Category: Read Run Write

2018 week eleven

Book Read:
11. This Naked Mind: Control Alcohol, Find Freedom, Discover Happiness & Change Your Life — Annie Grace

Kilometres Ran:
week eleven — 41.6

To date: 374 KM

Normally I would have woken up this morning hung over. Not because yesterday was Saint Patrick’s Day. Not even because yesterday was Saturday. Normally I would have woken up this morning hung over for no other reason than because I drank the night before. But this isn’t about why I used to drink. This is about that I don’t drink anymore. Sometime last summer Robin AKA thetattooedteetotaler posted the cover of This Naked Mind to her Instagram. I put a copy onto my iPad and promptly forgot about it. And then a few months later I woke up, hung over, and decided that I don’t want to anymore. So I read This Naked Mind and I quit drinking. I don’t know if I could have done it without the book. I’ve “quit” in the past: I got most of the way through “sober February” 2017, but not as far through as 2016; I got a late start to “sober January” 2015, but managed to stretch it a bit into February. Each time I desobered with the intention of moderation, which would last a week or two. My last drink was on January 1, 2018. I’m not sure I wanted to quit entirely. I’m still not sure. I do know that I quit cold-turkey (not recommended given the amount I drank and for how long I’d drank) and had no side effects, and I have zero desire to have a drink. Zip. Nadda. Well, not no side effects. I used to be pretty easily irritated; these past weeks I have given few fucks about anything other than my relationships and my running. I used to have G.I. issues that I chalked up to diet and genetics; they’re mostly gone. I used to spend 10 hours in bed each night and was always tired. Now I get six or seven of restful sleep and feel fine. I could write a lot about this book, its affect on me, my journey, get all preachy, start using crap terms like “journey”…. I’d rather not. There’s one point in the book that stands out that’s worth putting here, one that I used to wrestle with a lot: Does the idea of never drinking again bother you? That question is like an onion. I used to believe drinking made me feel better. Now I understand that my drinking made me feel awful when I wasn’t drinking. There’s a significant difference there. Maybe I’ll drink again but I currently have no desire to. At all.

On the early evening of Saturday, May 6, 2017 I poured myself a stiff gin + tonic to keep me company while I made dinner. Then I opened a bottle of red wine to go with dinner (for the antioxidants obviously). The bottle finished I went to bed but couldn’t sleep. After tossing and turning for an hour or two I got up and poured a few fingers (fist?) of Johnny Walker Black, which I took to bed with a book. I finished (the blend, not the book) and finally fell asleep. A few hours later, I was at Queen Elizabeth Park. Three hours and 34 minutes later I was on West Pender just east of Bute crossing the finish line of my first marathon. I wanted to run 3:29. Maybe if I hadn’t had a dozen drinks the night before, and the night before that, and before that…I would have. I don’t know. But I’m going to find out. My body is finally getting healthy, although it’s not coming along quite as quickly as I had wanted. I was looking forward to a sober second look at the BMO Marathon, but this week I took stock of time and training, and decided to downgrade to the half. And I’m fine with that. I have two big PR goals for 2018, and clear eyes set on those.

2018 week ten

Book Read:
10. Mad Blood Stirring: The Inner Lives of Violent Men — Daemon Fairless

Kilometres Ran:
week ten — 25.6

To date: 350 KM

And so concludes the accidental trilogy encompassing how we got here, long view (Astrophysics for People in a Hurry), why things are shite (because Sapiens), and who’s to blame (hint: it’s men). Accidental because I had no idea how well these three actually fit together, and I totally lucked out choosing the correct order to read them. And, not unlike Sapiens, Mad Blood Stirring starts out strong and then falters, devolving into an autobiography with heavy focus on the Fairless’s mother and their relationship. There are five chapters. The first three are very good. The fourth could have been good, but goes sideways. The fifth attempts to tie into the book’s intended theme, but it’s a stretch such that by the end I wasn’t quite sure what the theme is. The title is a line from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, spoken by Benvolio — the guy that tries to play the play’s peacemaker. Throughout the intro and chapter one Fairless has a bit of a Benvolio-complex (I just made that up), but that disappears by chapter five (along with the editor, apparently). The intro and first three chapters are really very good, worth reading, and could easily stand on their own serialized elsewhere. Fairless’s style is to present a main focus then intersperse asides throughout the chapter. Sometimes it works very well. Other times not so much. The fourth chapter is good in the parts that he focuses on the chapter’s main theme and “the killer”. In the fifth our narrator loses the plot. Or maybe I do. Regardless, my thanks to Penguin Random House Canada for the review copy.

