Sleep is weird

Think about it. Every night you lay down on a bed and through no other action render yourself unconscious. In this unconscious state your brain manufactures elaborate scenarios that are at turns amusing, baffling or terrifying. When you wake up you usually remember little to nothing of what these scenarios–dreams or nightmares–were.

And if you don’t make yourself fall unconscious every night your body will malfunction in ways that are subtle to start and end with you putting pants on your head and thinking that’s completely okay (not counting places where it is completely okay).

This pattern of falling unconscious/your mind inventing little dramas repeats for your entire life.

Sleep is weird.

Also, I probably don’t get enough sleep.

Run 629: Moving muggy

Run 629
Average pace: 5:30/km
Location: Brunette River trail
Start: 6:11 am
Distance: 5.02 km
Time: 27:38
Weather: Sunny, clear
Temp: 26ºC
Humidity: 44%
Wind: light
BPM: 153
Weight: 164.5 pounds
Total distance to date: 4725 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 2, iPhone 8
Shoes: Saucony Switchback ISO (80 km)

I was not expecting much more than a standard sort of run tonight, as it was quite a bit warmer than the last few runs, but lo and behold, despite the mugginess, I was somehow still moving along and finished with a pace of 5:30/km and a surprisingly low BPM of 153.

My left foot was a tiny bit sore at the start, but it smoothed out quickly, and a stitch in my gut threatened, but never materialized, so other than it feeling kind of sticky, the run was fine.

In fact, I can’t really think of anything to add. Thursday looks to be about the same weather-wise, so we’ll see if the run follows. My prediction is I will be slower as the week wears on, but maybe not.

Also, that raccoon was not at the river today, which makes me happy, both for myself and the raccoon, because raccoons kind of scare me, really.

Book review: Perihelion Summer

Perihelion Summer

Perihelion Summer by Greg Egan

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Greg Egan’s Perihelion Summer does a mostly good job of taking a high concept science fiction premise–a black hole comes through our galaxy, possibly imperiling Earth–and marrying it to how it affects a relatively small group of people.

In this case, the people are a team on a custom-built ocean-going aquaculture vessel called the Mandjet. Early on, marine biologist Matt tries to convince his family to come aboard the Mandjet, as initial predictions expect the black hole to cause mega-tsunamis across the globe, wiping out populated coastal areas planet-wide. His family, in Australia, refuses, with his sister insisting they will move inland if the need arises.

Eventually, the trajectory of the black hole is worked out more precisely and in a way, it is even worse, as the black hole will come close enough to pull Earth out of its orbit enough to drastically alter seasons, making them far more extreme, with parts of the planet becoming uninhabitable depending on the time of year.

When this happens, the story shifts gears, becoming more a tale of survival, as the crew of the Mandjet plots a course to Antarctica, now newly habitable compared to the burning hellscape that Australia has become. There is some drama involving Matt trying to rescue his family, and pirates of a sort threatening to disrupt the Mandjet’s journey, along with the flotilla of other ships it is leading south.

Egan does a good job of evoking the horror of a dramatically changed climate, and how people adapt–some better than others. In a way, the short novel is affirming, because most of the people are depicted as willing to help others, to barter and trade for mutual benefit, to take risks for the safety of others, facing adversary with (some) humor and courage.

There are a few aspects that don’t hold up as well, though. I never felt I had a good handle on what type of person Matt is, who comes across as decent and caring, but also nondescript and weirdly flippant. The story also ends on an abrupt, odd note between Matt and his mother. I’m not sure what (if anything) Egan was going for with this, but it left me shrugging.

The overall story, though, is well-constructed, offering a fascinating “What if?” scenario that Roland Emmerich would probably love to turn into a terrible disaster movie. Recommended for anyone into hard science fiction featuring big concepts with some old-fashioned human drama mixed in.

View all my reviews

Run 628: A frozen raccoon, a snake and more consistency

Run 628
Average pace: 5:42/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CW)
Start: 10:43 am
Distance: 5.03 km
Time: 28:39
Weather: Cloudy, some sun
Temp: 18-20ºC
Humidity: 70%
Wind: light to moderate
BPM: 161
Weight: 163.3 pounds
Total distance to date: 4720 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 2, iPhone 8
Shoes: Saucony Switchback ISO (75 km)

I was expecting to slow back down at the lake and I did, but I am still weirdly consistent, as my pace was 5:42/km, and the majority of runs at the lake (and some at the river) have been hovering right around this pace for some weeks now. I’ve peaked before but never so…precisely.

