I got up this morning and thought, “Gee, my legs are still pretty sore!” Then I looked out the window and also thought, “Gee, the frost sure looks heavy today.” Then I realized it was not frost, but snow, it was sticking and already piling up.
Damn snow.
The temperature rose enough later to change it from snow to rain and by the time I was homeward-bound in the afternoon most of it was gone, as is usual in these parts. I predict this is the end of the local snow shenanigans this winter. If I’m wrong I promise to take a picture of myself eating a snowball.
2010 was a moribund year for me as far as writing went. I flamed out halfway through National Novel Writing Month, the writing group fell apart and my output slowed and then pretty much stopped for most of the year.
I’ve vowed to make 2011 the start of my writing renewal and part of that has been taking the writing group and exercises and moving them off a couple of scattered subforums and onto their own website, thenwrite.com. I’m hoping it will keep me and the other participants inspired and excited about putting words to page (and screen).
Four months later and I have finally completed another jog. Woo!
My plan was to complete 5K.
Conditions were favorable for the time of year, with the temperature ranging 3-4ºC, only a slight breeze at the start and partly cloudy skies, with the sun actually poking out a few times. I walked a circuit at China Creek Park first to check out the path and while there were no puddles the trail was rather mushy in spots, about what I expected given the recent rain.
I dressed in shorts since my manly tree trunk* legs don’t feel the cold much, wore a t-shirt with my jogging jacket and eschewed gloves, remembering all the times I’ve overdressed on previous runs. After the first km my hands still felt like blocks of ice so I was wondering if I’d made the right call but they warmed up a short time later and were fine the rest of the way.
By the second km I was beginning to feel some cramping in my chest and my legs suddenly gained roughly 300 pounds each. At this point the only other jogger out sailed past me. He was something like four feet taller than me so I figured he was fast due to his huge, hill giant-like stride. It couldn’t be because I had lost every trace of my conditioning!
As it turned out, I only lost most of my conditioning. My first km came in at a perfectly respectable 5:07/km but the rest of the run fell off the cliff, with my time plunging to 5:26 by the second km and continuing lemming-like for the next two km before leveling off as I finally hit my stride in the last stretch. By that point I was fully warmed up, the cramping had diminished and the legs, though still heavy, didn’t feel quite as burdensome.
Afterward, I felt fine and recovered quickly. My knee did not bother me at all and my legs are otherwise fine. I think my left shoe is a bit wonky up front so I will probably look for a new pair soon. I’ve put in probably over 700 km on these ones, so they’ve served me well.
Fortunately, the pages have been shrunk through the science of something I just made up and they are now small enough to fit on the head of a pin, unlike the collected books comprising The Wheel of Time, for example, the weight of which could serve to batter down doors or stop a runaway cruise ship (like in Speed 2. I never really watched that movie but I did manage to catch the ending on TV once and I stood there staring at the screen, baffled and amazed at the sight of an actual runaway cruise ship. It was a definite ‘What were they thinking?’ moment. Good call by Keanu to bail on this sequel. That good call was subsequently offset by the many other terrible movies he went on to appear in, unfortunately, but a boy’s gotta eat).
I did not jog today due to spending a little more time with Tim getting and setting up his shiny new computer with patented* Harry Potter** interface, but I am rescheduling for tomorrow. Since it was also windy as all get-out today and I hate running in the wind (not to be confused with running like the wind) I am not too upset about putting it off for another day.
* it probably isn’t actually patented but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was
** seriously, the opening steps on initial startup that HP (Hewlett-Packard) forces the user to go through looks like some weird Harry Potter-esque thing with weird disembodied hands (Tim called them jazz hands)
Just kidding! This blog post is entirely self-contained. Once you get to the end of it you will have complete closure and no need to read a follow-up post to find out how it all ends.
Sometimes I think I am the only person out there who prefers to read novels that begin and end in the same volume instead of being laid out over the course of 10 books and 10,000 pages, half of which are probably unnecessary. Maybe this is why I read so little fantasy. Or maybe I just hate elves. Or I’m simply jealous because Steven Erikson can write hundreds of pounds of books per year and I can only manage maybe half a pound at best.
My left knee has checked out A-OK and the doctor says I am good to resume jogging, which I plan on doing this Monday. When he seemed a bit evasive on the cause of the soreness in my knee I asked, “Is it one of those ‘getting older’ things?” He immediately started in with, “Well, I wouldn’t want to put a name on it…” which seemed like a polite way of saying, “Yes”. But he was polite, so no dirty look for him!
Here’s hoping my Nike+ sensor still has some juice in it. Here’s also hoping I don’t collapse face-first into the mud after 200 meters.
Today is 1/11/11. It’s either the highest-scoring day ever or the lowest, depending on the scale you use.
Only 11 years, 1 month and 1 day until until 2/22/22 rolls around! (Did I do the math right? I hate math. Barbie was spot-on there. The old dumb Barbie, I mean, not the new computer scientist version that fools no one.)
After a few instances of being the proverbial boy who cried wolf, Environment Canada correctly forecast the first real dump of snow for Vancouver this month, as it began piling up a few hours ago. It’s expected to get warmer and turn to rain by morning but it looks pretty enough right now. Best of all, no shoveling!
I wonder if this will be the last blast of traditional winter weather. My famous* weather intuition is not getting a clear picture on this. I’m going to guess we’ll see at least one more notable snowfall. In March.
Technically it will still be winter when it happens.
* famous in the sense of “I just made this up now”
How can something so stunningly elegant and pretty be such a pain to shovel?
New Scientist magazine has about a dozen images of snowflakes captured using a unique snowflake photomicroscope. The images can be viewed here. The symmetry and grace of these tiny things helps remind me that sometimes the earth is a pretty cool place (no pun intended).
Today Jeff and I hiked up Burnaby Mountain for an hour, completing our trek in about an hour instead of the expected two. It was the first time I’d be on a mixed use trail, in this case one for both cyclists (specifically of the genus mountain bike extremus) and hikers. Within moments of ascending we had our first cyclist wheeling down toward us. Since they have momentum and it’s difficult, if not dangerous, for them to try to stop, we obligingly hopped out of the way each time. I was a bit uncomfortable with this at first but everyone was so dang polite it didn’t bother me after awhile.
Then we didn’t seem any more riders.
The climb was milder than the one we did last week at Buntzen Lake but we gained a few hundred meters of elevation, at least, and some of the parts we climbed are apparently considered advanced, according to maps (see below).
No pictures since there was only one small lookout along the way, but I may take some if we return.
The route we took is seen below. We began on the road, walked east and headed up Nicoles Trail, over to Gear Jammer, down to Function Junction and finally down the aptly-named Lower Snake Trail (switchbacks ahoy!) before coming back to our starting point on Pipeline Trail. Not a bad little workout and the weather was very cooperative — clear and a few degrees above freezing.
