Category: Read Run Write

week fifty one

Books Read:
59. Friendly + Fire — Danielle LaFrance
60. Read This if You Want to Take Great Photographs — Henry Carroll

Kilometres Ran:
this week — 48.4
to date — 2,049.15

I’ve been casually looking for a decent book on photography for a long time and this is definitely the best one that I’ve come across. I found it in the gift shop on the modern art museum / architecture and design centre in Stockholm. It seems a weird choice of souvenirs, but I bought it anyway. The best part of the book is that for each tip and lesson there is a photograph that exemplifies what is being taught, but not some crap pic from iStock. Rather some of the best photographers and some of the most iconic photos. Anyway, it’s a good book and I want to take better photographs. I’m not sure it’s working but that’s mostly because I don’t bother practicing enough. PS most of the photos on here are, ahem, appropriated. I’m avoiding writing about LaFrance’s book because it is amazing and I love it and people way smarter than me have written smart things about it. You should get it though. And follow her on Twitter because she is very entertaining.

Sending the Christmas holiday in the provincial capital and cruising people’s Strava activities for running route ideas (thanks Karmen Jay). Today I ran by the legislature and over the blue bridge, forever to be under construction. It’s very cool and crisp and there’s little wind and so far no rain. I don’t think it’s cold enough to snow. I’m not sure Victoria can handle snowfall any better than Vancouver, who sucks.

week fifty

Books Read:
58. The Woods: A Year on Protection Island — Amber McMillan

Kilometres Ran:
this week — 66.95
to date — 2,000.75

I’m not going to get 95 books this year. I’d wanted to read The Woods because I’m a fan of McMillan’s poetry and I tend to have good luck when a poet I like ventures into prose (Flynn’s Another Bullshit Night in Suck City comes to mind) and I picked up a copy finally at the Real Vancouver Writers Series event a couple weeks back. It’s a fine read, a collection of events and experiences over her year living on Protection Island just outside of Nanaimo, B.C. Oh and apparently they’re suing her. All of them are, or something. There’s a story about it in Quill & Quire but it’s behind a paywall, and I (haven’t looked very hard but) haven’t found anything else about it. McMillan did mention it a couple times during her RVWS reading. I really liked this book. I thought it was funny and relatable and really shows that people can be pretty awful for no real reason off of social media too. Through it all McMillan seems to be ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

On a snowy Sunday with Yaktrax strapped to my feet I passed my goal of 2,000 kilometres this year. It feels pretty great and I’m very pleased with myself and now I’ve been contemplating what to do about next year. I had wanted to swim more but I found that I would often forego swimming in order to run instead because of my running goal. And that said I’m contemplating aiming for 2,600 next year for an average of 50 km per weeks. Not sure what to do about the books though.

week forty eight + forty nine

Books Read:
57. Yellow Dog — Martin Amis

Kilometres Ran:
week forty eight — 42.67
week forty nine — 38.98
to date — 1,933.8

Seems that a lot of people did not like this book and then it went on to get long-listed for the Man Booker so what. I’m an Amis fan, though it’s been a long, slow slog through his library. And I still like his memoir Experience the best. Maybe I should reread that. You know, since I’ve nothing to read or anything. In spite of the warmth from the roaring flames of the CanLit Dumpster Fire 2016 I decided to go to the Real Vancouver Writers Series year end party and as usual bought a bunch of raffle tickets and expected to not win anything as I’ve been going to RVWS events for years and always buy raffle tickets and never win anything but this time I won (Sad Mag subscription) and then I won again (a pair of very hipster, ahem, artisan ceramic cups) and then I won top bid on the Chuck Tingle t-shirt for his Hugo Award nomination, which if you don’t know the back story then read it and hilarious.

I bought myself Christmas presents and Christmas came early in the form of a new Garmin Vivosmart HR+ and a couple pairs of Adidas Adizero Boston 6 runners and everything is better. I’m still getting used to the Garmin interface and the iPhone app, but I’m already much happier with its distance and tracking accuracy. New shoes are really great. After logging 1,145 km (oops…) on my Nike Air Pegasus 33s it was time for something new. To say the least. The Boston 6s are lighter and fit my narrow feet better than the Nikes. So far, no complaints. Which is weird for me. I complain about everything. I’m a marathon and a half or so away from my goal of 2,000 km for 2016 and with three weeks to go to cover 67 km I think I’m going to make it, barring illness or injury and I better not have just jinxed it.