Part 2

Yeah.

Well I heard somewhere that as you get older your foot actually stretches.

Gravity, yeah. Can I ask you a question? Would any beads of sweat appear at forty-five minutes?

Oh sure, but I sprinted the last bit because I didn't quite know how far it was. Have you done the Grouse Grind?

I know it very, very well.

And then it flattens up at the end, right? So then, I mean, it's not that I was tired. Yeah, you're tired as you're working your way up, but you're never, you don't want to go so hard that you run out of gas. So you always have a little in reserve. So then when I got to the top, I could run. I wasn't exhausted or anything. But yeah, it's a good workout. And if you start too fast? I've done it once before, like I've done it three times in all. Okay?

Okay.

The first time I did it, I started too fast. And then you almost get a burning in your lungs. And then you have trouble.

You don't recover. No.

If you get that you're done. So you've got to go so carefully at first, that you get used to the climbing and that. Yeah, the cadence. I'll tell you a benchmark to give yourself a good signal with, on how you should gauge yourself. If your tongue pops out of your mouth, you're in trouble. And is dragging along the trail, picking up the rocks. You're in trouble. For sure, yeah. No, no, none of that happened. But I sure passed a lot of younger people standing there catching their breath.

But, you know, on that note I've got to share with you. Of course, you and I, I'm not going to say seniors but we're older now. It is a nice little stroke on our personal ego, if I can say that. But I used to think, chuckling to myself, think, "Hey, that's pretty good, Dave." But you know what? My position is: I'm glad they're out there. For sure.

Yeah.

And I steal this quotation from a good friend of mine, John McDermott. And John McDermott says, "Slow motion is better than no motion." Right.

For sure.

Yeah.

This is going to blow your head off, Steve, because this looks awkward.

Like a boat.

Like a boat, yeah. Awkward and clumsy. But, let me share with you. It's light, isn't it? Oh yeah, it's light. And I don't mind. I want to be comfortable. That's my main concern now. I'm not breaking any speed records. You know, regarding the? The cushioning on this shoe: When you're out for a run, in the long term, you're not going to be knocking out the fillings in your teeth. Right.

Yeah, it's very, very forgiving. OK.

How long have you been in retailing?

I've probably been in retail for thirty years now. Right.

On your own?

On my own. Period.

Right, right. Always in running?

In this little operation.

Right.

So what happens is, when a customer comes in, when the individual comes in and has a pulse, my policy is they're fair game. Right.

For sure.

To survive, you've got to kill. Right.

So what happens is I didn't know how to handle my first customers. Like, "Hi. How are you? Uh, uh?" So then I thought, "This is ridiculous." Within the first week, one of the best things I ever did is I went down to the Sony shop, or A& B sound or whatever. I bought a Sony tape recorder and I started to record myself. Now, you may have picked it up, you may not, but I have a bit of a speech impediment. I do stutter.

Okay.

I didn't pick that up. But what happens, as soon as I started to record myself, I picked it up. And so when I think I'm going to stutter, or I begin to stutter, I stop. Isn't that interesting? That's very interesting, because what I'm discovering in this whole language-learning thing is that the tape recorder, and nowadays the mini-disk player, is just so much of an improvement over the old tape recorder. It's a very powerful tool for language learning. I'll give you an example: Tomorrow I'm being interviewed on Cantonese radio. My Mandarin is a lot better than my Cantonese. Of course Carmen speaks Cantonese, right, my wife. So I've been talking with her, and we have a conversation. And if I say something, and I'll say it wrong half the time and get my tones wrong or whatever, and so then she repeats it. And then I have that recording. And then during the day I listen to this. And I listen to what I said wrong and I listen to what she said when she repeated it, and that is tremendously powerful for training you. Whether it be, as you say, to sort of improve on a sort of speech impediment, or whether it be to learn a language; it's tremendously powerful. Oh, yeah, even to learn my sales presentation. Because what happens, I kept on recording, practicing. And then it just slowly? When I tell people, they think that my sales technique has all been natural. But it hasn't. I've had to work at it. It's just like, I'm sure that if I would have been a plumber, even though mechanically I'm not that very astute, but if I did it repeatedly and learned it, did it repeatedly; it would come to me. I would become good. You know, I like being a peddler.

But you know, it's not every sales person at Sony or A&B; Sound that is a good model. So when you first started saying you went to Sony, like, some of those people are not very good at what they do.

Oh no!

But you bought a tape recorder. Because, I think that's why people come here. It's because they enjoy the experience of shopping. Yeah.

