The 12.33K run

Distance: 12.33 km
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 19ºC
Wind: none
Calories burned: 862
Average pace: 5:10/km
Total distance to date: 1029 km

I knew I would feel more discomfort in my shins tonight because of the two back-to-back runs a few days back and sure enough that is how tonight’s run began. In fact they felt so tender I wondered if I would even complete the run at all. You can see this early on where despite starting with a decent time I add an impressive five seconds after the first km. The achiness never got worse so I managed to keep my pace stable. Then something weird happened.

The endorphins kicked in, I found my zone or something clicked because I managed to make up for that slow stretch over the rest of the run and recovering from a sluggish start is something that doesn’t happen very often. By the end of the run I not only managed to match my previous pace, I ended up exceeding it (the iPod actually said my average pace was 5:09/km before the Nike+ site cruelly rounded it up to 5:10). With the pain receding and my energy bursting I felt like I could have kept on going strong (my pace for the 12-12.33 km stretch was 4:44) but knowing I might regret this performance in the coming days I cooled my jets.

I ran the loop in reverse again and am almost leaning toward preferring it this way, though I can’t say exactly why just yet. During the 12+ km stretch there is only one small spot where you have to cross a road that leads to the rowing center and it’s usually dead quiet there. Tonight as I emerged from around a blind corner (carefully, as it is a blind corner) a motorcycle came roaring around with the driver evidently one of those “There can’t possibly be anyone else ever on the road!” types, as he came far too close to me for my liking. I later nearly had a fellow jogger smoosh into me doing the same thing on another blind corner. Pay attention, people! Please. 🙂

Chart (All runs at Burnaby Lake except those in blue which are at China Creek):

km Sep 2 Aug 31 Aug 26 Aug 19 Aug 15 Aug 11 Aug 8 Aug 4 Aug 1
1 km 4:52 4:51 4:51 4:50 4:55 4:54 5:04 4:51 4:51
2 km 4:57 4:53 4:55 4:54 4:57 4:55 5:05 4:54 4:52
3 km 5:00 4:57 4:58 4:57 4:58 4:58 5:07 4:59 4:56
4 km 5:02 4:58 5:01 5:00 5:02 5:00 5:09 5:04 4:58
5 km 5:03 4:59 5:05 5:01 5:05 5:02 5:11 5:07 5:00
6 km 5:04 5:01 5:08 5:03 5:06 5:03 5:12 5:09 5:01
7 km 5:06 5:03 5:10 5:05 5:08 5:04 5:14 5:11 5:04
8 km 5:07 5:05 5:12 5:07 5:09 5:06 5:16 5:13 5:06
9 km 5:08 5:06 5:14 5:09 5:11 5:08 5:16 5:14 5:07
10 km 5:09 5:08 5:16 5:11 5:13 5:08 5:17 5:15 5:09
11 km 5:10 5:10 5:18 5:12 5:14 — 5:17 5:16 5:10
12 km 5:10 5:11 — — — — — — —

Another social networking site I never use, hooray! (Google+)

Google+ has some neat ideas and overall I like the look and functionality more than Facebook. As a bonus there are no stupid games to block, at least not yet.

But like most social networking sites I find after setting up an account it quickly goes fallow/gathers cobwebs or whatever metaphor works best for you.

But here it is, my Google+ profile. It is also conveniently linked along with all my other never-used profiles over to the right under My Links.

Coming soon: my never-to-be-used Twitter account!

Book review: My Work Is Not Yet Done

Thomas Ligotti’s My Work Is Not Yet Done is a book that was recommended by several readers on Quarter to Three and I’m always willing to try a new author, so I gave it a go recently. The experience was a bit confusing, not because of Ligotti’s prose, but rather the borked formatting of the Kobo ebook version I was reading, which presented incorrect jumps to the wrong chapter or section. Fortunately the table of contents worked properly and I was able to complete the book without going totally mad.

The heart of the book is a short novel in which the protagonist faces off against seven other ‘swine’ in an office where he correctly figures himself the lowest of the low. He ultimately plots revenge against his co-workers via copious amounts of gunfire but when he suddenly finds himself with supernatural powers he plots out more (extremely) grisly and imaginative ends to the people who demean and mock him. The story is told in the first person and the time spent in Frank Dominio’s mind is at turns fascinating and amusing but ultimately without reward. None of the primary characters in the story are remotely likable.

