Calgary Half marathon

I'm running the Calgary Half marathon, May 31st.

Looking forward to it. Raced decently in Grande-Digue 15k last week. Flat(ish) course, cool weather and no wind helped too. Also having the Dal team there was nice boost. In total 8 guys under 50 min, which is something for a tiny race in northern NB. I other news our rag-tag team will be getting a little more serious as we're set to join Halifast.

Back to Calgary. Nice part about the Calgary 21.1k is their efforts to get people from all over Canada to take part. It's the national championships after all, but still impressive what they're doing. Strangest part about national-level road races in the past is the organizers inviting people, offering prize money/appearance fees etc but not posting anything interesting about them online. Often not even a headshot. I always wondered why go through the trouble of organizing people but not profiling them. No more!

Soon-to-be profile shot. Everyone gunning for a sub 74ish time gets one, and a 'fun fact', which is nifty. My fun fact is that I'm an atmospheric chemist. (guess they didn't go with my joggling angle!)

Envy

Today I was talking to someone who admitted his step sister is a naturopath. If I look up the definitional of naturopath in wiki, I find nothing unexpected:

Naturopathy or naturopathic medicine is a form of alternative medicine employing a wide array of "natural" treatments, including homeopathy, herbalism, and acupuncture, as well as diet and lifestyle counselling.

I rather enjoy that the word 'natural' is in quotation marks. It is clear enough to anyone that naturopaths do nothing meaningful. Or do they? While it is obvious homeopathic remedies are, by definition, empty promises, it is not hard to find people with differing opinions. For instance the placebo effect is, in fact, a real thing. Therefore simplest notion, that wellbeing is promoted through believing in alternative medicines is in itself healthy independent of the medicine's effects.