Run 416: Old new shoes and I almost swallowed a bug

Run 416
Average pace: 5:51/km
Location: Burnaby Lake CCW
Distance: 7.12 km
Time: 41:41
Weather: Sunny with some high cloud
Temp: 9-11ºC
Wind: low
BPM: 166
Stride: n/a
Weight: 167.7 pounds
Total distance to date: 3369
Device used: Apple Watch and iPhone 6

A repeat of Friday’s run and the first time I’ve done multiple runs in a week all year, woo. The weather was nicer, with little wind and mostly sunny but still a bit on the chilly side. I wore my new long-sleeved running shirt (which is still much lighter than my old gray one, which is currently stinky and unwashed thanks to a broken washing machine) and it was a good call, at least on the walk to the lake.

Although the actual timing on the run was basically the same as Friday it felt better, with the last km not being “oh god please let it end.” I also switched back to the Hoka’s, which meant sacrificing another pair of socks. I need new socks, anyway. My left foot was grateful, though, and was remarkably well-behaved for the run. This, too, was a good call.

Despite primarily sunny skies I still encountered the worst weather while jogging–dogs. In this case it was one of those little dust mop dogs running around off-leash (shocking, I know). For reasons only it knows it veered from its side of the path and ran directly in front of mine. I had to put on the brakes to keep from stomping on it. Dear idiot who didn’t put his dog on a leash: This is why your dog should be on a leash, because dogs are dumb but humans are generally smarter. In this case it was more dumb and dumber. There were other holiday walkers out today and you can always tell them from people who regularly walk the trails because they will almost always fan out to block the entire path, then act surprised when they encounter other people who want to get by.It makes me long for the invention of the holodeck.

Overall, though, the run was fine. I felt decent and having a few days off instead of a week had no real effect on my performance.

And the bug? It hit my upper lip and bounced off, which is a good thing because that sucker was huge. It would have been a choking hazard.

1,000 creative writing prompts: 3 of 1,000

Prompt 3
(from Chapter 1: Time and Place):

What past decade or century would you consider your favorite and why? Do you think you’d be happier living back then or in the present day and why?

Answer:

Let’s start by ruling out a few centuries, like those from four billion years ago when the world was all poison skies, seething oceans of acid and generally quite inhospitable to life*. I’m pretty sure I would not have preferred living back then because your life would be over in a few seconds.

I’ll also rule out eras like the Dark Ages for obvious reasons.

That still leaves plenty of decades and/or centuries to choose from, so I will narrow my focus further, to the last century. Surely there’s one decade from back then that would be totally awesome to live in versus today’s world of myopic politics, global warming and reality TV.

1900s: Not all of them, just the first ten years or the aughts as they call them. This decade saw the birth of powered flight, a pretty exciting development. Early powered flight mostly consisted of crashing and death, which dulls the excitement a little. I’m also pretty sure a lot of people still got scurvy and polio and died by age 30, just like in Logan’s Run. Pass.

1910s: I remember this decade for two things: The Titanic sinking and World War I. Pass.

1920s: A giddy, freewheeling era if you believe movies set in the 1920s. This was also the time of Prohibition but since I don’t drink booze that wouldn’t affect me. No TV would almost be a bonus. I’d consider this decade except I’d be afraid of getting shot by gangsters because they were everywhere, right?

1930s: Would you want to live in a decade known for something called The Great Depression? Neither would I.

1940s: World War II was a bigger but not better sequel. Pass.

1950s: Prosperity and the rise of the nuclear family. Radio, TV, movies, cars with gigantic fins and grilles. The birth of rock ‘n roll. It was a crazy, groovy time. Unless you weren’t white. Also not a particularly enlightened era. Pass.

1960s. A time of turmoil, war, assassinations, peace protests and moonshots. I actually lived in this era for the first six years of my life but didn’t particularly experience any of the aforementioned things. Would I want to as an adult? Maybe for a week, just out of curiosity.

1970s: I was there once already. Once was enough.

1980s: Where all the bad taste and terrible music of the 1970s continued, but with more synthesizers. I was an adult in the 80s so this doesn’t really count. That also rules out the 1990s.

In review, the last century sucked. We might have a lot of problems here in the early part of the 21st century but we also have electric cars, gay marriage and the ability to order anything–anything–online and have it delivered to your doorstep. The good outweighs the bad, at least for now.

My answer may change in ten years if Vancouver is fully submerged under the Pacific Ocean.

