On my last run I complained that my calves were sore. This happens sometimes. Maybe it’s the weather, the phase of the moon or just the capricious ways of a body in its mid-40s but occasionally my legs will get sore while running (as opposed to merely getting tired). The day after this run my right calf felt fine, as expected. My left calf did not. It twinged with a bit of pain whenever I put pressure on my left leg. I knew this feeling from last October.
I had injured my leg. Again.
But for variety’s sake, it was the left one this time. Some sort of balance thing, perhaps. Fortunately I proved I could learn and adapt and did not run like hell on the injured leg afterward. I also think the injury was milder than the previous one. After being out of commission for 18 days I am planning on resuming my runs this week. Once again I vow to be cautious and careful and not pull, rip, shred or strain anything. I don’t have a third leg to injure so I’m hoping I’ve got this whole “hurting myself” business out of my system now.
In better running news, my total Nike-tracked distance to date is 407+ km. That’s a lot of laps!
In other random news, I am going to start spamming posts to the blog again. Excelsior!
On Friday I had my best 10k run to date. On Saturday I took the day off, as I do on my new exercise schedule. Sunday I did my workout with free weights.
Then everything went off the rails.
On Monday I skipped my run. I could have gone in the morning but i had ‘too much to do’ for my job search workshop and there’s not enough daylight left in the afternoon afterward. Then I skipped my workout on Tuesday and have no excuse at all for that, not even a lousy “a dragon ate my homework” one.
Then today’s run. Conditions were nice: sunny with an intermittent breeze, around 10ºC. I’d warm up soon enough after starting. I began and the first km seemed to take too long. It turned out to be 4:55/km, which is not bad. The second km felt much longer and came in at 5:05/km. Ten seconds slower on the second km is not good and suddenly I just lost all desire to keep going. I bailed at 2.61 km and an average pace of 5:08/km. By comparison on Friday’s run I was at 5:09/km at the 4 km mark. I was well-rested so the only thing I can think of that might affect my performance was psychological.
I was distracted. I am distracted. I have been out of work for a year and despite dozens of applications and resumes sent out, have seen only a scant few interviews. Most of the time I get nothing but silence and now that the money is running out, I am starting to sink into a bit of a funk. The job search workshop is useful, to a degree, but it eats up a good five hours every day plus time to do the ‘homework’ and I’m beginning to wonder if my time might be better spent just concentrating on getting work, period.
I am not going to give up my running but since half the battle really is in the head I need to get that sorted a bit before I can continue.
As I write this we are about halfway through the 2010 Winter Olympics here in Vancouver. Two nights ago I accompanied a friend who lives downtown to tour some of the Olympic sights.
We met at the Stadium SkyTrain station, the platform jammed with people (a sign of the evening’s recurring theme) and checked out some of the pavilions around the BC Place area. The Maison du Quebec had no line-up but also had nothing going on inside except for an empty stage filled with instruments and a food outlet (possibly serving poutine). The nearby Ontario and Saskatchewan pavilions had huge line-ups. I have no idea why, but obviously they had something a lot of people really wanted to see (or thought they did, anyway).
We decided to head out into the downtown core as dusk turned to night and I was astonished at how crowded the streets were. The Olympic organizers have spread events all throughout downtown which has the benefit of keeping one place from being overwhelmed. The downside (for local residents) is that it’s pretty much crowded everywhere. I’ve not seen the city this busy since Expo 86.
We grabbed some dinner at Pacific Centre, the food court there filled to capacity. I got my food first and managed to find a table. Strangely, we both tried calling each other on our cell phones but neither of us heard them ring. My friend even had his set to vibrate. I managed to eventually flag him down and after eating we headed out to the entrance to False Creek, where ten ultra-bright searchlights are shining into the sky, making various patterns. Although one of the lights sadly sagged and started pointing into the water shortly after we arrived, the lights were still spectacular to behold. One of the formations had then all converge into a single point, which immediately brought to mind the Death Star.
We then crossed downtown north to Coal Harbour, where they Olympic Cauldron is located beside the new convention centre. There is some controversy here because fears of vandalism prompted the Olympic people to erect a tall, ugly POW-style fence around the cauldron so no one could get close to it or take pictures without the fence being in the way. After complaints the fence was moved closer and slits were cut in it for people to aim their cameras through. With a billion cops in the city, why not just pay someone to watch the thing for potential vandals?
We concluded the evening with a fruitless search to find the giant Colbert banner that was supposedly hanging somewhere in the city [editor’s note eight and a half years later–I have no idea what this is referring to]. We finally gave up and I made my way back home.
I have to admit, though it’s something you clearly wouldn’t want around on a regular basis, it was fun to see such huge and happy crowds of people roaming about the city or skating at Robson Square or even zip-lining across Robson street itself! The weather has turned sunny and during the day it’s been quite mild, too, which is great for the tourists, even if it gives the wrong impression of what our winters are normally like (currently about the warmest on record).