Well, matter of fact I'll tell you something that was funny. Someone bought a pair of these shoes and they were on the Grouse Grind. So he decided to walk down, too. They were brand new. He bought them right out of the box. So he was highlighting to a young lady he was passing, "Well, how do you like my new shoes I bought from Dave?" And then she responded with, "Dave who?" Now that's the new generation, right. And he responded, "There's only one Dave: Dave Wong." And then she was in a bit of a hostile tone, she told me. She was highly critical of saying, "You know when you go there to buy his shoes he talks to you, and he asks you how things are, this and that." You know, like she was? What do you want me to do, just throw it at you and then have you leave? I mean, I'm sorry. But I said to myself, of course I was a bit hurt by it. But I thought, "No, no, no. This is me and this is how I like to be a peddler." I've enjoyed being a peddler. I want it to be the full meal deal.

Right.

If you know what I mean.

Well absolutely. By the way, we should mention for our listeners who want to get into, and we should say a lot of this content is aimed at people who have recently come to Canada who are working to improve their English. And if they want to get into jogging, which is a part of their cultural experience when they come here, then they should come. So what's the address here again? 1352 Ambleside Lane.

Right.

So it's the lane behind Marine Drive. It's behind the West Vancouver police station in the big parking lot. In West Vancouver, yeah that's an important thing. In West Vancouver, next to the lawn mower repair shop.

Okay, good. I'm going to go out and try out these shoes, so just hold on a sec. One other question.

Yes?

If I play tennis what should I use? Or does it matter? Tennis is pretty bad for the feet.

Well, the thing is tennis is not a problem with yourself because you're still fit and you've had the athletic history of stop and go. Now, when you get a new person, I'm going to call them a new athlete, and their body is not used to the stop and go and the harshness of it, like you've had the hockey experience: stop, go, twist, turn. At what level do you play tennis?

I play with Mark. We're running around hitting the ball. So you're having fun but you're not going to what they call tennis tournaments? No, no, no.

And we recognize that you're not? You don't go out to play that often, do you? No.

I'm going to share this with you because you want something forgiving and something nice and comfortable. You can almost cheat with these shoes.

So just wear these.

Yeah, you can cheat.

Good.

You won't look like Andre Agassi. It doesn't matter. Will I wear them out more quickly by doing that? Playing on the hard courts here?

The problem with these shoes now is that they wear awfully well. That is a major problem.

Problem for you.

Yes, they are. Problem as a peddler. We don't get the turnover that we used to. Is that right?

We don't. Doesn't even come close to it. Really? Okay.

Like shoes like this, if you were to use them dedicated to running and even five days a week, you ma get eighteen months out of them.

Really? That's amazing. It used to be three months and you're wearing away. Now what a lot of people say you should change your shoes every three months.

Right.

I don't feel that's true anymore. Okay.

That's going to do me fine. One more thing I'd ask about: You're involved with the Khatsalano Race? The Khatsalano 15 Kilometer.

You've been doing that for years. Yes I have. This coming year is going to be the twenty-fourth year, the twenty-fourth.

Did you start that race?

Yes I did. Yes. I started it by pure accident. I was watching a race, and I highlighted, I felt that the route, the course, the race, was very bland. It didn't have a signature on it and it was very ordinary. And also I highlighted the T-shirts given to the participants at the end of the run were very dull, and they didn't have any panache or snap to them. Right.

So, the gentleman that I was standing with, Bill Perry said to me, "Well, I'd like to see you put one on. Why don't you put one on?" So, it wasn't a challenge, because Bill isn't that type of guy. He said it in all kindness, like, "Hey, let's quit complaining. Let's get something going." And I just, in my youth, just said, "That's not a problem." So that's how the Khatsalano started. I said, "You know, I have the most wonderful running route right in front of the shop," meaning Marine Drive. I said, "So what we'll do is start it in Horseshoe Bay and we'll run it to Park Royal." A spectacular setting! And that's how it started. How many people participated?

The first was 249 people. And then from there it went to a high of 4500.

When was that?

I can't remember the exact date of the 4500. I'm going to say that was probably twelve years ago. So it's come off that now? Yes. It has. Like, every race or every event has its little star moment. And at this time, the Khatsalano isn't a star at this time. But it shows signs that it may come back.

What's the level of participation right now? Around eight hundred.

Eight hundred. Oh, okay.

I'm not going to say whether it's a weak eight hundred or strong eight hundred. It's just depending. Like, right now?

When is it?

Always the first Sunday after November 11th. So this year, on the calendar it falls on November the 16th, which is a Sunday.

15K? I should get myself in shape and run it.

9.3 miles.

Okay.

All right.

But it is a benchmark and it is nice. I'm excited to say that we've actually had people from every province in Canada run this. Even as far as Newfoundland. We've only had one resident of Newfoundland run it. We've had other ex-Newfoundland's. By the way that's B.C. Rail, the train running in the background, just so that people know.

That's right. You know, I'm going to take these shoes and I'm going to run and I'm going to buy myself a Dave Wong T-shirt while I'm here. Well, I'm flattered. Thank you very much.

Okay.

Thank you.