Run 384 Average pace: 5:29/km
Location: Brunette River trail and Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Distance: 7.02 km
Time: 38:29
Weather: Sunny and humid
Temp: 24-26ºC
Wind: light
Calories burned: 519
Weight: 160.9 pounds
Total distance to date: 3137
Device used: iPhone 6
I decided to stretch a bit and do a 7K run instead of the usual weeknight 5K. I ran the river trail then headed to the lake and ran another 5K to Still Creek then made my way to the nearby Burnaby Lake SkyTrain station for a nice ride home.
My pace was 5:29/km, which is slower than my last 5K (5:15/km) but faster than my last 10K (5:39/km). With it being quite warm and muggy as well, the results are about in line with what I expected and I had no discomfort or pain, just the usual stiffness starting out.
There were plenty of other runners out enjoying the summer-like conditions, including the titular roving band, about a dozen or so jogging as a group clockwise around the lake. Even though they formed a giant, multi-legged blob on the trail, they kindly and quickly adjusted to allow me to pass by without having to throw myself into a ditch first.
I ended the run a few hundred meters from the SkyTrain station, then did a bit of a sprint on the pedestrian overpass (for some reason it almost always triggers my latent acrophobia so I like getting past it as quickly as possible). I stopped at a convenient fountain for a few welcome sips of water, then lightly jogged into the station just as a train arrived. Timing! The downside to this is I didn’t have a chance to really cool off and the olde train had no air conditioning. As I sat down my body turned into a furnace and I sweated profusely for a few minutes while waiting for my body temperature to settle back to something normal. When I got home my shirt was so bathed in sweat I actually had trouble pulling it off. This is not something I would expect to be a problem in May. All said, I’d still take it over rain.
Sunday looks like it may be cloudy and perhaps a tad cooler. We will see.
The Store may be the worst horror novel I’ve ever read. When I try to think of something positive to say about it the two things that come to mind are 1) it was easy to read (more on this shortly) and 2) it didn’t set my hair on fire. That’s about it.
I’ve never read any books by the prolific Bentley Little (24 novels published since 1990) but he’s a two-time Bram Stoker winner, his novels get consistently good ratings on the usual sites (3.86/5 for The Store on Goodreads) and the premise of The Store intrigued me, so I decided to finally check out his work (there’s a little shopping joke in there if you look, ho ho).
But what could have been a sly take on people turning into obedient sheep beholden to a mega-retailer, with a supernatural twist thrown in, is instead a preposterous and laughably melodramatic story.
Suspension of disbelief can be tricky in horror stories and even more so in horror novels where the author must maintain a book-length narrative alongside the usual supernatural hijinks. The essential problem with The Store is that it’s not believable. It feels like something written by an unsophisticated teenager trying to tell a scary story. The characters are stereotypes, often acting in irrational ways in order to further the plot and the writing is not merely plain, it’s simple to the point of being banal. In The Store, a luxuriously-appointed living room would be described thusly:
The living room was luxuriously appointed, with fancy chandeliers and fancy carpeting. The sofa had big soft cushions like the kind you would find in a five star hotel.
Instead of describing how something is creepy, Little will just say it’s creepy. That doesn’t make something creepy (or scary or sinister or whatever). An example is below. (Warning: creepy!)
That was it exactly. There was something artificial here. Clean and wholesome, yes. But not in a good way. In a creepy way, an unnatural way.
The adults and teenagers all talk using the same speech patterns, “playful” insults and slang. The story repeatedly has scenes set in city council meetings. It’s as exciting as it sounds.
As a reward to those who push through to the end, the story jumps the shark about three-quarters of the way in. The stalwart protagonist Bill the technical writer is subjected to treatment that is probably meant to shock or disgust the reader but instead it’s ludicrous, eye-rolling stuff. The story concludes with a gross “twist” ending that is left unresolved and adds nothing. The characters cry a lot. You may cry if you read The Store. Don’t. There are many horror novels far better than this one.
Run 383 Average pace: 5:15/km
Location: Brunette River trail
Distance: 5.02 km
Time: 26:21
Weather: Mostly sunny, some cloud
Temp: 24-27ºC
Wind: light to moderate
Calories burned: 369
Weight: 160.8 pounds
Total distance to date: 3130
Device used: iPhone 6
I was feeling cranky and the day turned unusually warm when I went out running tonight. At the end of the run the reported temperature was 27ºC. That’s kind of crazy. It even felt a bit muggy.
