Month: December 2009

Flood run

Today’s run was ugly.

Last night’s predicted big snow followed by rain didn’t happen in that the snow petered out quickly. By this morning it was completely gone, so I didn’t need to be concerned about running in piles of slush. Instead I faced this:

chinacreek-flood

That’s the southeast corner where I enter the park and start my run. A long stretch along the northern part of the trail was similarly flooded, forcing me to run alongside it on the grass (which really isn’t so bad). The navigable parts of the trail were rather muddy, as my socks and sneakers will attest.

It was a relatively balmy 4ºC when I started out so I opted to wear only two layers (jacket + long sleeve shirt) and that was fine. I also chose to skip wearing my gloves, which was not so fine. My hands were numb by the end and even for the first few minutes in the shower the tops of them had this weird temperature inversion thing going on where the hot water hitting them felt very much cold. If I turned my palms up the water felt hot, as it should.

I probably walked as much yesterday as I had run on Sunday, if not more, which in retrospect was probably dumb. I should have rested my legs. This meant my calves were sore to start today and my initial pace was pretty sluggish. I didn’t force it, though. By the final few km I had my second wind and my legs were sufficiently limber that my pace improved remarkably.

For a long stretch I had all of China Creek Park to myself, save for the crows worming in the field and a parks board tractor blowing leaves off the path (and helpfully stopping each time I jogged by). At the 15 minute mark the rain started and by 20 minutes in had become a downpour. It eased off for about ten minutes then for the last 3 laps or so turned to a downpour again. There were occasional strong gusts blowing from the south/southeast, too. With about ten minutes to go another jogger showed up but I only ever saw him do a few stretching exercises. He seemed to have disappeared by the time I was leaving.

Results:

Total distance: 7.89 km
Average time/km: 5:45/km (slightly better than my 40 minute pace)
Best time/km: 5.21/km (full km), 4:43/km  (final .89 km)

You can see how my pace really picked up toward the end — 4:43 for nearly a full km is a remarkable time for me for the end of a run and I really didn’t feel I was pushing at all, just moving at a comfortable pace.

I expect I will do a bit better after a few days of rest.

Mustache massacre

Tonight at 10 p.m. I got the sudden urge to shave my face. Let me explain.

When I was 29 I grew a beard while on Christmas break at college. It was less a beard and more “I’m too lazy to shave for two weeks” but when someone asked me if I was growing a beard it suddenly seemed like a good idea, so I said yes. I have had the beard since.

This means I was not clean-shaven throughout my 30s and into my early 40s. I was a content beardyman, at least as far as the beard part went.

Finally, I made the first major change to my facial hair in April of this year when I lopped off the full beard and went for a more petite circle beard. I believe this was the right call at the time because the sides of my beard had pretty much gone completely white and I am not ready to become everyone’s stand-in for Santa just yet.

Since then I’ve mulled going further but held off because I like the circle beard. It makes me look vaguely hip, especially if I wear a beret (I don’t own a beret).

But tonight I got this overwhelming urge to see my upper lip for the first time in 16 years, so I broke out the beard trimmer and razor. I am now clean-shaven once again except for a neatly-trimmed goatee that I may or may not shave off tomorrow.

I kind of like the new-old look. I’ll wait a week before deciding whether to stay smooth ‘n sexy or go back to a more hirsute appearance.

Shorn:

me-cleanshaven-cap-12-15-09

Snow run

Today was my first time running in the snow, though it had only been falling lightly for an hour or so before I started, so it was more a good dusting than anything formidable.

With the temperature a little below freezing I opted for my first 45 minute run and ol’ Lance Armstrong was there to congratulate me for my longest run yet: 7.99 km. Damn, so close. At least reaching 8 km next time should be easy. I also wonder if some stealth update on the nano has removed the congratulatory blurbs from Tiger Woods. I haven’t heard him in awhile. If I remember, he comes on when you put in your fastest time, which is apropos for that sly dog, amirite?