Ligotti does a good job keeping a consistent and clear tone with the narrative. You may not like Dominio but you will understand him and the frustrations he feels, even as you remain unconvinced that he is not just, as he fears he will be remembered, a kook. More broadly, My Work Is Not Yet Done serves as a philosophical statement on the corporate realm, its inhabitants constantly referred to as swine, its goals and purpose consistently derided. The frank exchanges between the characters in their numerous meetings are simultaneously amusing and depressing.

I enjoyed the craft of the story more than the actual story itself. I’ve not read Ligotti before and have heard this collection may not be fully representative of his work. He is a fine writer but My Work Is Not Yet Done is unrelentingly bleak. The sarcastic, droll observations of Dominio lighten the tone but only slightly. Still, I can’t deny Ligotti’s imagination and skill, so I may seek out some of his other work.

Just not right away.

The 12K run

Distance: 12.04 km
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 19ºC
Wind: none
Calories burned: 841
Average pace: 5:11/km
Total distance to date: 1017 km

This was the first time I’d done back to back runs in, well, so long that I don’t recall the last time I did it. Sometime during the Jurassic era, I think. I was curious to see how I would feel and happily the consecutive run days did not have any negative effects that I can detect.

With my energy level improving I opted to shake things up a little at Burnaby Lake by running the loop in reverse. Overall it didn’t feel much different though it may be slightly easier in reverse as the ground tends to slop more downhill this way. I took one minor wrong turn but it only extended the run by a very small amount. I almost made a wrong turn down the path to the Nature House and while it sounds terribly quaint it is also very much the wrong way to go. I made a quick u-turn and felt a bit like one of those tankers having to turn in a narrow strait. This was more due to my speed and limited space than girth, however. I barely missed stepping into the ditch. That also would have been the wrong way to go.

I was at the 5 km mark before I started to feel anything at all in my legs and the achiness was fairly minor tonight. I pressed on and did my first 12K run, finishing with an average pace of 5:11 (5:08 for 10K). I’m pretty pleased with the result.

Chart (All runs at Burnaby Lake except those in blue which are at China Creek):

km Aug 31 Aug 26 Aug 19 Aug 15 Aug 11 Aug 8 Aug 4 Aug 1 Jul 27
1 km 4:51 4:51 4:50 4:55 4:54 5:04 4:51 4:51 4:56
2 km 4:53 4:55 4:54 4:57 4:55 5:05 4:54 4:52 4:54
3 km 4:57 4:58 4:57 4:58 4:58 5:07 4:59 4:56 4:55
4 km 4:58 5:01 5:00 5:02 5:00 5:09 5:04 4:58 4:56
5 km 4:59 5:05 5:01 5:05 5:02 5:11 5:07 5:00 5:00
6 km 5:01 5:08 5:03 5:06 5:03 5:12 5:09 5:01 5:02
7 km 5:03 5:10 5:05 5:08 5:04 5:14 5:11 5:04 5:04
8 km 5:05 5:12 5:07 5:09 5:06 5:16 5:13 5:06 5:06
9 km 5:06 5:14 5:09 5:11 5:08 5:16 5:14 5:07 5:07
10 km 5:08 5:16 5:11 5:13 5:08 5:17 5:15 5:09 5:09
11 km 5:10 5:18 5:12 5:14 — 5:17 5:16 5:10 5:10
12 km 5:11 — — — — — — — —

A wee run

I opted to do a sort of remedial 5K run today, basically to see how the legs/body would feel without putting as much stress on them as a full 10/11K run would.

For a change of pace and because it’s conveniently close, I ran along the Brunette River trail as seen in this BlurryTech™ iPod nano video still:

The run gently slopes uphill on the way in but it’s so gentle it hardly counts. It’s otherwise flat and mostly shaded by the trees. The sun was just coming out as I ran and in the exposed parts of the trail where the sun hit it was hot as all get-out. Other than that, it was comfortable enough.

