12 Days

It's down to 12 days until the YVR marathon. I did a full 42.2k training run last Friday, and while it will never not be a grind, it wasn't hugely difficult, and, it was far more uphill (to the Seymour Dam) than the real one will be. It follows the exact same course as last year - QE Park, UBC, Burrard Bridge, Stanley Park. The motivationally significant 10k points are St Georges, Spanish Banks, and the north end of the Burrard Bridge. I'm feeling anxious, but not nearly as much as last year.

Two weeks later, I'm going to Calgary for their marathon; this is my little challenge for 2026: to try to do 2 in the same month. I'm flying in on Saturday morning and will pretty much go straight to the airport afterwards for a 5pm flight home. The course looks pretty flat and almost entirely along the Bow River, but it's hard to say for sure. They probably have to have a least one hill to be a Boston qualifier (though I'm not sure if they are). Their registration is not full, so I'm sure it will be far less busy than Vancouver's.

If I can keep this up, I'm hoping to do the Ottawa one next year; it is the same weekend as Calgary, and was full by the time I thought of it for 2026. I am not sure but I have a vague belief that it is much hillier than YVR's or Calgary's, which would be ironic since Ottawa per se certainly is not. Hopefully we'll see!

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Here's something that stuck in my head from a recent Economist. The China electricity grid has about double the capacity as USA. You could say - well, big deal, they have triple the population. But they also have about the same GDP (China is about 2/3 in nominal terms but if you adjust for purchasing power, China is about 50% higher; still much lower per capita, though, by either measure). 

So net-net, they have hugely more electricity capacity, and will potentially use it to trounce USA in the AI race. Even without legal faff, USA could never build power plants fast enough to catch up. Another example, perhaps, of how long-term planning allowed under a totalitarian system has some advantages. As long as your leaders are competent and honest, which I would argue theirs are, for now.

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