My tentative plan is to run counter-clockwise next time, even though it appears the side trail resurfacing still won’t be done (it is taking them a curiously long time). Speaking of, yesterday I scouted out the progress and took this photo where the Conifer and Spruce Loops intersect:

Spruce Loop looking a little footprint-y.

You may be thinking, “Why does a closed trail have so many footprints on it?” Given the erratic pattern, I’m assuming they’re from the workers actually spreading the gravel and not from trail rebels not letting little signs tell them where they can and can’t go.

Technically, one of the footprints is mine, as I tested to see how soft the surface is. It is very soft. I would not want to run on it.

But it looks like a lot of the Conifer Loop is done, with just some rolling remaining, while the Spruce Loop still needs some more top gravel placed and then rolled. Given the current pace of the work, I expect the side trails to re-open sometime next year. 😛

Okay, maybe next month.

And speaking of pace, back to today’s run, in which I nearly stepped on a snake (good thing they move so fast without having legs). I felt perfectly fine, though I did notice the knees a bit early on. They weren’t hurting, I just noticed them, but my mind wandered off soon enough. Unlike the river, I did not have a fourth km blitz today–my fastest km was the first, as is traditional (next was the final km. I want to say I pushed a little, but I’m not sure I did). I treated the whole run fairly casually, not looking for a great pace, just a steady one.

After the run, I walked/jogged a recovery km, then ran the next with a pace of 5:30, which was actually faster than all but the first km of the actual 5K, so I was clearly keeping things bottled up.

It was humid, so I sweated a bit, but clouds moved in mostly just for the run itself, then parted on the walk back, which suited me fine.

Overall, this run was more of the same. I’m curious to see if my times actually start shifting more in one direction or the other soon.

Oh, and the raccoon. I was walking along the river trail toward the lake, about halfway there, when a raccoon came out of the brush on the left, which is the river side. It saw me and froze. I mean, it did not move at all. It became a raccoon statue. I also chose to stop, though with a less statue-like aspect. I paused my run, as I was not sure how long it would take the raccoon to come out of its trance-like state. Finally I got tired of waiting and made a grand sweeping gesture to the right, telling the raccoon it was free to go.

And then it did, hurrying off into the brush on the other side of the trail. It was a little weird. Also, I accidentally ended my run instead of pausing it, so I had to start a new one. This made me think the Done button at the end of the stats of the workout should have another button that says something like Continue Workout, because the End and Pause buttons are next to each other and hitting End doesn’t offer any confirmation, the workout just stops. This would let people have an Oops button and keep the workout going. (The current UI is actually better than it used to be. Originally there were two buttons, Save and Cancel. Yes, you could finish a workout, then accidentally tap the Cancel button and nuke everything you had just done. Brilliant! You now have to go into the Activity app on the phone to delete specific workouts.)

The Year of Not Reading or Writing

Based on the results from 2018, I set an ambitious goal for this year’s Goodreads reading challenge—52 books or one per week.

At this point, the third week of August, I would need to have read 33 books to be on track. I have read 19. I’m actually lagging behind last year’s pace, when I managed to read 40 (with a goal of 32). To hit 40 I’d need to read 21 books in about 17 weeks.

That ain’t gonna happen unless I cheat and read a bunch of 50,000 word NaNoWriMo novels.

Why am I reading so much less this year?

Before answering that, I’ll note that my writing has stalled out, too. I’ve been keeping up on the blog, but the fiction writing has sputtered like a campfire in a rain shower. In the last few months, even the blog writing has suffered.

So here it is, the latter half of August and I’m not reading much and I’m not writing much.

Why?

The answer is: It’s not any specific thing, it’s a series of things. Mostly it’s me.

As ridership continues to increase, it is increasingly rare that I get a seat at the start of my morning commute (which begins with a 30+ minute train ride), so I don’t start reading until I get a seat, as I am not comfortable reading while standing up. I could read while standing, so this is kind of on me. But it still means I don’t read as much.