Results:

Total distance: 7.99 km
Average time/km: 5:39/km (slightly better than my 40 minute pace)
Best time/km: 5.00/km

There were no other joggers out but a few people were strolling with their dogs and a couple of kids were doing their best to slide down the hill at the west end of the park with the little snow that had fallen. I saw what I consider the first unofficial sign of winter — some dope in an SUV fishtailing around a corner. The run went rather well, with my second wind kicking in full force around the 30 minute mark and propelling me for the last 15. I think I’m going to try ramping up to a full 60 minutes.

A couple of images below. The first is a strangely dark one from my iPod video camera of China Creek Park just after I finished my run. The sky was actually quite bright.

chinacreek-snow

And the next is after I returned home and asked Tim to capture me in my post-run glow. Naturally Barley insisted on taking part.

snow_jog_09
After the run, with Barley very excited by the snow.

In which I curse a gizmo

I decided to walk 36 blocks before running today.

No, wait, my iPod actually decided for me.

The conditions on today’s run were similar to the previous day — about -2ºC and a mix of sun and cloud. I headed down to China Creek Park and selected my workout on the iPod (35 minutes) then went to choose a playlist. Curiously, there were no playlists available. A message said to sync the iPod to transfer music over. Chagrined, I figured I’d just use shuffle instead and got the same message. In fact, the iPod wasn’t showing any of the 2,000+ songs I had stored on it. I debated whether to do the run voice-only (the nice Nike woman just announcing the time intervals without any music) but the thought of listening to my own breathing for 35 minutes convinced me to go back and try to fix whatever issue it was.

I plugged the iPod in and it synced in just a few seconds. I checked after unplugging it from the PC and it looked good — everything was back. So I returned to the park and did my run. Going there and back twice meant I walked 48 blocks in total. That’s a fair bit of walking I hadn’t planned on. The only real downside was being a little extra chilly at the start of the run.

Still, I shake my fist at Apple. Now I know to check the iPod before heading out instead of just crazily assuming it will work.

The run itself went well and as I closed in on 35 minutes I decided to go for 40. This gave me my best overall distance yet and I only lost six seconds on my overall pace from last time. Not bad. The one downside was my upper back started to feel a bit sore by about the 38 minute mark. That may mean I need to work on my stride or posture, so it may turn out to be a good thing in the long term.

Results:

Total distance: 7.11 km
Average time/km: 5:40/km
Best time/km: 5.14/km

Heath Ledger dies…again

Another dream from last night:

I am on what appears to be a movie set but they are not shooting at the moment. Or perhaps it’s just a ranch because there are horses. And a Spanish galleon. It makes sense, because it’s a dream.

I am on the galleon with someone who is showing off a little swordsmanship. He recites a line from the script that I can’t precisely recall but it was a taunt something along the lines of, “Do you want to brown your pants?” Colorful, as they say. The part was being played by Brian Doyle and while there are a number of Brian Doyles on the Internet Movie Database, I don’t think this guy was any of them. No idea where the name came from.

After the swordfighting demonstration, I then look over to another man, this one holding the reins of a horse. In retrospect I think it was supposed to be Johnny Depp and this was the set for the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie but instead it was Heath Ledger, my first dead dream celebrity.

Heath was going to show off something or other but the horse’s reins got tangled up and it began freaking out and thrashing violently. Heath was standing beside it and could not extricate himself from the reins. By the time he was freed he was laying prone on the ground and making unpleasant facial expressions, a waving hand indicated possible back injuries. When next I looked he was propped up against a nearby fence with two girls looking over him. One was about ten, the other in her teens.

I distinctly recall one of them saying to him, “Please don’t bleed like that” at which point blood started oozing from his nose and mouth. This, understandably, upset the girls and they began wailing as Heath Ledger expired. Again.