* this may not be an entirely accurate description but it nonetheless captures the essence of “you wouldn’t want to live here because you would actually die”

[spoiler title=”Explanation of this exercise” icon=”plus-circle”]I am using the prompts featured in 1,000 Creative Writing Prompts, Volume 2 (Goodreads link) to write ultra-short stories that are no more than a few paragraphs long. I will work through the prompts in order. After that, I will perhaps have a party of some sort.

Sometimes instead of a story I will simply answer the questions (most of the prompts are in the form of questions).[/spoiler]

Run 415: NEW new shoes and I think I swallowed a bug

Run 415
Average pace: 5:52/km
Location: Burnaby Lake CCW
Distance: 7.02 km
Time: 41:13
Weather: Sun and cloud mix
Temp: 11ºC
Wind: low
BPM: 166
Stride: n/a
Weight: 167.7 pounds
Total distance to date: 3362
Device used: Apple Watch and iPhone 6

The nicest thing about today’s run was the weather. There was some actual sun! When it wasn’t sunny it was still mild with little wind, so my choice to wear a short-sleeved shirt proved wise.

I bought a pair of Brooks Cascadia 11s and tried them out today. Unlike the Hoka’s they have a neutral stance, similar to the other trail runners I’ve had. At first they seemed fine, if a tiny bit snug, but more in that new shoe way than anything. After awhile my left foot started to hurt but it was in a way that felt different than the Hoka’s. The foot actually felt like it was going numb, the side effect of which was that it did not seem to hurt as much.

Unfortunately the numbness subsided and then it hurt more than the Hoka’s. Not enough to affect my pace, but enough to be noticeable. Worse, they failed the shoe lace test, with the right shoe coming untied with about 500 or so meters left in the run. If I really want to I can solve this with better laces or superglue or something.

The walk home the left foot felt initially worse but then, almost paradoxically, felt better as I continued to walk. As expected, there was no color bleeding on the shoes.

In the end I was a bit disappointed by the Brooks. I’ll try them again, but I’m thinking they may end up relegated to becoming street shoes like my last pair (which actually turned out to be very comfortable in a role they were not designed for).

The run itself found me feeling a bit tired, especially toward the end. My pace was a bit slower but only a touch, but I really wanted this run to end. I kept looking at my watch and you know what happens when you do that.

Heart rate was down slightly, though.

Overall this run was decent to middling. I didn’t feel like I made progress but neither did I feel like I back slid, either.

Oh, and the bug? Around a kilometer in I suddenly had this huge need to hack. Fortunately it didn’t persist but I’m pretty sure it was caused by the intake of a big, juicy bug. The sun has no doubt awakened a bunch from the numerous ponds dotting the edge of the trail. Also, the skunk cabbage was super-stinky today. It definitely motivates you to pick up the pace.

1,000 creative writing prompts: 2 of 1,000

I’m going to stick to a specific naming convention for the prompts I use from Creative Writing Prompts, Volume 2, just to be neat ‘n tidy. You can see the format in the title of this very post. Exciting!

Prompt 2
(from Chapter 1: Time and Place):

What past memory do you cherish the most and why? If you could trade that memory for something amazing to happen in the future, would you do it? Why or why not?

Answer:

What do I look like, some incredible brainiac with a steel trap mind that remembers everything and forgets nothing? Did you know short term memory only lasts about 30 seconds and almost everything we take in is immediately discarded as useless junk and forgotten?

I can immediately think of some nice memories–the giddy sensation of vertigo riding a roller coaster on summer vacation, the giddy sensation of awesome sex when I was young and had enough energy to knock over trees, the giddy sensation of coloring inside the lines in grade two (there was one kid in my class who was seriously great at this, which is no mean feat in grade two; like any gifted artist, I imagine he grew up to be a heroin addict, alcoholic or reality TV show contestant) and the giddy sensation of being in a car that got clipped by another and spun off into a nearby ditch. Since I was dozing at the time (note: I was not driving), I was jostled awake, opened the car door and fell into the ditch. Even though I got to ride in an ambulance, the greatest injury I suffered was the indignity of getting out of a car and falling into a ditch. Come to think of it, that’s not really a memory I cherish so much as one I cannot forget.

But let’s pretend that was my most cherished memory ever. If I could trade it for something amazing happening in the future, would I do it? For this exercise I’ll assume the amazing thing is something that would happen to me specifically and not something like world peace or a sudden magic solution to global warming. The answer is yes, I would make that trade in an instant. Why? Because if I traded away the memory, I wouldn’t know it was gone–otherwise it would still be a memory–and I’d have something amazing happen in its place, like developing telekinesis, knowing all the winning lottery numbers, or once again having the energy to knock over trees.