But there are days where I could read and don’t, I just put on my headphones and try to blot out the sound (and world).

I sometimes read at home, but it’s rare.

For the writing, I enjoy the irony of The Journal, my unfinished novel, in which the protagonist struggles with writing, knowing all the ways to get going, knows that you don’t wait for the muse to arrive, that you make time to write, that you sacrifice and force yourself to do it.

And then still struggles. As I do. Why? Ennui? Laziness? I’m not really sure, anymore.

Also, I’ve been playing a lot of City of Heroes again and until the shine of that wears off, it will continue to occupy a chunk of my free time (I had a seven year gap where I didn’t play after the game was shut down).

There are other things I intend to do—draw, look into meditation, stretching and more—and I dabble, but ultimately don’t follow through.

Maybe I just suck at time management.

I’ve looked at time management apps and have yet to find one I really like and click with. Maybe I’ll look again. I’ll just pencil the search into my current non-existent time management/to-do app, ho ho.

Anyway, I’m writing this on my lunch break and running out of time, so I need to wrap up in some clever way or come back to this later. Or both.

Or neither.

More later tonight. For real. (Probably.)

Run 627: The fourth km blitz

Run 627
Average pace: 5:26/km
Location: Brunette River
Start: 6:07 pm
Distance: 5.03 km
Time: 27:22
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 22ºC
Humidity: 47%
Wind: light
BPM: 155
Weight: 164.5 pounds
Total distance to date: 4715 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 2, iPhone 8
Shoes: Saucony Switchback ISO (70 km)

On the way to the start of tonight’s run I was thinking about how sometimes I’ll feel tired before a run and then go on to turn in a good performance, and other times the run will reflect that same sluggish level of energy. The latter actually doesn’t happen that often and I kept that in mind as I got ready, as I was not feeling super-invigorated.

It turned out I was secretly super-invigorated because I ended up turning out my fastest run of the year, finishing with a pace of 5:26/km. A large part of this came about due to a burst of speed in the fourth km, something I’ve noticed happening in several other runs recently, as if I’m catching my second wind or finding the perfect stride right around that 20 minute mark. In this case my fourth km was a blazing 5:04/km, the closest I’ve come to breaking the five-minute mark this year. And I emphasize that I was not trying to do this, I just felt good and kept the pace up (or increasing it, as it turned out).

I didn’t really push at all until the last stretch and by then I was slowing, with my pace dropping to 5:22/km. But it was the only time I felt even a little burn–and it was little. The rest of the run there were times where I felt genuinely light on my feet, as if I’d found that perfect rhythm or zone. My mind bounced over a succession of topics and in this case, a wandering mind is a sign of a good run.

My BPM was also low at 155. The conditions helped, too, as it was warm but far from hot after yesterday’s rain, and the sun was low, so I only got a few minutes of it. Humidity was reasonable, so sweating wasn’t excessive and I never felt dehydrated.

I’m surprised and kind of delighted by how well the run felt. The next one will be at the lake and I suspect it will not feel as effortless as this one, but I’ll bask in the glow for a few more days, at least.

The strange inconvenience of summer weather

It is raining today.

That’s fine. It’s dry enough that a little rain is good. It makes the grass grow and all that.

Summer rain is kind of weird, though. While it is cooler than normal, it’s not actually cool—it’s 17C right now, which is t-shirt weather. But if you go outside wearing a t-shirt you will come out looking like an entrant in a wet t-shirt contest. Which is handy if you are actually on your way to a wet t-shirt contest. It’s otherwise less desirable.

However, if you wear a jacket…well, it’s too warm to wear a jacket. So you can keep dry, but get all sweaty and gross instead.

Basically, summer and rain don’t really fit together well. Science has obviously failed us here, as there’s no super-light fabric that can deflect raindrops. This is also why I don’t wear a jacket when I run in the rain, even in the winter when it’s actually cold.

The solution, then, is to stay inside and play video games or watch something on one of the five thousand streaming services now available. Hold on, I’ve just received an update—make that 6,000.