I got off to a slow start but at least got the phone into the belt without going through a contortion act like on Sunday. I picked up the pace and as I neared the 2K mark I felt surprisingly comfortable, almost relaxed. But then I passed the usual 2K mark, kept going farther and was suddenly really cranky. There was no way I could be running slower.
I pushed a bit on the way back and the right Achilles tendon, feeling sore, smoothed out. That was good. A cramp threatened on my lower right side. That was bad. And I started to feel tired from everything. Also not so good.
Still I ended with an improved pace of 5:15/km, a full eight seconds better than my run one week earlier, which was also a follow-up to a 10K. So overall I end up being pleased with the result. Weird.
Run 382 Average pace: 5:39/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Distance: 10.02 km
Time: 56:38
Weather: Cloudy
Temp: 19ºC
Wind: light to moderate
Calories burned: 740
Weight: 161.5 pounds
Total distance to date: 3125
Device used: iPhone 6
For my second 10K run of the year my goal was to simply improve on my pace over last week’s. Mission accomplished! I went from 5:51/km to 5:39/km.
Bizarrely, the third km was the fastest. I was helped by the weather, which was mild and overcast. The first km was an unusually slow 5:27/km and this was due to technology (and my clumsy hands) failing me. Specifically, the Nike app was still set to play music through the app. I don’t like this because it always shuffles songs, even when you choose an album. I forgot to change the setting so aborted my run to fix the music. Next I had to pace around for a good bit before it finally got a good GPS signal. When I finally started, I couldn’t get the iPhone into the pocket of the spibelt and found myself shoving it behind the belt instead. I’m trying to keep up a good pace while fiddling with all of this and it obviously didn’t work. The second km was even worse, like my body suddenly decided it was very tired. But things improved after that and my pace picked up on the third, ninth and final km.
I experienced some concern around the halfway point when my right ankle started to hurt. Not drastically or anything, just in a way that was unrelated to the Achilles tendon. I tried working out a kink or recalling if I had twisted it in some way. In the end it worked itself out after a few minutes and felt fine for the rest of the run. Just the body being temporarily weird, hopefully.
The trail was not as busy as it would normally be on a Sunday due to the cloudy conditions and the temperature never budged from 19ºC so conditions were pretty comfortable. I was put off by a group of cyclists right at the start of the trail near the dam but they were either heading out or had realized they shouldn’t be there and were sensibly leaving. Dirty cyclists.
Also I had to use the loo before running but the porta-potty was occupied by someone taking a little too long to make me want to be the first to use it after they were done. Instead I found a nice spot tucked around a big ol’ tree not far from the dam, did a scan to make sure no one was close by to have me arrested for indecent exposure…then looked down and saw someone else had used the exact same spot mere minutes earlier, judging from the evidence. It was a bit weird because it was literally the exact same spot.
Anyway, here’s to the next 10K being better still and with less peeing and cylists.
Searching for writing prompts is, on the one hand, easy. I enter “writing prompts” into a Google search and get 12.7 million results. It would take approximately one billion years to comb through 12.7 million results. Luckily, Google ranks the results, putting the allegedly best ones at the top. Let’s take a quick peek at the top three results from Google and check out the embarrassment of riches that shall be found, writing prompt-wise:
Result 1: Creative Writing Prompts, courtesy of Writer’s Digest and written by Brian A. Klems, their online editor. These are actually not bad at all, though they tend to favor specific scenarios rather than general ones (which is a preference, really) and more twists than your small intestine. Example:
Ah the freedom of flight, the weightlessness of free-fall. Doesn’t it feel wonderful? Well it would if you weren’t launching at maximum velocity towards a gaping hole that leads to the center of the earth. Why are you going there? What’s going on?
Result 2: Writing Prompts as featured on a Reddit subreddit. Reddit’s layout bothers me in a way I can’t articulate. The user-submitted prompts here tend to be brief and wacky/kind of dumb. Example:
Your girlfriend is the only protection earth has against an invasion by giant monsters. You want to break up with her. The government won’t let you.
Result 3: 180 Journal Writing Prompts on the Daily Teaching Tools site. The site design is like stepping back in time to 1999. Stare at its layout and you can almost sense the budding Y2K fear. As you might expect, these prompts are aimed at kids and are not built around writing fiction. Example:
Describe a real made-up dream or nightmare.
I’m not sure how a dream can be both real and made-up. Maybe that’s part of the writing challenge, to make the impossible possible. Reach for the stars, kids!
I originally intended this post to be a complaint about how easy it is to find prompts but how difficult it is to find good prompts. I don’t know if Google re-jiggered the results since my last check, but these are generally better than the ones I’d found previously.