[spoiler title=”Explanation of this exercise” icon=”plus-circle”]I am using the prompts featured in 1,000 Creative Writing Prompts, Volume 2 (Goodreads link) to write ultra-short stories that are no more than a few paragraphs long. I will work through the prompts in order. After that, I will perhaps have a party of some sort.

Sometimes instead of a story I will simply answer the questions (most of the prompts are in the form of questions).[/spoiler]

The writing prompt adventure is just beginning (again)

Previously I had vowed to do all 1,000 prompts featured in 1,000 Creative Writing Prompts, Volume 2. I stopped after, well, the first prompt. I found most of the prompts didn’t lend themselves to fiction, being more journal-style exercises. I don’t need ideas for a journal. I have plenty of things I can prattle on about or cat pictures to link to.

But then I found the writing prompt well running dry. A sense of desperation swept over me, like someone with a giant broom doing some serious sweeping on top of me and instead of sweeping up dust or dirt this giant broom was sweeping desperation and instead of sweeping the desperation away it was, in fact, sweeping the desperation directly atop me..

Anyway, I’ve decided I’m going to work through the remaining 999 writing prompts because if a prompt doesn’t suit my needs I will take creative license and make it suit my needs. I’ll show those prompts who’s boss.

I predict a lot of nonsense.

For reference, here is the first writing prompt from the book: Writing prompt 1: Inevitable time travel and my intended goal, which I dropped like a rabid rattlesnake back in April 2015:

Specifically, I am going to use the prompts featured in 1,000 Creative Writing Prompts, Volume 2 (Goodreads link) to write ultra-short stories that are no more than a few paragraphs long. I will work through the prompts in order, one per day. After that, I will perhaps have a party of some sort.

Sometimes instead of a story I will simply answer the questions (most of the prompts are in the form of questions).

I will start on the second writing prompt (which will confusingly appear as writing prompt #9 here) tomorrow. Or else.

Run 414: First day of Spring 2016 with bonus rain rain rain

Run 414
Average pace: 5:50/km
Location: Burnaby Lake CW
Distance: 7.45 km
Time: 43:28
Weather: Rain, rain, rain
Temp: 9-11ºC
Wind: low
BPM: 168
Stride: n/a
Weight: 170.3 pounds
Total distance to date: 3355
Device used: Apple Watch and iPhone 6

Today is the first day of spring and I’m pretty sure we hit our quota of rain for the season already. I know because I was there.

As I headed out, it was about 9ºC, which is relatively mild. A light rain was falling from the moment I stepped outside and it did not let up the entire run. It actually started coming down fairly hard toward the end. Fortunately it had not been raining for long before I went out so while there was a good amount of puddle hopping there was only one small spot that required especially dexterous maneuvering.

My lower legs still emerged covered in a spray of dirt and more curiously, a fair amount of bits of bark.

There were few people out given the weather, but the split was even between walkers and runners. Everyone looked very wet. Most walkers eschewed umbrellas for sturdy raincoats with hoods. Most of the runners just got soaked. Like me.

I started feeling a bit of a burn and then a stitch in my left side, a sure sign that my early pace was exceeding my grasp. I slowed down and eventually the stitch subsided. I tried picking up the pace toward the end and the splits bear this out, with the last 1.5 km being a bit brisker. That first km was 5:13/km, altogether too fast for my current level of fitness. Fortunately my body is not shy about sending signals to the effect of “OH MY GOD ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME?! YOU ARE, I CAN TELL. SLOW DOWN, IN THE NAME OF ALL THINGS HOLY, SLOW DOWN!”

My overall pace of 5:50/km is my best of my weekly runs and I even ran a decent bit more than intended, going 7.45 km instead of the planned 7 km.

The left foot was hurting a little but it was pretty minor and I don’t feel it affected my pace.

I am as pleased with this run as I am displeased with the weather during it, so pretty pleased!

I am tentatively planning on starting thrice-weekly runs again by heading out after work on Tuesday, probably on a 5K on the Brunette River trail. We shall see.

Book review: 11/22/63

11/22/6311/22/63 by Stephen King
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

11/22/63 is very by-the-numbers.

Sorry, had to get the inevitable and terrible pun out of the way.

11/22/63 is one of King’s best post-accident (post-1999) works, a long and adventurous novel that jumps feet-first into the time travel paradox. As expected, giving much thought to the logistics of time travel only reveals the gaps and flaws common to this particular sub-genre of science fiction. King knows this, too, and steers clear of trying to provide plausible scientific reasoning, leaving it up to the butterfly effect and what the main character of school teacher Jake Epping calls “harmonics.”