Run 626: A cool effort

Run 626
Average pace: 5:41/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CW)
Start: 12:16 pm
Distance: 5.02 km
Time: 28:33
Weather: Cloudy
Temp: 19ºC
Humidity: 67%
Wind: light
BPM: 160
Weight: 163.4 pounds
Total distance to date: 4710 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 2, iPhone 8
Shoes: Saucony Switchback ISO (65 km)

First, the strange news: Today’s run took me 28:33 minutes. The previous 5K run, which I did on the river trail, took me 28:34 minutes, a difference of one second. How I can manage such precision while running in two different locations is baffling and a bit unnerving. But yay for consistency when the result is good!

Now, the good news: It was much cooler and cloudy for today’s run, which made for a refreshing change of pace. Sweating was minimal and my energy felt strong throughout. I was actually a tad disappointed that I came in at the same overall pace as the previous run at 5:41/km. I was hoping I’d be faster–though the lake is a more technical run than the river, so there’s that.

After some contemplation, I chose to go clockwise yet again, as work continues on the side trails. There is more progress, though, as I could see the Conifer Loop has been resurfaced, complete with the top layer being smoothed into place. Hopefully they’ll wrap it up by next weekend.

I did not get off to a zany fast start this time, and the pace from one km to the next was a little more consistent–in line with how I felt. I thought of running more than 5K, but in the end wanted one more direct comparison, especially after missing a run. Post-run, I walked the first km, then ran the entire second km, with a pace of 5:41/km, matching my overall pace for the run. This is encouraging. I actually ran a lot on the way out, with no issues at all.

Overall, this was a nice effort. I felt good, had lots of energy, had no issues and it was not busy on the trail, likely thanks to the cloud cover.

Book review: The Outsider

The Outsider

The Outsider by Stephen King

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Outsider is both vintage King and a continuation of his recent fondness for police procedurals, notably the Bill Hodges trilogy. Here he fuses a murder mystery with a classic King monster. There is a shift in the story where it goes from being a baffling murder case to more of a monster chase, and at first the shift felt a bit abrupt to me, almost as if King started writing a whodunit and couldn’t figure out how to finish it, so reverted back to supernatural boogums.

But in the main character of police detective Ralph Anderson, King works the angle of the disbeliever hard, laying down the groundwork for the novel’s closing act and the introduction of Holly Gibney from the Hodges trilogy, who becomes the linchpin who helps steer events to their conclusion.

While not reaching the heights of some of King’s latter day work like Duma Key or 11/22/63, The Outsider still has all the strengths typical of King–instantly engaging (or despicable) characters, and an authentic feel for the places the people inhabit, while avoiding most of the excessive bloat. The story could probably stand to lose a bit of the flab, but King is one of the few writers I’ve read who makes even the flab interesting.

There is an analogy used by one of the characters late in the novel about how we all skate on the thin ice of reality, and how few fall through to see what is beneath, and that both summarizes the main theme of the story, and also serves to ground it in a way some of King’s other straight-up horror novels don’t quite manage. Here the characters basically confront weird shit, acknowledge it’s weird shit, then deal with it, because what else are you going to do?

For King fans, this is a solid effort. For those intrigued by the police procedural aspect, be warned that while it is there and is a good chunk of the story, this is ultimately a horror novel that fits neatly alongside the others King has written.

Recommended.

View all my reviews

Run 625: Made in the shade

Run 625
Average pace: 5:41/km
Location: Brunette River trail
Start: 6:16 pm
Distance: 5.02 km
Time: 28:34
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 26ºC
Humidity: 45%
Wind: moderate
BPM: 156
Weight: 165 pounds
Total distance to date: 4705 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 2, iPhone 8
Shoes: Saucony Switchback ISO (60 km)

I was going to run on Saturday but did some errands and then had a kind of lazy day after that (I did go for an hour-long walk, so not totally lazy). Sunday the weather was showery, so I waited for a break, but the weather never really changed, so I ended up having two lazy days.

Monday was Monday. I only run on Mondays when it’s a holiday.

Which meant I ran today, Tuesday, with a four day break in-between runs. Longer than I’d like, but on the edge of being acceptable. This was a post-work run, so I set off to the river trail.