That said, I’m still going to ignore all of them in favor of writing some prompts myself. I’m not going to do anything with the prompts, I’m just writing them down because I can. Because I must. But mostly because I’m too lazy and uninspired to do more than that tonight.
You are a contributor to The Worst Writing Prompt website and have been asked to come up with the worst writing prompt ever. What is it? Does it make people scream in horror? It should make people scream in horror.
You have a nice ripe banana. The monkey very badly wants the banana. The monkey is cute and hungry. You refuse to give the banana to the monkey. In 500 words explain what the hell is wrong with you.
You wake up to discover you’ve switched bodies with Karl Marx. Since Marx is dead you find yourself buried alive in his grave, slowly smothering to death under the crushing weight of the earth. Describe your day.
You’ve always wanted to go to a Beach Boys concert and finally score tickets for the front row. Excited, you take your seat, only to find that instead of The Beach Boys, the band on stage is a bunch of skeletons wearing Hawaiian shirts and singing “Kokomo.” They sound a lot like The Beach Boys, though. Do you ask for a refund? Explain why or why not.
Write a story about three blue jays, a raccoon and a grey whale that make a magical journey across Canada.
You are a robot and can only speak in binary code. Write a love poem to a nice female or male robot in binary code.
In the year 2722 acid wash jeans finally come back in style. How does this affect future society?
An old gypsy places a curse on you. You scold the gypsy for perpetuating unhealthy ethnic stereotypes. What happens next?
Persuade a friend to become a drug addict so you can use him to research a story on drug addiction. Just write about it, don’t actually do it because your friend will get high on meth and try to kill you with an axe.
You find an ancient mystic lamp and rubbing it causes a genie to appear. The genie grants you 3,000 wishes. What do you wish for?
Run 381 Average pace: 5:17/km
Location: Brunette River trail
Distance: 5.03 km
Time: 26:38
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 26-24ºC
Wind: light to moderate
Calories burned: 376
Weight: 161.9 pounds
Total distance to date: 3115
Device used: iPhone 6
Work was again exhausting. When I got home I began stuffing apple strudel and tortilla chips into my face. I was not motivated to run, I was motivated to gorge, then hibernate.
Further killing my desire was the unusually warm weather–the Weather Underground app on my phone was reporting 28ºC when I headed out for the run. That is zany hot for May. It’s zany hot for June, July and August, too.
Yes, I did go out. The secret to the running routine when you’re feeling unmotivated is to just change and go outside. If you don’t think about it, the routine can carry you along to where you’d feel bad about not continuing.
I pushed a wee bit more during the first two km and yielded positive results. Instead of a significant drop after the second km, it was a mere 1%. My overall pace of 5:17/km was six seconds better than Tuesday, not bad considering the increased temperature and humidity. A cramp threatened to materialize in my lower right abdomen but never quite gelled (if cramps can indeed gel) so my pace never truly sagged.
Run 380 Average pace: 5:23/km
Location: Brunette River trail
Distance: 5.02 km
Time: 27:05
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 23ºC
Wind: light to moderate
Calories burned: 376
Weight: 162.7 pounds
Total distance to date: 3110
Device used: iPhone 6
Although the temperature was again around 23ºC it felt much warmer, the warmest run for the year to date. As a result I sweated even more than on Sunday. I do not normally think of sweating a lot on mid-May runs.
I was feeling very tired going in, mentally exhausted from work, and also coming off my first 10K on Sunday and a 16+ km walk yesterday. I expected a plodding pace. In the latter half I found enough energy reserves to push during the fourth km (my fastest stretch, actually) and again for the last 500 m after pooping out just prior to that. The result was a mediocre pace of 5:23/km, two seconds slower than my previous 5K. I call it a wash. A sweaty, stinky wash.
The right Achilles tendon felt a little sore but it was fine by the end and I had no other real discomfort, just sluggishness and such. One day 5Ks will seem easy again.
Run 379 Average pace: 5:51/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CW)
Distance: 10.0 km
Time: 58:42
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 23ºC
Wind: light to moderate
Calories burned: 753
Weight: 162.3 pounds
Total distance to date: 3104
Device used: iPhone 6
Today my plan was to run 5K and then run farther if I had the energy for it. To facilitate this I again chose to run at a deliberate pace, rather than try pushing for the need for speed.
I was indeed slower, but, as planned, I felt no great discomfort or anything while running, save for an occasional hint of a cramp in my left shoulder, which continues to be strange. The weather was pleasant and the sun was warm. I even sweated a little.