Review: 28 Days Later

I saw Shaun of the Dead earlier this year and loved it. I’ve just recently watched 28 Days Later and it’s odd because Shaun, though a comedy, is a more “authentic” zombie experience, inasmuch as a zombie movie can be authentic, anyway. 28 Days Later is rather grim and I enjoyed it (I find Cillian Murphy a strangely mesmerizing presence) but the fast-moving infected in the film never struck me as frightening, more just crazed animals. You almost felt sorry for them — until they got their heads beaten in with baseball bats. This approach to the “enemy” took away from the overall mood of the film but then I realized that director Danny Boyle may have been creating, whether by intention or accident, an homage to The Day of the Triffids. Both stories start the same way — with a patient alone in a hospital after some catastrophic event has struck the world.

Each story then follows the protagonist as he bands with other survivors and ultimately comes into conflict with groups that have differing agendas, so in a way it’s not a zombie movie at all but more of a study in human behavior when people are forced into constant “do or die” situations and there is no longer any established authority to appeal to or seek shelter with.

The “bad boy” military also came off as a bit too convenient for the story and it was interesting to see in the deleted scenes a “radical alternate ending” that imagined the movie going off in a completely different direction with no military present at all (for the record, that ending would very likely have been worse).

It was refreshing to see they also went with a “happy” ending by having Cillian’s character of Jim survive. Several alternate endings were filmed where his character perishes after taking a bullet to the abdomen. Downer endings have become so de rigueur that a happy one almost seems to be bucking the system.

Recommended.

Acrophobia on an alternate world Davie Street

I’ve been remembering a lot of my dreams lately for whatever reason, enough so that I may actually do some research to retain them even more than I do now.

Last night I was in a typical alternate world dreamscape, this time at a huge outdoor theater improbably constructed near the intersection of Denman and Davie Street. The theater was open but did have a roof to provide shelter from the elements. The featured show was a bunch of old men singing in front of an artificial waterfall. Where this bit came from I have no idea. At the end of the performance — which actually felt more like a rehearsal, I moved out of my seat and headed down toward the stage. The seats were a weird kind of jumble that only makes sense in dreams and I found myself inadvertantly blocking the way. This woman standing opposite me seemed to offer a solution, for lo! We were both actually standing on a lift that she could operate.

She did so and we rose up and above the crowd. I was perhaps inclined to offer my thanks when she continued to raise the lift higher than necessary. I am not especially keen on high places so I noted this fact to her in the hope that she would stop. She did not. I then raised my voice to a level one might call “screaming”. My words to her were as such: “Lady, I’m afraid of heights! Let me down!” I continued this plaintive request at maximum volume but she gave no reaction, as if she was utterly deaf or cruelly indifferent.

I should further illustrate the scene by noting the platform that I was on was barely big enough to contain me and it lacked anything to hold onto save for a railing along the front which I flung my arms over, hoping to not plunge onto a singing old man some hundred feet below. When the lift finally reached its maximum height — and that height was impressive indeed — the woman’s hearing seemed to suddenly return to normal and she brought the lift back down.

I was not amused.

The dream broke apart at this point, the crisis ended. The loss of control is a typical theme in dreams. Perhaps I can conquer this one by standing on my tippy-toes at the edge of the Grand Canyon one day.

Cold Running

Today’s run was 35 minutes and I continued to improve my performance:

Total distance: 6.32 km
Average/km: 5:34
Best/km: 5:11

temp-dec8-09

It was also officially™ below freezing but I am finding these temperatures to not be a problem. I heat up quickly and the sweat keeps me warm, if stinky.

There were three other joggers out this afternoon. A woman was running in a very casual manner and was easily passed. A male jogger with a nice red cap was also passed — twice! I assume he was doing the walk/run thing. The third jogger actually passed me around the 30 minute mark. I knew better than to try to catch up but I did notice his speed leveled off once he was safely by me and I kept pace for the rest of the time he was on the trail.

A guy was flying a small radio-controlled helicopter at one of the baseball diamonds, adding another potential threat to the list that includes soccer balls, dogd and gravel-throwing fat kids. I imagine the list of people who can claim to have been struck by a helicopter while jogging is a fairly short one.