Saving Kennedy is a favorite time-travel trope, probably the most popular after killing Hitler, and King neatly lays out the scenario where Epping goes back to September 1958 and adapts to living for five years in an era before he was born, all the while tracking his prey, Lee Harvey Oswald. Along the way Epping falls in love with both the past and another school teacher, the tough if clumsy Sadie Dunhill.

Typically, King does a terrific job in fleshing out the many characters, while the sounds and sights of late 50s and early 60s America feel authentic. The story sprawls but never drags as Epping faces obstacle after obstacle while moving closer to his target. As the repeated refrain goes, the past is obdurate and doesn’t want to be changed.

To say more would venture into spoiler territory and although the book has what amounts to two endings, both are fine. There are no giant spiders here. 😛

Unlike King’s horror fare, 11/22/63 has broader appeal, to fans of time travel stories, to those who enjoy the whole “fish out of water” thing and finally, to anyone who enjoys watching characters whose actions and complexities drive the action, rather than the other way around.

View all my reviews

Writing prompt 8: Maybe later

Two things bug me about creativewritingprompts.com:

1. The author uses this smiley: :o)

The bulbous nose reminds me of clowns and like any sensible person, I do not like clowns. It’s also aggressively cutesy.

2. Every writing prompt is hidden behind a mouseover pop-up. Is this to prevent people scraping the site and selling the prompts on the black market? Is it to be cutesy? Did a clown goad the author into doing this?

Anyway, what follows is prompt #108 from the site and the eighth prompt I’ve posted here.

Prompt #8: List 10 things you do whenever you procrastinate

  1. Wait
  2. Look for writing sites to make fun of while being secretly ashamed at only ever having been published in a Moose Lodge newsletter when I was 12
  3. Watch a YouTube video, which inevitably turns into an entire evening of watching terrible music videos from the 1980s, culminating in another viewing of the literal version of “Total Eclipse of the Heart”
  4. Stare up at clouds and see in them the faces of famous dictators. “There’s Mussolini!”
  5. Write lists
  6. Hum to myself until the person next to me says, “Stop that damned humming.”
  7. Think how procrastination compares to amateurcrastination
  8. Look busy because appearances are important
  9. Grow slightly older
  10. Turn my name into clever anagrams like Jam As Nest and Man Ass Jet

Book review: What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions

What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical QuestionsWhat If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a funny, nerdy book that answers some very silly science questions with actual science. There’s also a lot of math, including numbers that are so big you probably don’t want to think much about them. I hate math (or rather, it seems math hates me) but enjoyed the book all the same. Don’t let any math aversion turn you away.

Randall Munroe is the author of XKCD, a stick figure comic that also features a lot of math (and science and technology and stuff). In What If? he answers questions like “What would happen if every person on Earth jumped up and down at the same time?” (answer: not much of anything) As with XKCD, the writing is brainy but accessible and the tone remains light, as one might expect when answering something like “What would happen if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at 90% the speed of light?” (answer: basically you get the equivalent of a nuclear bomb and would not advance to first base as first base would be vaporized along with everything else in the park)

The questions are regularly interspersed with just-a-little-too-weird “I’m not going to answer that” examples. I can only imagine how many of these types of questions Munroe has received.

The book contains a lot of illustrations to go with the scientific theory, all done in Munroe’s stick figure style. He occasionally teases more complex drawings, suggesting he is not just a one-stick pony, as it were.

What If? is one of those books that’s just plain fun to read. If you think you might enjoy some random answers to random and weird science questions, jump in.

One caution, though. Due to the large number of illustrations, this is a book you may find reads better on a tablet vs. an ereader. The images are black and white, though, so most modern ereaders should handle them decently.

View all my reviews

Run 413: Strange crashes in the woods

Run 413
Average pace: 5:56/km
Location: Burnaby Lake CCW
Distance: 7.05 km
Time: 41:55
Weather: Overcast, showers
Temp: 7-8ºC
Wind: moderate to strong
BPM: 168
Stride: n/a
Weight: 168.8 pounds
Total distance to date: 3348
Device used: Apple Watch and iPhone 6

I headed out earlier today to beat the rain and beat some of it.

The rest fell on me.

The day was cool and a strong breeze made it cooler still. The sky looked semi-threatening and the forecast indicated I’d complete my run before any real rain would start. Just over 2.5 km in, having just exited the Piper Mill Trail, a light sprinkle began. It remained much the same for the rest of the run, picking up a little toward the end.