My pace was a tepid 5:51/km, but I completed a full 10 km and never felt like I was struggling. It felt decent. The trail was clogged with people, due to an event apparently taking place. I saw two people with flags but couldn’t make them out. What I could make out were the vast crowds stretched out all along the trail, forcing some clever weaving and dodging at times. You can tell the regulars from the non-regulars because the latter tend to never realize there are other people on the trail.
Still, I stayed upright the entire time and finished 10K without difficulty. I am emboldened to continue and improve.
Run 378 Average pace: 5:21/km
Location: Brunette River trail
Distance: 5.01 km
Time: 26:51
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 23ºC
Wind: light
Calories burned: 375
Weight: 161.6 pounds
Total distance to date: 3099
Device used: iPhone 6
Tonight, feeling tired and not really into it, plus with my lower legs still a little sore from the beginnings of a new regular run routine, I decided to do something different. Instead of trying for a burst at the beginning and end, I would instead just find a comfortable pace as quickly as I could and then try to maintain it for the rest of the run. I knew this would almost certainly mean the run would be slower but I was curious. And tired.
I ended up being a little slower than on Tuesday (5:21/km vs. 5:19/km) but felt much better during the run. My breathing was more relaxed, I never felt like I was exerting or gasping for breath. The drop after the first km was a little smaller but I still had a fairly massive drop in the last km, perhaps a reflection that I’m still a fair ways off from peak form. I even pushed a wee bit at the end but it just seemed my tiredness caught up with me. It was also warmer and a bit more humid, which may have been minor factors as well.
Still, I liked the results overall. A slightly slower pace in exchange for a much more comfortable experience is a win for me. In fact, I’m giving myself a tiny imaginary gold trophy right now. Yay for me!
I may try a full 10K on Sunday using the same method. My official time will probably be six hours. But I’ll be comfy!
Also, the Nike app/site is strangely rounding down so instead of showing me at 3100 km, it insists I’ve only run 3099. This is why I hate math.
Run 375 Average pace: 5:32/km
Location: Brunette River trail and Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Distance: 5.03 km
Time: 27:52
Weather: Overcast, some sun
Temp: 23ºC
Wind: light
Calories burned: 377
Weight: 162.8 pounds <0.2
Total distance to date: 3085
Device used: iPhone 6
Run 376 Average pace: 5:46/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Distance: 5.03 km
Time: 28:58
Weather: Overcast, some sun
Temp: 23ºC
Wind: light
Calories burned: 377
Weight: 162.8 pounds <0.2
Total distance to date: 3090
Device used: iPhone 6
Having two very solid runs during the week, I still found myself approaching the weekend run with some trepidation, because the mid-week runs were so much better than my previous efforts. It seemed odd. Good, but odd.
My plan was to take the best of the mid-week runs by starting on the river trail, then to continue on to the lake, possibly stretching out to 7K instead of 5K. Looking at the first 2 km of the run, I could see my pace was already well off, though the drop from the first km to the second was about the same. On Thursday I finished the first km at 4:46/km and today lagged behind at 5:00/km, ending with a lousy overall pace of 5:32/km, a big drop from the mid-week efforts.
I walked for the next 15 minutes mulling why this happened but have no good answers. Difference in the time of day? Temperature? Humidity? Alignment of moon/planets?
I then decided to do another 5K because why not? I was halfway around the lake so I’d have to walk it, anyway, and running would get me home sooner to lay down and think further about being slower. Starting just past the bridge at Still Creek, I ran a second 5K and my pace was unsurprisingly slower at 5:46/km but I actually didn’t feel too bad (I got a small stitch in my lower right side on the first run). I took solace in the fact that I did 10K, albeit in a bit of a cheaty fashion.
The only downside came around the 3K mark when I saw a large bug ahead of me. When I say large I’m not talking giant African beetle that can cut your fingers off with its pincers, more like something a little smaller than a housefly but way bigger than a gnat. The reason I saw it at all was because of its size. It flew straight into my mouth, like a bullet fired from a gun. Then it got lodged in my throat. At first I thought I had managed to swallow it (trying to stay positive, I kept thinking free protein, free protein) but it became clear I had not. I started to cough and this moved it into a position where it grew exponentially more irritating. I started gagging and choking. I mixed in more coughs for variety. I was less than a km away from hitting 5K, I didn’t want to stop.
Finally it seemed to go down. I ran into another cloud of them and tried punching the bugs, with limited success. I actually improved my pace over the last km, perhaps lifted by the sense that I was no longer choking to death.
Overall, I am disappointed at my slower pace for these runs, but quietly satisfied that I managed two 5Ks. I am most curious to see what Tuesday will be like.
