days. So technically I did a negative split. Although I could also say that the return trip was mostly downhill from the Appalachian mountains. I kept up my daily running after I finished, but I drastically reduced my distance; I made it a personal weekday goal to always keep my minimum of 12km, but not go over 13km. So August was no longer a record month for me.
Interestingly, I kept logging my mileage after I finished. A lot of other runners did not. This allowed me to continue to climb in the rankings. Since the race only really kept track of the day you finished, no one really cares about the overall placement. But it felt nice to see a metric rating me as better.
Towards the end, my runs were getting painful. I had to run slower so I didn’t injure myself, but the pain wasn’t going away. After suffering for awhile, I checked with a physical therapist. His diagnosis was that I was running too slowly; I needed to stress my body properly. He gave me some exercises and recommended I do some speed work. This helped enormously. And now I can tell people that the solution to my injury was to run more. Although I should mention that my massage therapist was also concerned about the stool I had been sitting on when working, and I upgraded to a proper chair soon after.
One day I should actually go to Tennessee to see what I “ran”. But I looked at it as I was crossing. There are a lot of small towns that all look the same. And after awhile I stopped checking so I never really saw if the Appalachian mountains looked that nice. But I’ve got mountains here that have been doing it for me.

Last Saturday, Catalina and I went for a kayak tour. Nominally it was to celebrate her birthday, but I’ve been wanting to give kayaking a try for awhile. Once a year, in spring, Costco will have a sale on kayaks, about $100 off, and I’ve always imagined that it would be a lot of fun to do that. Thankfully, cooler heads have prevailed and I have never actually purchased a kayak. I mean, where would I put it?
The tour was a way to actually see what a kayak is like. We got a double-kayak (so that Catalina wasn’t stuck propelling herself) and a guide who took us on a two hour tour of False Creek.
It was nice. You get a different perspective of the place when you are on the water.
We got to learn a bit about the history of the inlet and some interesting landmarks. I found out the cement plant is not as much a blight as I thought it was; the fact that it is on False Creek means there is a lot less pollution when they can ship in the gravel they need by barge. One of the houses floating on the water has a “basement” with a window so you can see underwater; probably more useful if they could clean up the water there.
For me, the highlight was to actually seeing under Science World. (The place is technically now called “Telus World of Science”, but no native of Vancouver ever calls it that. The old name is still the standard.) I always thought the big globe was on land, with just the perimeter seawall being above the water, but the whole thing is actually above the water. There are stilts and piles supporting it, and, if you were so inclined, you could float quite far underneath it. There are some floating logs preventing that from being too easy, but there are times when I have seen them moved aside.
We did see a seal and some otters.
I will admit that towards the end, my seat was getting uncomfortable. So two hours was almost the perfect length of time for the tour. We both had a good time, but I am now more sure that I do not need a kayak for myself. My perspectives will now have to be confined to just running the Seawall.