I was also up in weight today, back to 171.2 pounds. Even though it was Friday, the day felt drawn-out and vaguely horrible, so I sought comfort in food.
Tomorrow is my birthday and I’m allowing myself to indulge for the day before taking this whole thing seriously again.
On the plus side, I did go out in the evening for a walk and managed to close my activity rings, so it wasn’t a completely fatful day. And latent guilt may stave off the worst of the indulgences tomorrow. Or so goes my theory of the moment.
The smoke haze was about the same today as yesterday, which means it was better than the grossbuckets smoke a few days ago. It was also a few degrees cooler. BUT. The humidity was 70% and I sweated more (a lot more) than I have doing the same run when it was 30 degrees. Weather be crazy.
I pushed a little harder today and toward the end, on the running part, I could feel the burn in my chest. I’m undecided on whether it was from the exertion or the smoke coating my lungs in soot. I think it was the exertion. I turned in a fairly zippy 5:43/km pace on the second km, which was nice.
Overall, it went well. But regarding this:
Also, after posting signs back in August and then doing nothing for more than a month, they have finally started moving in equipment for the remedial work on the river. They were shut down when I went by, so hopefully the work won’t disrupt my workouts
Wrong! Well, somewhat wrong. The excavator was joined this afternoon by a car, pickup and two dump trucks, one which was being loaded with rock or other river stuff. Hopefully not turtles. I was able to get by without having to wait and while the first truck trundled off ahead of me as I headed back out, it was far enough ahead that the giant dust cloud it ,made had cleared by the time I caught up.
Also, semi-randomly, a lot of people are wearing masks outside now. I wonder if it’s more because of the smoke than the pandemic. I guess we’ll see when the smoke finally clears in a few months or whatever.
Anyway, it was a good, sweaty time, but I won’t object to a little lower humidity for the next outing.
Stats:
Walk 12Average pace: 7:48/km
Location: Brunette River trail
Distance: 7.83 km
Time: 1:01:10
Weather: Light smoke haze
Temp: 22ºC
Humidity: 70% (!)
Wind: light
BPM: 127
Weight: 170.8 pounds
Total distance to date: 91.98 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 8
I had six Triscuit crackers today and that was all for my snacking, so pretty good, considering I also did a walk/run and burned 500 calories there.
Also I admit I have no idea what a tasket is.
My weight was back down today, woo. I went from 171.2 pounds to 170.8 pounds. I’m hoping to dip below 170 again by the weekend. I promise to leave any donuts I may encounter unmolested.
Today the sun could not penetrate the smoke haze but paradoxically, the smoke was lighter and less obnoxious, enough so that I opted to run on my return up the river trail.
My stats were still a bit slower than a typical walk/run because I kept to a more deliberate pace. While the air quality was better, it was still not exactly mountain spring fresh.
It was a bit cooler–and the breeze, when it rose, has a decided fall flavor to it–but the biggest difference other than less smoke was the humidity, which was significantly higher. That meant sweating was copious.
Also, after posting signs back in August and then doing nothing for more than a month, they have finally started moving in equipment for the remedial work on the river. They were shut down when I went by, so hopefully the work won’t disrupt my workouts, though I can’t imagine it will be near as active a worksite as it was back in the summer of 2012.
The stats are in line with a typical walk/run split, with a higher but fine BPM and a much better pace than yesterday.
Walk 11Average pace: 8:00/km
Location: Brunette River trail
Distance: 7.6 km
Time: 1:00:46
Weather: Light smoke haze
Temp: 23ºC
Humidity: 66%
Wind: light
BPM: 123
Weight: 170.8 pounds
Total distance to date: 84.15 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 8
I did snack a little today, but only a small piece of toast with jam and a few crackers. I felt bad afterward. But no Clif bars!
I was up this morning, to 171.2 pounds, a modest 0.3 pound increase. I am hoping that I will resume the downward trend tomorrow, as I exericed today and all that. If I am up again, I promise to only seek comfort in carrot sticks.