It was not four degrees warmer than Thursday’s run, and humidity was lower, but the balance was pretty close, which meant I sweated, but not a lot, and my mouth did not turn into a mini-Sahara. It also helped that the sun was lower, so most of the run was in the shade. Yay shade.

My left foot was a bit sore to start (probably a posture thing–as I sit here typing this, I have my feet on a foot rest, but had my right foot resting on top of the left one, smooshing it in a way that’s probably not great), but it settled down quickly, and there were no issues after that.

BPM was similar to Thursday, but my overall pace was faster at 5:41/km. Curiously, the fourth km was by far the fastest, a zippy 5:08/km. I’m not sure why I was moving so swiftly at that point. Maybe I slipped into “must finish quickly so I can eat dinner” mode. By comparison, the previous km was 6:06/km. That difference is kind of crazy. Maybe I was so slow in the third km that I ended up being well-rested for the next one.

Overall, a fine run, with no apparent side effects from the four days off.

The “Did Not Need” Vacation 2019 list

I’ve fallen a tad behind in writing about stuff and junk, like the camping trip Jeff and I took last month. I have the text written for that and will pick and post the appropriate photos soon™.

In the meantime, here’s a post-trip list of what I took and found useful and what I didn’t need to bother with. For every trip I have to consider things like:

  • How long I’ll be away
  • What kind of place we’re staying at (campsite with full hookups, abandoned farm in the country*, luxury hotel, etc.)
  • How much is practical to bring along because the easy solution would be to bring everything if possible

We were going to be camping for a week in Hope at a campsite on the edge of town, with full electrical and water. We’d go without either the last day and a half at the dirt bike camp, but generally we’d be in civilization and close to the outdoors, rather than the reverse (as would be the case at Manning Park, for example). We did not plan on doing any laundry while away.

Here are the things I brought and did not use:

  • Jeans. It was mid-July and though we had a few misty days, it was never cold enough to wear pants. Even if it had rained all week, I still don’t think they would have been needed. Summer vacation does not require one to be a pantser, you might say.
  • Long sleeve shirt. See above.
  • More than one hoodie. I brought a thicker one and a thinner one and only wore the thinner one. See above and above.
  • iPad. I figured since we had electricity, I’d bring along my MacBook Pro, which is rated for 10 hours of battery life–the same as the iPad, but with the bonus of having a larger screen and keyboard. I never looked at the iPad, though I did charge it once just to keep it topped up.
  • Long socks. See bullet points 1, 2 and 3.
  • Running gear. I brought everything–shoes, belt, shirts, shorts, cap. But I never ran. It wasn’t out of laziness, either–we did plenty of hiking and biking and disc-tossing and such. I probably could have squeezed a run in, but I’ve only ever done this once while away (in Kamloops). Plus there was a cougar alert at the campsite, which made me not really want to go dashing off on my own.
  • Charger for Apple Watch and iPhone. I forgot the trailer has these.
  • Sleeveless t-shirts. I never wore them, not wanting to get my shoulders burned. I stuck to regular t-shirts. As it turned out, I likely wouldn’t have gotten burned, anyway, as it never got hot until the last day.
  • Jabra Move wireless headphones. I never listened to music because we were always doing other stuff.
  • Charging cable for the Kobo e-reader. It didn’t need to be charged, it actually wasn’t even close to needing to be charged, one of the perks of e-readers. Mind you, the MacBook Pro also didn’t need to be charged, because I used it for less than an hour per day.
  • Electric shaver. I could have slummed for a week without shaving, really.

Overall, my load would definitely have been lighter in hindsight, but I can use this knowledge going forward to be more efficient and satisfy my latent OCD.

The things I was glad I brought:

  • MacBook Pro. I wrote every day.
  • Kobo e-reader. I spent enough time reading to warrant bringing it along, plus it’s fairly light and compact.
  • Lots of t-shirts and socks. These tend to get dirty and stinky when you’re outdoors, so more is better.

I forgot to bring along bug spray, but surprisingly there were very few bugs. I got a couple of minor bites and that was it. I’m probably forgetting a few things–one of the hazards of writing this more than two weeks after getting back. If need be, I’ll jazz this up later. It’s mostly reference for the next trip, anyway. If this accidentally informed anyone reading it, I apologize!