The first km was fairly brisk — 4:47/km — but after that my times fell off a cliff. At the 2 km mark I felt like I was plodding along. Mostly just tired and still feeling the effects of the cold. I finished with a pace of 5:01 which, if extrapolated over a full 10K would probably have ended up as a decent 5:11 or 5:12.

The legs seem to be holding up after the run, which is the main thing I was looking for, so I rate this one a qualified success.

Times:

km time
1 km 4:47
2 km 4:52
3 km 4:57
4 km 5:00
5 km 5:01

How to not be eaten by a grue, as revealed by me 26 years ago

I’d like to say I grew up on text adventure games, even though that would identify me as olde, but in reality the genre was already well-developed when I was in my teens. Still, I fondly recall getting nearly all of the Infocom games for my Commodore 64, during the period between 1984 and 1988. By 1989 the market had shifted, Infocom was making games with actual graphics and the text adventure pretty much died. It would be many years before freely-available interpreters and languages for writing text adventures would lead to a minor renaissance of the genre.

You can find information about a lot of the resultant games and more at The Interactive Fiction Archive.

Information on Infocom games can be found at Infocom – The Master Storytellers (and, of course, Wikipedia).

A text adventure was simple to learn–type your actions at a command prompt, read the results, repeat until you have solved all the puzzles in the game–but often the biggest puzzle was figuring out which words or commands the game could understand and the proper way to present them.

Back in that mid-80s era when computer graphics were less sophisticated (ie, crude, terrible) I spent many hours working through Infocom’s games. This was also my first bit of co-op gaming as I usually had a friend assisting me. Two brains will theoretically solve puzzles more capably than one. Until both brains get completely stuck, that is. That’s when you mail order the Invisiclues hint book and wait weeks to finally get an answer. It was the gaming equivalent of walking to school uphill in the snow both ways. And we liked it!

One of the key requirements of playing an Infocom game was making a map. Sure, you could try memorizing the game world and with some simpler titles it might even work, but making a map was essential for nearly all Infocom games. I’m fairly certain that utter madness was the only reward for successfully mapping out all of Zork I and its mazes.

I took to making most of my maps in a sketchbook and recently scanned in some of the more detailed maps. By the end I think I was playing the games more to make the maps than to play the actual games. Going back and looking through the maps also made me realize there are more than a few of these games that I left unfinished. Now they taunt me and I consider re-playing them using programs like Gargoyle or Windows Frotz to help make the experience more pleasurable than those halcyon days of yore with my Commodore 64 displaying 40 whole characters of text on a single line. 40! And I always knew I had successfully solved a puzzle because the 1541 disk drive would start grinding away madly to fetch a new chunk of game. Today I can use Trizbort to automate the mapping process entirely but I know if I do go back I’ll have that sketchbook at hand and start doodling again because it was part of the magic.

And a game without magic is just a game.

Here are the maps I’ve scanned so far.

First up is Zork I. The maze in this game (twisty passages, all alike) requires you to drop items in order to successfully map it out. Following all of these lines still gives me a headache. I never finished the game but I did finish the maze!

Next is Infidel, featuring ASCII hieroglyphics and even a start and end date for the game playthrough. How nerdy.

I have two Enchanter maps, the first image being from the start of the game and the second being the next area. I like the turtle.

And the follow-up area:

Finally the maps for Spellbreaker even includes 3D shading. Fancy!

1000.27 km!

Distance: 11.66 km
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 22ºC
Wind: none
Calories burned: 815
Average pace: 5:18/km
Total distance to date: 1000.27 km

I didn’t run for a full week due to a persistent energy-sapping cold. I approached tonight’s run knowing that I was not going to be anywhere close to fast. I only wanted to reach Nike level Blue — 1,000 km logged. I needed to run about 11.39 km to do it.

I set out and was immediately struck by how very humid it was. Not good, since humid conditions tend to sap my energy and my reserves were already low. Despite a decent first km my time fell off in big chunks over the middle part of the run, due to both conditions and light cramping. The latter half was steadier as the cramps eased and I established a workable pace. I finished with a sluggish time of 5:18/km. It’s funny how a year ago that would have been a record-setting time and now it’s a disappointment.