I went to physiotherapy on Wednesday and it seems that I really am on the mend because she doesn’t want to see me for a few weeks as long as I behave and as long as there are no disasters during my attempts to behave. So I’ve been behaving, which is evident by the paltry 25 KM I ran this week. I’m currently 37 KM behind pace to reach 2,018 KM in 2018. I’m trying to behave, and by behave I mean to follow the advice of my physiotherapist to slowly add back distance and maintain rest time between runs. But I’m also trying to decide what I’m going to do with the BMO in May as I keep going back and forth between thinking I should just run the half or maybe just run the full without a full training session leading up to it and see what happens. I think regardless of what I run on May 6 I’m going to run the Victoria full in the fall. So while I’m mulling over what to do what I’m keeping forefront in mind is that I just want to stay healthy.

2018 week nine

Book Read:
9. Son of a Trickster — Eden Robinson

Kilometres Ran:
week nine — 30.2

To date: 302 KM

Another book that I picked up and read because all of social media yet no one in particular wouldn’t stop telling me to get a copy and read it. So I did. I did not read about it, except for the sticker on the dust jacket (I hate that they do that BTW, FFS) with the tulip! and Giller! I definitely did not read that this is the first book of a trilogy. Which would have helped because for the front two-thirds I was wondering where the tricker stuff was (it comes later, much later). Aside from all the waiting for the supernatural, I really liked the book. I found the characters compelling and the descriptions vivid, albeit rather raw. It does seem a bit long drawn out, which makes sense if the plan is for two more books. But it seems unnecessary. It seems the main plot point comes entirely too late in spite of it being the title of the book. Which makes sense from a Field’s Paradigm point of view as this is apparently meant to be read as Act One of Three. So I don’t know how I feel about the trilogy bit is I guess what I’m trying to say. But I liked this act enough to hang around for Act Two. Probably.

I’ve been behaving and by behaving I mean following my physiotherapist’s instructions and not running too much but riding my bike and things were feeling pretty good so when I went in on Wednesday for my electroshock treatment we chatted about the West Van 10K and she said that if I didn’t run the rest of the week (but I can bicycle at will) then I am allowed to run but not race the race. So I behaved and then this morning I ran and didn’t really race but maybe raced a little bit. I wanted to be better than my best Sun Run. That was my unadvertised goal going into this morning. Basically this goal entailed not getting passed by the 50 minute pacer. My plan was to try to hang around the 45 minute pacer and just see how everything feels and roll across the finish with him in sight. It was a decent plan, and it worked out pretty well. Two things: (1) I’ve never run this race or course before, and (2) the race had zero-nadda-zilch distance markers. I started a bit too quick and then backed off. The pacer passed me around 3 KM (I’m guessing based on my splits) and I settled into a just slightly barely uncomfortable pace. Not race pace, but not a Sunday jog either. I kept Mr. 45 in sight and then at what I thought was about 8 KM I picked it up a bit. But it was not 8 KM. Kilometres eight and nine were fine but when I was starting to pique expecting the finish the finish was still another kilometre away. I was pulling up on the pacer when I saw the finish line clock. He crossed at 44 minutes and I crossed six seconds behind. I have no idea what would have happened if I’d raced. I don’t know if my knee would have cooperated, and I don’t believe I currently have the gas to challenge my personal best. But I ended up 12/73 in my group and set a new personal second-best. And I can walk right now, unlike post First Half.

This was my first West Van Run and I would definitely do it again. The course is flat and fast (except for a kinda cruel hill between 3 and 4 KM). I thought it was well organized and good value — nice tee and medal. I won a box of TeffX Energy Bars on a social media giveaway that I’m looking forward to giving a try, so shout out to Teff, too. I’ll be back next year.