We have tentative plans to catch some of the shows and/or venues in the next week, so hopefully there will be more to report back than just huge line-ups we chose to avoid.
Oh yeah, and some people have been winning medals at the actual games, too. Even Canadians. Yay Canada!
Okay, Pooter is a dumb name but I think it fit my cat very well. She was originally named Pepper when she was owned by a friend who gave her to me when we moved out of an apartment we had been sharing back in 2000. At that point I’d been living with her for four years.
Ten years later and at over 17 years of age, she had stopped eating a few days ago. She had a host of ailments like many older cats — thyroid problems, kidney issues and other more minor things — but she was still as feisty as ever and retained every last bit of her wonderfully skittish personality. Even as she faded in these last couple of days there was still that same spark, however diminished. She gave the vet hell as he examined her this afternoon but it was clear that she was unlikely to really improve and the cost of diagnosing and treating her — both monetary and emotional — was too high.
I made the immensely difficult decision to have her euthanized. She is now resting in the backyard, not far from where Diz was buried back in 2001. I thank Tim for helping and doing a fine job on that part.
I am of course expecting her to come out of the bedroom and demand to be fed or to start meowing loudly at my feet when I’m on the phone because I am obviously not paying attention to her, but now there is just silence.
Every night she would snuggle up against me when I went to bed, right up near my shoulder. She would stay there until I turned out the light and then, convinced that I was safe and comfortable, she’d move off to her preferred spot on the bed. She allowed me to sleep until it was breakfast time. No sleeping in for that.
I cleaned up her food dish and rinsed it out a few minutes ago. Instead of topping up her water dish, it now sits in the sink, waiting to be washed and stored away. I threw the can of food in the fridge out. I cleaned her litterbox but don’t have it in me to actually empty it and set it aside. It will take awhile to adjust. She was my companion and friend for 14 years and I already miss her terribly.
the percentage classified as overweight or obese [since 1981] rose from 14 per cent to 31 per cent among boys, and from 14 per cent to 25 per cent among girls aged 15 to 19
based on BMI, 19 per cent of males and 21 per cent of females aged 20 to 39 years were classified as obese. By age 60 to 69 years, the percentage was about one-third.
A BusinessWeek story painted a similar picture for the U.S. with the “good news” being “obesity in the United States may finally be stabilizing instead of increasing”. One of the findings from the studies south of the border:
the adult study found the prevalence of overall obesity was 33.8 percent — 32.2 percent in men and 35.5 percent in women
I have written about weight loss and exercise before and I am utterly dismayed at these figures, especially after I found out something myself: unless you have some kind of medical condition that prevents or complicates it, achieving a healthy weight is simple. Here is all that’s required:
Don’t eat junk food.
Don’t eat fast food.
Eat plenty of fresh fruit, vegetables and lean meat.
Avoid processed food that is loaded with sugar and/or fat.
That’s it. Eat properly and your body will maintain its own natural weight. You may still be a bit thin or thick depending on your actual body type, but you’ll be the right weight for that body type.
Add in a modest exercise routine three times a week for 20-30 minutes to help out. More if you’re into it.
In June 2008 I weighed 187.5 pounds and was probably on my way to 200. I am a thin person so a lot of this weight was packed around my middle. I changed my diet to something sensible. This morning I stood on the scale and came in at 144 pounds. No magic pills, no special powders or drinks needed. Just a bit of willpower and the desire to stop feeling uncomfortable about my own body.
I wish more people would have the same sort of epiphany I did a year and a half ago (okay, so a doctor also told me I was pre-diabetic. That was the “epiphany-assist”).
And what’s the deal with McDonald’s being an Olympic Sponsor, anyway? Somehow I don’t see the medal winners chowing down on Big Macs and fries before they go for the gold. Or maybe they do and their freakishly perfected bodies somehow transform that junk into something with real nutritional value. Or they’re all fembots. Well, except the guys. They’d be malebots.
Today The Tyee published an article about a library memo advising librarians to stick to Olympic sponsors’ products for events. A reader laments in the article’s comments:
Library’s are feeling the effects of lack of funding as it is
I got my hair cut today and the girl who cut it was fast, friendly and just the right amount of chatty. She did a really nice job, too. My only complaint is she told me to put my purse on the other chair so hair wouldn’t get on it. It’s not a purse. 🙁
It’s a shoulder bag. And it’s very manly. I use it to carry my iPod and, uh, the bowie knife I use to hunt moose with, though I usually just kill them with my bare hands. Yeah.
Yes, it’s been nearly a year since the last time I went one on one with the formidable Mavis Beacon. I think it’s a testament to how much that composite character intimidates me that it took this long to return.
