Run 605: Faster, colder

Run 605
Average pace: 5:47/km
Location: Brunette River trail
Start: 1:36 pm
Distance: 5:03 km
Time: 29:04
Weather: Overcast
Temp: 9ºC
Humidity: 63%
Wind: moderate
BPM: 158
Weight: 166.8 pounds
Total distance to date: 4605 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 2, iPhone 8

I was a little leery going into today’s run because the last time I ran at the river it was cool–7ºC–and my BPM was crazy high, as in so high I was actually a bit afraid to run outdoors again under similar conditions.

Although the temperature was similar today at 9ºC, I have been running at least weekly for some time now, both on the treadmill and outdoors, so I was thinking I’d probably be okay. I set out for a modest pace under cloudy skies and a small threat of rain. The wind of the last few days eased up, so temperature-wise it actually felt decent during the run.

There were many people on the trail, most of the dog walkers had their dogs unleashed (boo) but the dogs were well-behaved (yay). I generally stuck to my plan and the only issue of note was some discomfort right around the bump in the orthotic in my left shoe. This is somewhat odd, because that bump is specifically there to keep the left foot from getting sore when I’m walking and especially when I’m running. Is my foot changing? Is it going through foot puberty? I may have to make a trip to Kintec to get them to have a look. Plus I should probably get the orthotic re-upholstered or whatever the term is for getting the padding replaced, as it’s getting old, scruffy and the heels have holes in them from where gravel has gotten stuck (I’ve been wearing my gravel scoops–aka Brooks Cascadia 12s–since I got the orthotics).

In the end, and with a light coat of sweat, I finished with a much faster-than anticipated pace of 5:47/km, which is 23 (!) seconds faster than my last run at Burnaby Lake, and even 12 seconds better than the “my poor heart” run at the river on January 26. Come to think of it, why is the temperature only 2 degrees warmer nearly three months later? I’ll file a report with The Weather Bureau or other appropriate agency.

Overall, I am pleased with the result. I am getting faster, which shows I am getting in shape, but more importantly, my heart rate is back down to a healthy level, after a couple of alarmingly high runs. As a bonus, I don’t really feel the knees are a major factor at this point. I can still feel them when I run, but it’s easy to ignore them. If anything–and despite having done nothing specific to treat them–they seem to be feeling better than they did at this time last year when they first started getting sore. So yay for that.

Facebook uses its inside voice

This was posted on 9to5mac.com, and while many sites covered the story, I like the way they use Facebook’s explanation in the headline, which I imagine is meant to be read deadpan-style:

What an interesting accident. I like the cheek of the person who arranged for the “accidental” printing of a message onto a physical Facebook product stating “Big Brother is Watching.” It’s a great thing to read before strapping on a VR helmet and blocking yourself off from the “real” world.

Book review: Transmission

Transmission

Transmission by Ambrose Ibsen

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Transmission is a short, direct, no-filler, no subplot horror story with perfunctory prose that feels more like an initial treatment for something more substantial than a complete work.

It’s perfectly okay as is, but that’s my main issue–it’s just okay. Nearly every aspect of it falls short of its potential. The student protagonists of Kenji and Dylan are sketches and I never really felt much of anything for them. The Vietnam vet Reggie (you are reminded he is a Vietnam vet–for no real reason–so often it almost becomes part of his name) is a generic semi-retired guy who similarly has no life outside the narrow confines of the book’s plot. The characters feel like pieces put into play to be subject to the spooky goings-on.

The plot itself is one I’m a sucker for. As the title suggests, it’s about the transmission of a message from a mysterious woman who somehow gets herself into a World War II documentary and a song by an obscure band. The students and Reggie are compelled to decipher the cryptic message she speaks and from there both spooky and bad things happen.

All this is good and I kept reading to see what would happen, just as any author would hope for, but by the end I was left unsatisfied because the whole experience is a little too straightforward. By eschewing any subplots or supporting characters, by cutting away the rest of these characters’ lives, save for the bare minimum, I felt detached from them, instead of invested. And the transmission and the fallout of the successful deciphering (spoiler!) likewise left me wanting more. It’s all just a little too…little.

This is where really sharp prose could have lifted the entire story, but the prose only does its job, nothing more.

Transmission is not bad by any means, it just seems content to amble along instead of trying to fly.

View all my reviews

The first April treadmill run, 2019 edition

Back to the treadmill today, though the weather turned out to be unexpectedly decent, so a run outside would have worked, too.

My goals were the same as last time–maintain pace, hope for no issues, finish with a nice BPM. And I hit all three, woo.

I goofed a bit on the tracking, letting the timer run (ho ho) for over a minute into my cooldown (walking) phase, so my average pace was officially 6:19/km. Using my primitive caveman math skills to eliminate this part of the run, my overall pace was actually closer to 6:12/km, so pretty much identical to the last treadmill run. My BPM was down slightly, as well, to 153.

No issues encountered throughout, it was just a nice, steady run.

The stats, slightly skewed by the aforementioned extra time:

Distance: 4.18 km (4.01)
Time: 26:25 (24:50) 
Average pace: 6:12/km (6:11/km)
BPM: 153 (155)
Calories: 314 (283)
Total treadmill distance: 42.72 km

Round Balls No. 12 clone found!

I came across another page of The Ever Continuing Saga of the Round Balls, this one from June 1986. It claims to be No. 12, making it the second unfinished No. 12 out there. I can’t even blame a printing error on this one. Maybe I lost the other one and started over.

This Round Balls comic is noteworthy for the fact that the Round Balls do not actually appear in it. I’m not sure where I was going with this one, but I do like the stick man. He seems very business-like.

I thought I was very hip at the time by dissing on both Nancy and Doonesbury.

Good news in reading!

It finally appears that Kobo has stopped recommending books by Bentley Little to me.

I have nothing personal against Little. He’s a prolific, award-winning horror author. I’m sure he’s a very nice man. Or maybe he’s a monster. I don’t actually know.

What I do know is that I read his book The Store and did not like it. I rated it one star, both in my Goodreads review and on the Kobo site itself. I almost never rate books on the Kobo site.

But because I had purchased the book on Kobo, it kept recommending his other books. As I mentioned, he is a prolific author, so he has a lot of other books that can be recommended. Perhaps I would like one of them, maybe even several. It doesn’t matter, because the one I did read I DID NOT LIKE AT ALL. This killed all interest in experimenting further with Mr. Little’s oeuvre.

If I am wrong, then I feel an apology of sorts is owed to Mr. Little. I mean, on Kobo, The Store has an average rating of four stars. But even if I am wrong, I am still entirely content to never read one of his books again because The Store was so very not to my liking.

And the good news here is that I have now purchased and read enough books to finally push Little off my recommended reading list on Kobo. The moral of the story is, obviously, capitalism works. Buy buy buy and it will all work out in the end.

The Store is currently available on Kobo for the low price of $6.99.

Why do people suck?

I think about this sometimes, but not often and not in any great depth, because it’s incredibly, horribly depressing.

But when I do, I wonder, what is the default nature of people? Are we inherently generous or inherently selfish? The latter seems better-suited to survival, but since humans are also social, the former would seem to be necessary, too. The general attitude of “I got mine!” would appear to be self-defeating over the long term.

Are we maybe both generous and selfish and these values shift, they ebb and flow over generations, swinging one way, then the other? Does the key to our continued progress–however slow it may seem at times–lie in never swinging too far toward selfish?

I don’t know. All I do know is Trump still hasn’t been kidnapped by Bigfoot, so something is obviously wrong.

My only answer is to be nice to people and hope that due to the butterfly effect, everything will work out A-OK! Somehow.