By the end my shins, especially the left one, were tender enough to give me pause. But I did achieve two milestones as I evaluate whether I’ll be in shape for the next scheduled run:

1) I did my longest run to date at 11.66 km. My next goal, logically, is 12 km. That would only require a minor extension of my usual run, so it shouldn’t be difficult.
2) I reached the Nike level Blue, which means I’ve now tracked 1,000 km on my Nike+ sensor. Not bad for a lazy slob who didn’t run at all for over 20 years! The next Nike level is Purple at 2,500 km. It will be…awhile before I reach that.

Chart (All runs at Burnaby Lake except those in blue which are at China Creek):

km Aug 26 Aug 19 Aug 15 Aug 11 Aug 8 Aug 4 Aug 1 Jul 27 Jul 20
1 km 4:51 4:50 4:55 4:54 5:04 4:51 4:51 4:56 4:53
2 km 4:55 4:54 4:57 4:55 5:05 4:54 4:52 4:54 4:56
3 km 4:58 4:57 4:58 4:58 5:07 4:59 4:56 4:55 4:55
4 km 5:01 5:00 5:02 5:00 5:09 5:04 4:58 4:56 5:00
5 km 5:05 5:01 5:05 5:02 5:11 5:07 5:00 5:00 5:01
6 km 5:08 5:03 5:06 5:03 5:12 5:09 5:01 5:02 5:02
7 km 5:10 5:05 5:08 5:04 5:14 5:11 5:04 5:04 5:03
8 km 5:12 5:07 5:09 5:06 5:16 5:13 5:06 5:06 5:05
9 km 5:14 5:09 5:11 5:08 5:16 5:14 5:07 5:07 5:06
10 km 5:16 5:11 5:13 5:08 5:17 5:15 5:09 5:09 5:06
11 km 5:18 5:12 5:14 — 5:17 5:16 5:10 5:10 —

I went to Duncan and all I got was a giant hockey stick

I did something over the past weekend that I haven’t since I sold my car way back in 1986 — drove over to Vancouver Island. Technically I wasn’t driving, as Jeff did that. We ventured over Saturday morning and returned Sunday afternoon, heading to sunny Duncan via Nanaimo and Departure Bay. Strangely, we picked what was probably the hottest day of the year to visit, noteworthy only in that it has not been hot this year at all.

Once we had arrived in my hometown, I dragged Jeff around various old haunts and took a picture of the giant hockey stick at the Cowichan Community Island Savings Centre. This stick — the world’s largest — came to Duncan after I had moved away. Ironically, I first saw it at Expo 86 after moving to Vancouver and away from Duncan. We noted, with some curiosity, that the big swimming pool/slide area adjacent to the centre was apparently only opened for two hours in the morning on Saturdays. Indeed, an inspection through its darkened windows revealed it was abandoned. Maybe they want people to go muck about in the river or something in the summer.

Giant hockey stick:

Speaking of abandoned, a walk around Cowichan Senior Secondary School proved depressing. Although the small sign out front exhorted everyone to enjoy summer, the school grounds looked not merely empty but desolate. The track had weeds popping up through its surface, the creaking wooden bleachers nearly blasted free of paint, the buildings were faded, paint peeling from their walls. The bus area looked like it had not seen a bus in years; likewise the teacher parking lot. The grassy areas between buildings were unattended and wild, though the fields appeared to have been cut sometime this year. The main photo on the school’s website seems to be from the 1920s* when a horse livery was situated next door. The buildings are actually the same color today. Maybe the school lets things go fallow, so to speak, during the summer months as a cost-saving measure.

This abandoned/depressing theme continued at nearby Kinsmen Park where the monster slide I remembered from my youth had been replaced by a community garden. No kids is going to face the risk of breaking his neck in a community garden. Bah. The jumbo swing set was likewise gone, replaced by a little sissy set in a new kiddie play area. Despite being the middle of a sunny Saturday afternoon the park was pretty much empty.

We crossed over behind the community centre to what we thought might be the rumored new high school building. It had a certain scholarly aspect to it and indeed it turned out to be the new Island University campus. Signs on the doors revealed it had a lien on it, so good luck to getting in come September, students!

None of this is to suggest that Duncan itself is deserted. Far from it, the island highway was choked with traffic as usual, the city streets hardly affording a chance to just toodle around without someone tailgating you. We made our way to my mom’s place and I suggested ice cream so we hit the Dairy Queen and it was good.