The wildfires along the west coast have pumped enough smoke into the Lower Mainland to make our air quality some of the worst in the world. Adding to this, the massive old pier in downtown New Westminster caught fire two days ago and has been belching smoke laced with creosote since. They expect to have it put out today or maybe tomorrow (the fire continues to burn underneath the pier).
Despite having the sun blotted from the sky for days, we got a smidgen of rain yesterday and today a smidgen of blue sky and actual high cloud appeared, not just more smoke.
I decided I’d try a walk, but figured I would just walk and not run, because sucking that noxious air into my lungs is probably not a good idea.
The parking lot outside the condo complex smelled so bad I almost turned around right there, but I figured the air would be better down at the river.
And it was! It was quite warm for the time of month and the air felt thick, but the actual smoke level was a fair bit lower. I did run a bit on the way back, but more like doing intervals, always switching back to a walk before I started breathing too hard.
In the end I was glad to get out. I will be even more glad when the fires are out and the air becomes genuinely breathable again. (One of the most disconcerting parts of the current smoke is this is the third of four summers where this has happened–and the smoke has come from both the north and the south. This does not bode well for the future.)
The stats:
Walk 10Average pace: 8:45/km
Location: Brunette River trail
Distance: 7.67 km
Time: 1:07:10
Weather: Smoke haze
Temp: 26ºC
Humidity: 46%
Wind: light
BPM: 114
Weight: 171.2 pounds
Total distance to date: 76.55 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 8
There are a few things you need to know about Joe Hill. The first is he does not seem to like happy endings. Happy endings do not make him happy. If you are looking for stories of hope or redemption or reconciliation, you will not find them here in any notable measure. The second is that it doesn’t matter, because Hill writes very good short stories, easily moving from fantasy to straight-up horror and stops in-between, while maintaining a tone and voice that is reminiscent of his famous father’s but still uniquely his own. It is a matter of taste when I say I didn’t care as much for certain stories, not a reflection on the talent and skill used to craft them.
Below are mini-reviews of each story. There are minor spoilers, so the non-spoiler summary is: Read this book if you like weird fiction or horror or have enjoyed any of Hill’s previous work.
“Throttle” (with Stephen King): Written as part of an homage to Richard Matheson, this story twists the premise of “Duel” around, making the trucker the hero. Violent and bloody, it is no pun to say this story moves.
“Dark Carousel”: In the notes, Hill confesses to shamelessly riffing on King in this tale of young adults having fun at the expense of the operator of a rather sinister carousel. The premise is absurd on its face, but Hill makes it credible. The ending is great, too.
“Wolverton Station” answers the question, “What would you do if you found yourself on a train in England that seemed to be filled with chatty, refined..and hungry wolves?” Goofy and gruesome, this is the lightest piece in the collection and is good furry fun.
“By the Silver Water of Lake Champlain” starts off-kilter and kind of ends the same way. It’s a melancholic story about kids finding what may be the corpse of a fabled lake monster that captures the absurd logic of kids. And adults.
“Faun” is a twist on the mystic-door-to-another-world story that encapsulates the lack of happy endings in these stories. The biggest knock I have here is that none of the characters were especially likable, and I felt that hurt the overall effect of the story.
“Late Returns” is about a bookmobile that seems to attract ghosts. Hill weaves together the various encounters with the protagonist’s own struggle to come to terms with the deaths of his parents. One of the best in the collection, vintage Hill.
“All I Care About is You” features a rebellious teenage girl in the not-distant-future and the Clockwork automaton that acts as her personal assistant for an hour (after she feeds a couple of tokens into it). This one I immediately started thinking of how the girl would get her comeuppance after the story ended. This left me more satisfied with the story than I would have been otherwise.
“Thumbprint”: A tough as hell woman returns from duty in Iraq, only to find herself hunted on her home turf. Again, the story is delivered well, but the characters are unlikable.