A new year means a new beginning, though, so I re-installed Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing and after 50 minutes of carefully following Mavis’s lessons, here is my current status:
Yes, I can now touch-type at a rate of 10 words per minute. This means that adding seven fingers to my typing has reduced my overall speed by about 75% (I can hunt and peck around 40 WPM). However, Mavis has not only been forthcoming with encouragement, she has practically gushed about my phenomenal typing skills, to the point where I’m fairly certain I could type a bunch of nonsense and she would still lavish me with unearned praise. It seems this new version has defanged Ms. Beacon in favor of a kinder, gentler persona.
I’m still leery, though. She started out nice the last time, too, before switching over to her “You seem kind of dumb. Go play a video game instead” mode. Time will tell, I suppose.
Good Job! Good Job? 12 WPM sucks. That’s one of those thousand monkeys banging away randomly at the keyboard with the hope that he might be the one to spontaneously type out Hamlet. But I guess it’s more encouraging than “Wow, that’s so slow I had time to finish my tax return”. And I did actually discover something new about my typing: I have been sitting a little too far to the right of the keyboard. I noticed this when I was consistently hitting the wrong key and saw that my hand was turned in a way that the ghost hand onscreen wasn’t. Thanks, Mavis! (for now)
These days it seems every site on the web requires a login. There are various programs out there to remember, secure and sort the multitude of usernames and passwords one might need (indeed, Firefox and other browsers have this ability built-in) but what if both you and your system forget? You simply click on “Forget Your Password?” Or is it “Generate New Password”? Eh, just click whatever link is given and hope that the system works better than the person in charge of the page. Web forms is hard.
Renowned curator Jacques Saunière staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum’s Grand Gallery. He lunged for the nearest painting he could see, a Caravaggio. Grabbing the gilded frame, the seventy-six-year-old man heaved the masterpiece toward himself until it tore from the wall and Saunière collapsed backward in a heap beneath the canvas.
This is the opening of The Da Vinci Code. You may have heard of it. It’s sold more copies than Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, which was released 105 years earlier and has been selling every year since. The Da Vinci Code is, in fact, the second best-selling book of English fiction ever. Why?
Does it bother me that some of the most popular things in entertainment are also some of the worst in terms of quality?
It does, actually, because it’s possible to entertain and be popular and not sacrifice your craft in the process. Die Hard is a smart, funny action movie. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is noisy, insultingly dumb, incoherent and borderline racist. And yet…$843 million grossed worldwide. The Da Vinci Code is the go-to book when one wants to point out the worst bestseller. But clearly writers like Brown and directors like Michael Bay have tapped into a formula that resonates with a lot of people, people who are unconcerned that what they are reading or viewing is the equivalent of junk food.
I’m not putting myself above the masses, either. I read Stephen King, I sat through Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I’m a fan of pop culture and fascinated by it at the same time. It just seems that we are in a downward spiral, where dumb just isn’t dumb enough anymore.
I expect the top-grossing movie in 2020 will be three hours of cars exploding. It will star Shia LaBeouf’s son. The bestselling book will be Dan Brown’s The Forgotten Clue, a collection of sentence fragments in pop-up format. The movie version, also starring Shia LaBeouf’s son, will gross $1.1 billion. Sure, ticket prices will be $50 each, but still.
This morning as I was going about my usual routine I heard a tremendous crash upstairs. There seemed to be two aspects to it, which was odd. The first was kind of a smashing sound, the other a very large thump. The thing that came to mind was a large cabinet with glass doors being knocked over, but there is no such furniture upstairs. A few moments after this thud, water began sluicing down into my kitchen, mainly through the cupboard that houses the fusebox. This is bad but it could be a lot worse, as the water didn’t channel through the fusebox, but rather off to the side. Mostly it just makes a mess on my counter.
So now I had the smash, the thud and water pouring from up above. I call Tim. He says in a quiet voice, “Can you come upstairs and help me?”
When I get upstairs, this is the first thing I see when the door is opened (click to get a larger view):
Tim had dropped and fallen on a full carboy. He was holding a towel up to his right arm to prevent blood from pouring about the house in copious quantities. As it was he had left a pretty good trail from the accident to the bathroom:
I fished out the first aid kit from under the sink and bandaged up the bleediest parts of his arms, one of which had a wound that looked like it went right to the bone. He got 15 stitches in that one. He feared the same arm was broken but fortunately that turned out not to be the case.
While he was off to emergency (via cab, he felt an ambulance was not needed) I cleaned up the gore-filled house of horrors. apparently I cleaned up a chunk of Tim in the process, which I am happy to report I did not notice at the time. I also let Barley out so he could pee. He was just getting to the whining stage by the time I’d finished the mopping and sweeping. Whining = “I’m going to pee, it is your choice where that happens.”
All in all, not the usual start to the morning but it could have been worse.
I am now going to try convincing Tim to switch to six packs. In cans.
