The Oceanside Mother's Day 5K and 10K are scheduled for Sunday, May 10 in Qualicum Beach. The 10K kicks off at 10 a.m. The 5K follows at 10:15 a.m. Registration is open.

I want to walk you through what's being proposed here, because I don't think it's been said out loud. Mother's Day is the one day of the year designated, by widespread cultural consensus, for being left alone with a coffee and a piece of toast someone else made. The official Mother's Day activity, in most households, is sitting down. The proposed alternative is a ten-kilometre run through the streets of Qualicum Beach.

And — you have to wonder — why does the 10K start first? The slow ones get put in last. The mothers who showed up to do the 10K are committing to running an extra forty-five minutes alongside whoever finishes the 5K and decides, organically, to just keep going. Who benefits from this configuration? I'm not saying anything. I'm just noting that the timing is interesting.

I should be clear that I support the run. The Oceanside Mother's Day run is a real community event and the people who organize it are pulling off something that takes actual work, on a Sunday morning, for free. That is not the bullshit. The bullshit is the cultural pretense that the appropriate gift to give a mother on Mother's Day is "a chance to pay an entry fee and run."

If you're running, good luck. If you're a mother and you're not running, congratulations, you've correctly read the assignment.

— Grant Marlowe, Oceanside Tonight. The brunch is the trophy.