“The Devil on the Staircase”: I read the ebook version of the collection, which dispenses with the staircase effect of the type found in the print edition. I’m kind of glad I didn’t have to read the story that way. Again, horrible people doing horrible things. This is probably the weakest story for me. It never seemed to generate much heat.
“Twittering from the Circus of the Dead”: A story told through tweets. I’ve done this, too. It’s a fun way to present a story and Hill pulls it off well here, right down to the cheeky ending. The people in this story are not horrible for a change.
“Mums” is a devastating look at a “separatist” family and how their lives come unglued while tending to their farm. Here Hill takes a page from Paul Tremblay, presenting seemingly supernatural elements that could also be explained by addled minds, dreams and such. Creepy and sad in equal measure, it captures a more extreme side of America that has all too often come to the forefront in 2020.
“In the Tall Grass” (with Stephen King) is an old-fashioned horror story about people getting lost in a field of very strange and tall grass. This has King’s prints all over it, to good effect.
“You Are Released” was previously featured in the Flight or Fright collection and remains one of my favorite Hill short stories. It’s a harrowing look at the end of the world as viewed through the eyes of the passengers on a commercial flight. I don’t know if the story resonates more with me as someone who grew up in the shadow of the cold war, but this one really hits.
I did not feel well this morning. Some combination of the allergies, smoke and who knows what left me feeling clobbered, tired and wanting to stay in bed. Which I did, for awhile.
This led me to return briefly to using food for comfort, which I partly regretted later. The snacking:
A Clif bar
A small piece of toast covered with the last of the Nutella
So it could have been worse.
In better news, I weighed myself at the usual time this morning and came in at 170.9 pounds, which is up over Friday, but not egregiously so, and is pretty decent for a weekend of indulgence and virtually nothing but take-out food.
For the rest of the week and the month my goal is to get under 170, stay there consistently and begin the march to 160 pounds.
Because with the entire west coast on fire and the smoke heading north (here), going for an outdoor walk or run right now seems ill-advised.
I was actually not feeling that great today, a combination of allergies, smoke and who knows what else, but I figured at the very least a treadmill workout would clear my sinuses for awhile. and it did. For awhile.
I tried my Blaux portable AC thinger and it provided minimal cooling. The Vornado fan, set to High, is much more effective at keeping me cool, because moving lots of air helps more than slowly cooling all the air.
In terms of performance, it was very similar to the last workout on August 31st.
Stats:
Pace: 9:26/km (9:28 km/h)
Time: 30:05 (30:03)
Distance: 3.18 km (3.17 km)
Calories burned: 290 (300)
BPM: 138 (139)
Today was kind of a cheat day, as we were returning from Parksville and snacked on some Miss Vickies potato chips while waiting for the ferry. They were yummy and I’ll regret it tomorrow.
I have no weight-related news to report again, as my morning was once again scale-free at the house in Parksville. I suspect tomorrow will see me having to restart the trek back to 170 and below anew.
UPDATE: For fun (?) I weighed myself after dinner, which I never do because that is when I will be my most weightful. Yes, that is now a word. The result?
173.3 pounds, up 3.3 pounds since Friday. Zounds! But my body fat percentage dropped a full half percent. Yay! But Fitbit now considers me slightly overweight again. Boo.
This was a full day spent house-sitting in Parksville, over on smoke-filled Vancouver Island. To be fair, everywhere is smoke-filled right now, due to fire all up and down the west coast of the U.S.
I did not snack as such, sticking only to the three meals, but the meals were not exactly calorie-light:
Breakfast: Sausage McMuffin with Egg and hash brown
Lunch: Chow mien with lemon honey ginger chicken
Dinner: Tropical Hawaiian pizza from Panago
Plus a small cup of chocolate mousse for dessert after dinner. This was probably a combined 50,000 calories. It just means I’ll have to dedicate myself that much more on return to the mainland!
No weight report today as the Parksville abode does not have a scale. I’ll just assume (hope) I am under, say, 174 pounds. Maybe.