After a supper at Romeo’s we went for a walk along the river dike with Sophie the wonder dog in tow (you wonder what she finds so fascinating about every blade of grass she stops to sniff).

Here we see mom and Jeff looking over a li’l foot bridge at the many minnows darting about in the water below:

There were a decent number of people frolicking about in the Cowichan River. Some had dammed off a section of it to make a wading pool while others chose to park their chairs square in the middle of it just because.

While at the river I got bitten by something, which has been my unofficial theme for the summer (“I’m delicious, suck my blood!”) and the bite became as itchy and annoying as all the others I’ve dealt with the last few months. Today — four days later — it’s finally pretty much gone. Stupid bugs.

It was still a nice walk and would make a decent place to jog, provided you slathered yourself in bug repellent or ran inside a plastic ball like hamsters do.

We ended the evening with two games of Yahtzee. To my surprise Jeff had never played before. This meant he won both games, of course.

Before leaving the island we got one more gift — a cold. I’m just starting to get over mine now after days of a scratchy throat, sneezing and sundry related cold symptoms. I suspect the ferry was the vector for this. The ferry, or as I call it, that big floaty thing where kids scream for 90 minutes solid.

Anyway, it was a fun little trip, even if the high school looked like it hadn’t been touched since I graduated a hundred years ago.

* slight exaggeration, though if you look carefully, it’s probably safe to peg the photo circa the 1950s

The longest run

Distance: 11.61 km
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 22ºC
Wind: none
Calories burned: 811
Average pace: 5:12/km
Total distance to date: 988 km

It was warm and a bit on the muggy side as I set out tonight. While I experienced no cramps or weird tendon issues, the heat and pace left me tired and dried out. You know it’s going to be a dry run when you start smacking your lips less than 1 km in.

My shins felt a bit tender after and I am now seriously considering strengthening exercises on my off-days, especially as I’m focusing more on distance and form for the next while rather than just improving my speed. To that end I ran my longest run to date tonight, coming in at 11.61 km. It was also my first run to come in at over an hour at 1:00:26 to be precise. Despite theextra distance and not running with the aim of setting a PR I finished with a decent pace of 5:12/km (5:11/km for 10K).

Chart (All runs at Burnaby Lake except those in blue which are at China Creek):

km Aug 19 Aug 15 Aug 11 Aug 8 Aug 4 Aug 1 Jul 27 Jul 20 Jul 17
1 km 4:50 4:55 4:54 5:04 4:51 4:51 4:56 4:53 4:56
2 km 4:54 4:57 4:55 5:05 4:54 4:52 4:54 4:56 4:54
3 km 4:57 4:58 4:58 5:07 4:59 4:56 4:55 4:55 4:58
4 km 5:00 5:02 5:00 5:09 5:04 4:58 4:56 5:00 4:58
5 km 5:01 5:05 5:02 5:11 5:07 5:00 5:00 5:01 5:00
6 km 5:03 5:06 5:03 5:12 5:09 5:01 5:02 5:02 5:02
7 km 5:05 5:08 5:04 5:14 5:11 5:04 5:04 5:03 5:04
8 km 5:07 5:09 5:06 5:16 5:13 5:06 5:06 5:05 5:06
9 km 5:09 5:11 5:08 5:16 5:14 5:07 5:07 5:06 5:08
10 km 5:11 5:13 5:08 5:17 5:15 5:09 5:09 5:06 5:09
11 km 5:12 5:14 — 5:17 5:16 5:10 5:10 — 5:10

The could-have-been-worse run

Distance: 11.41 km
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 19ºC
Wind: none
Calories burned: 798
Average pace: 5:14/km
Total distance to date: 977 km