After the run it turned into a downpour, so the last four km or so I got thoroughly soaked. It was the kind of weather that would have made it very difficult to motivate myself to get out in, so the decision to start early was wise indeed.

I opted to run 7K and managed it without issue, coming in with a slightly slower pace that pretty much equals out to the 5K pace of a few weeks ago. That’s nice to see.

The left foot was a tiny bit sore during the run but perfectly tolerable. I experienced no other issues.

There were no cyclists on the trail today. Hooray! There were several unleashed dogs. Boo! The runners started outnumbering the walkers as the weather worsened but other than a few dedicated walking groups, traffic was pretty light.

The strange crashing happened somewhere after the 9K mark when I was walking out, a few hundred meters shy of the Avalon Trail. I heard a loud crash just behind me and to my right. I snapped my head back (after leaping into the air) and couldn’t see anything immediately obvious but the woods here are marshy and filled with deadfall. There was a very large branch weighing down on other fallen timber and I suspect that may have been what I just heard. Recent storms with high winds and heavy rain have created optimal conditions for trees and branches to come down and there were several chainsawed trees along the trail that hadn’t been there last week. The fact that it seemed to be happening while I was there made me eye every slightly leaning tree for the rest of the trip around the lake.

Nearly every tree leans slightly at Burnaby Lake.

I escaped unscathed, apart from getting completely drenched and overall the run was a success. I increased my distance, maintained my pace and felt fine after. Now that Daylight Saving Time has kicked in, I should be able to start doing 5Ks after work soon™.

Note: The Speedgoats are still bleeding blue into my soaks for the fifth run in a row. I may pick up a different pair of shoes this week or at least see if I can exchange these ones as they’re clearly defective or my feet have new mutant color-absorbing abilities that coincidentally only activate when I’m wearing the Speedgoats.

Run 412: More distance, less stinky and fewer cyclists

Run 412
Average pace: 5:54/km
Location: Burnaby Lake CW
Distance: 6.06 km
Time: 35:50
Weather: Overcast
Temp: 11ºC
Wind: moderate
BPM: 166
Stride: n/a
Weight: 169.2 pounds
Total distance to date: 3341
Device used: Apple Watch and iPhone 6

The forecast thundershowers did not materialize for today’s run and though it sprinkled a little before and after the run, I once again lucked out by having the run itself stay dry. The recent rain meant the area around the fields required some nigh-impossible puddle-dodging, however. This is the last stretch of trail around Burnaby Lake that hasn’t been effectively shored up, so regular rain will often still produce mini-lakes that force you to go into the field to avoid. In this weather the field’s edges are bog-like, so it’s not much of an improvement. Basically, you don’t want to be wearing nice shoes here.

It was also 11ºC again, but with the wind gusting less, it felt much milder. It was nice.

Speaking of shoes, the fourth time out the Speedgoats still bled blue onto my socks, however the blue is a lot less prominent now and maybe in another half dozen runs or so it might stop. That’s still not really acceptable, but it is something to look forward to, sort of. The laces again felt loose on the walk back, but remained tied.

The skunk cabbage did not stink this week. It will stink again, though, as sure as spring officially arrives in two weeks.

Two cyclists rode past me as I began my walk back along the Cottonwood Trail. I thought evil thoughts as they went by (“Crash into each other!” “Get attacked by insane squirrels!”) but really, all I’d like is for people like them to use the roughly billion other trails and spaces in the lower mainland where cycling is allowed.

The run itself was largely a repeat of last week, with the pace within the mathematical margin of error at 5:54/km (it was 5:53 last week). However, I did push out to just over 6 km instead of the usual 5 km, so I was effectively faster. The extra km did not prove taxing so I’ll probably continue ramping up toward doing a full 10K loop again.

Overall, I was pleased with the effort. I can tell I’m making progress as much of my thought process during the run has shifted to various random things and away from “Dear god, when is this run going to end?”

March 2016 writing plans

To be revisited on March 31 to see if I was being a big fat liar.

  • continue to write daily posts to this blog or at least write daily something (forum posts and grocery lists don’t count)
  • do at least one writing exercise per week or if I’m hot ‘n heavy on something bigger, do one every two weeks
  • complete one new short story (I actually have an idea for this, I just need a few more details sorted out before diving in)
  • start work on completing another story for Pairs of Shorts
  • dive back into Road Closed if I feel I’m ready (this will depend largely on everything above)

Now that I’ve written all of this out, I have to do it. It’s the law of the Internet or something.