The smashed VCR or whatever it was had been cleared away but the microwave was still sitting beside the trail. Curiously, the brown paper bag that had been sitting inside it was gone.

I contemplated going for 40 minutes but I think I’ll wait till next week for that. There was an unpleasant diesel or tar-like smell hanging in the air for the last 10 minutes or so that made the final stretch a bit unpleasant.

Where microwaves go to die

There is always something new to see when I go jogging in China Creek Park.

Today it was litter.

At one corner of the path was some kind of electronics device that had been smashed so all that was left were bits of black plastic and other unidentifiable parts. It may have been a VCR. Why would someone bring a VCR to the park and smash it to bits? I don’t know. Maybe it was an homage to Office Space.

There was also a microwave abandoned along the southern stretch, its door left open and, curiously, inside was a plate holding a brown paper bag. I shall not speculate on its contents.

As expected, today’s run was the coldest yet, with the temperature hovering right around the freezing mark. To spice things up further, wind gusts up to 24km/h were blowing. The trail, especially in the shade, has now become near rock-hard, which means the uneven muddy parts are like trying to navigate mini-stalagmites.

When is the only time you are surrounded by girls and yet have to watch for balls? When they’re playing soccer. Fortunately, none of their kicking sent the ball my way. The spectators were shouting mostly to keep warm, I think. At one point I smelled an odor that was very much reminiscent of a pulp mill and there are no pulp mills anywhere around so the only thought was that it was coming from the port-o-potty at the NW corner of the trail but there was no way someone using it could make it smell that bad. After I ran by the smell diminished, so I was wrong. They may want to put a biohazard sign on the door. Yikes.

The run went well and I kept going for 35 minutes instead of the planned 30. As expected, my pace is still well off what it once was but we’ll see how the next few runs stack up.

Notable stats:

Average pace: 5.42/km
Overall distance: 6.2 km
Best km: 5:18/km

Cool running

3ºC again for today’s run but a bit of a breeze made it feel colder than that. By the time I got to the park I was looking forward to generating a little sweat to keep warm.

The run went well and I noted a small group of teens sitting on the playground equipment. The guys had their jackets off and were just wearing t-shirts. One had shorts. Several looked like they were ready to audition for the part of Jabba in Star Wars: The High School Musical, so I’m guessing they didn’t feel the cold quite the same way as me and my skinny ass.

They also had a very cute dog and the guys both found it so hilarious to pretend to throw the ball and watch the dog run out in the field and stand there confused that they did this repeatedly, including my final lap when one of the knuckleheads stepped right in front of me to throw it after another incredibly funny fake-out.

Still, I posted my best 30 minute run since returning and the right calf presented no issues. My distance for the last three 30 minute runs, with average speed/km (first to latest):

5.17 km, 5:50/km
5.25 km, 5:45/km
5.40 km, 5:35/km

I’m still well off my pre-injury pace but as long as I slowly improve I’m fine with that.

The first half of my run had me seriously considering a toque as my ears got a wee bit chilly but the second half they warmed up sufficiently. We’ll see what they say in my first sub-freezing run.

Time, flowing like a river

Today Eric Woolfson, the creative mind and frequent vocalist of The Alan Parsons Project, died from cancer at the age of 64.

One of the things that sucks about getting older is watching the pop icons of your youth grow old and die and 64 isn’t even old.

The first APP album I bought was Ammonia Avenue in 1984 (on vinyl, of course). I was late to the party but went back and grabbed all of their back catalog and purchased the final three albums they released after Ammonia Avenue as they came out. Woolfson wrote clean, straightforward lyrics that worked without being overly schmaltzy or cliche and his vocals had a strange elegance that I can’t fully describe with any justice.

The idea that he and Parsons might work together again — something I had hoped for — is now lost, of course, so we’ll never know what a new collaboration might have sounded like (much like Rick Wright’s death ended any chance of further work from Pink Floyd after their 2005 Live 8 reconciliation). Time to listen to Eye in the Sky again…