With my shins feeling a bit tender after the last run I planned on a deliberately slower pace tonight. What I didn’t plan was a pulled tendon partway through that guaranteed a slower run and almost an early finish. I finished with an average of 5:14/km, which is perfectly acceptable given the conditions and as a bonus I did my longest run ever by taking on all three extra loops along the north side of the lake, coming in at 11.41 km. Joan even correctly congratulated me! The shins and in particular the right one, did start to hurt a bit partway through and you can see how my pace slowed down a notch or two when this happened but I persisted and as my legs armed up the soreness diminished. Stamina was never an issue. Somewhere between the 6K and 10K mark a tendon in the back of my left knee got pulled. There were a few times where it hurt noticeably as it stretched out again and I seriously considered stopping the run at the 10K point or even sooner. I risked giving it a bit to sort itself out, reckoning that it wasn’t a serious pull and happily it settled down and I finished without a precipitous drop in my pace. I’m going to focus less on speed and more on distance over the next few runs. Since I’m only 23 km from reaching 1,000 km (blue on the Nike+ site) I’ll need to cover at least 12K to do it in the next two — a reasonable goal, I think. It may also be time to start working on some leg exercises to give my calves extra strength.

Chart (blue indicates the run was done clockwise; purple= Burnaby Lake):

km Aug 15 Aug 11 Aug 8 Aug 4 Aug 1 Jul 27 Jul 20 Jul 17 Jul 14
1 km 4:55 4:54 5:04 4:51 4:51 4:56 4:53 4:56 4:45
2 km 4:57 4:55 5:05 4:54 4:52 4:54 4:56 4:54 4:47
3 km 4:58 4:58 5:07 4:59 4:56 4:55 4:55 4:58 4:56
4 km 5:02 5:00 5:09 5:04 4:58 4:56 5:00 4:58 4:54
5 km 5:05 5:02 5:11 5:07 5:00 5:00 5:01 5:00 4:54
6 km 5:06 5:03 5:12 5:09 5:01 5:02 5:02 5:02 4:59
7 km 5:08 5:04 5:14 5:11 5:04 5:04 5:03 5:04 5:00
8 km 5:09 5:06 5:16 5:13 5:06 5:06 5:05 5:06 5:02
9 km 5:11 5:08 5:16 5:14 5:07 5:07 5:06 5:08 5:04
10 km 5:13 5:08 5:17 5:15 5:09 5:09 5:06 5:09 5:06
11 km 5:14 — 5:17 5:16 5:10 5:10 — 5:10 5:01

Breakfast from Hell?

Over on East Columbia Street in New Westminster, the Sapperton Place Cafe offers a menu where ‘All Prices included HST’ (perhaps anticipating the tax’s possible defeat in the recent referendum) that includes a morning snack for a mere $2.50. For that low price you get coffee and your choice of muffin or ‘cheese scorn’, a roll that I suspect is either forged in the fires of Hell, merely disdainful of the cheese it features or perhaps is just generally designed to offer early morning contempt to the world in its own small way. Whichever it is, yum to the delicious cheese scorn!

Book review: Dark Delicacies III: Haunted

Despite the subtitle, Dark Delicacies III: Haunted is not really a collection of ghost stories, though many play on the theme of ghosts or some kind of haunting.

Perhaps its most bizarre inclusion is a foreward by Steven Weber. Yes, the guy from Wings.

As is often the case with collections there are a few standouts, some clunkers and a lot of perfectly serviceable reads to be found. Most of the stories are quite short at ten pages or thereabouts so even the bad ones won’t linger. As befits a horror collection a few stories are built on gross-outs and some fairly graphic sex. Be warned, ye of delicate sensibilities!

My favorites include Richard Matheson’s cheeky “How to Edit”, which has a kind of companion piece in the ultimately nonsensical “Tyler’s Third Act”, both stories dealing with self-mutilation. The latter falls apart at the end (no pun intended), while Matheson’s wraps up appropriately. David Morrell’s “The Architecture of Snow” rounds out the book (save for a very brief poem by Clive Barker) and is a wonderfully meditative piece. “Man with the Canvas Bag” by Gary Braunbeck is weirdly wonderful while Chuck Palahinuk’s “Fetch” is just plain weird, kind of what you would expect if Jack Handey wrote a horror story. Funny, though.

“Food of the Gods” left me cold and not just because it’s one of several stories in the collection to use the ‘haha, even though the story is written in first person the narrator is DEAD, fooled you!” shtick. “The Slow Haunting”, though well-written, is flattened by a twist ending that isn’t earned.

Overall, though, any fan of horror should find enough here to warrant a look. I give Dark Delicacies III: Haunted 3.5 out of 5 severed heads.