It does many things right and kept me interested and reading through to the end to find out what happened next, and yet it still ended up as somewhat unsatisfying. It’s still a good story and if you like horror and aren’t squeamish, it may be worth checking out.
The rest of this review has major spoilers, so skip if you are spoiler-averse.
On the plus side, The Ruins moves at a brisk pace, the prose is lean and direct and there is an inexorable sense of moving forward, of events heading toward a definite conclusion. The characters are varied without lapsing into stereotypes and behave much in the way that you might expect people in their early 20s would–with adult care and thought, but always with the undercurrent of their not-distant childhood running beneath, sometimes erupting in emotional outbursts and petulant actions. Basically these people aren’t shy about yelling and fighting with each other.
The story is a variation on people-trapped-in-a-hostile/haunted-environment. In this case it is the area surrounding the titular ruins. My first pet peeve is that there really aren’t any ruins at all. There’s a mineshaft at the top of a hill and that’s about it. But “The Ruins” sounds a lot cooler than “Mineshaft” so there you go.
We follow what ends up being six people, two couples, and two other young men, one Greek and the other German. The German, Mathias, convinces everyone to join him to find his brother, who is with a group of archaelogists at the ruins, located about 11 miles away from the Mexican town of Coba. And so the group of twenty-somethings leaves behind lazing about on tropical beaches to venture into the jungle.
Things start going sideways when one of them backs into some seemingly innocuous vines. This causes the Mayans of a nearby village to freak out and, using bows and pistols, they force the group up the hill. It eventually becomes clear that the vines are very bad and the Mayans, having salted the earth, are determined to not allow anyone who contacts them to leave the ruins. Well, the hill with the mineshaft.
Over the next few days things deteriorate rapidly. The Greek breaks his back falling down the mineshaft, the vines worm their way into one of the men, the vines actively plot and move against them. Several times the vines literally laugh at the group, mocking their fate. How would you feel being laughed at by a plant? And then when you say “I’m out of here” there’s some Mayan standing there ready to fill you full of arrows. You’d probably feel a bit bummed out.
The group struggles to maintain hope as they ration their meager supplies and wait for potential rescue but the story strongly and repeatedly makes it clear that they are doomed. And they are. Spoiler: everyone dies.
Now, some people may have a problem with sentient, evil plants that can plot, mimic human voices, manufacture scents and smells as traps and generally carry on in ways that are unlike any plant you are likely to come across. And really, it’s quite silly. But if you buy in–and author Scott Smith offers no explanation for the vines, which actually helps with this–you can focus on how well the story plays out.
Watching the group struggle with the vines, the elements, and each other, is interesting and for the most part believable, but I think Smith tips his hand too early, leeching the story of suspense when it seems obvious everyone will die. And when everyone does, you start looking for the big picture, the commentary on society or whatever and it’s not really there. The takeaway I got is “if you’re going to some ruins in a place you’ve never been before, be more prepared than these nitwits were. Also, if all the locals act spooked and tell you to stay away, you may want to listen to them.”
A few plot contrivances struck me as implausible, undercutting the reality that had been built up. Eric, the would-be teacher and manbaby, essentially flays himself with a dirty knife, yet improbably lingers on after losing what seems to be most of his blood. He also manages to accidentally stab Mathias directly in the heart. Speaking of lucky hits, when Jeff, former Eagle scout and de facto leader, decides to try breaking through the Mayans’ gauntlet, the first arrow shot at him manages to pierce straight through his neck. Apparently Mayans are uncanny archers.
Another nitpick is certain writing affectations Smith adopts and uses repeatedly. I’m usually okay with these but for some reason they starting standing out like blood-sucking vines on a patch of barren rock and became distractions. One was a beat that ended many scenes, variations of “And so they did” or “And that’s what happened.” The second and one that stood out much more, was the excessive use of “of course.” It felt like there was a sentence on every other page that ended with “of course,” such as “Amy wouldn’t actually kiss the Greek, of course” or “The Mayans would still be waiting for them at the bottom of the hill, of course” or “And that’s what happened, of course.” It started bugging me toward the end. On the one hand, it’s a convenient shorthand that gets across tone in a few words. But anything used to excess is going to be too much, of course.
Still, I liked the writing overall. As I said up top, the prose is lean and direct, Smith is economical and efficient but the writing never seems perfunctory or threadbare. He manages to take a very limiting situation and keeps it interesting and varied. The characters are at times petty and annoying, but never to the point of being genuinely unlikeable.
The Ruins, then, gets a provisional thumbs-up from me. Its premise is goofy, the story telegraphs the ending too early, but the journey to get there is still an interesting one.
