Tag: 2000km

week two

Books Read:
3. God in Pink — Hasan Namir
4. The Weather — Lisa Robertson

Kilometres Ran:
this week — 28.59
to date — 65.43

I did not like God in Pink. It’s not really a story that one likes, per se, and there in lies the problem in my opinion because it is an interesting story and arguably one that needs to be told and written and read but my problem with the book is that it is poorly executed and that’s really unfortunate. I wanted to like it, as much as it can be “liked”. I do think it deserves to be read. I just wish that it was better written. I adore Lisa Robertson’s work but up until now I had only read her in lit journals, which seems a bit of a crime. I really enjoyed The Weather from Sunday through Saturday. You can read Monday on the The Poetry Foundation’s website here and you can listen to Robertson reading Tuesday on the Coach House Books website here. [EDIT: not anymore, unfortunately.]
week two
I haven’t gone for a run in a couple days because it seems I’ve been going a bit hard over the past few days and on Sunday had a bout of macroscopic hematuria and the doctor said that maybe I should tone it down a bit for a bit and sent me for some blood tests just to make sure it was in fact my kidneys unable to process my body’s muscle cannibalizing and not, you know, cancer or an STI. “You didn’t by chance have beets yesterday, did you?” she asks. “I have to ask,” she says apologetically.

And damn it my knee hurts.

week one

Books Read:
Fifteen Dogs — Andre Alexis
Clean Sails — Gustave Morin

Kilometres to date: 36.84

I didn’t like Fifteen Dogs because it made me miss my dogs but otherwise it was a pretty great novel. I guess the fact that it won the Giller trumps whatever I might have to say about it, whether positive or critical. The nice thing about it winning the Giller is that I found a copy at Costco for $9.95. I think it was the fourth or fifth printing, but whatever. Clean Sails was really great. I really like concrete poetry and I really enjoyed Morin’s autobiographical essay at the end of the book. If you’re wondering if I think that a book that is predominately a picture book is cheating the 95 Book challenge my response is that I’m willing to bet George W. Bush “read” many picture books.
week one
In step one of my cyborgification I bought a Fitbit Surge off of Craigslist and I love it and it was one of the more pleasant Craigslist experiences that I’ve had. The guy seemed really suspicious that I was going to no-show on him and we swapped Claigslist selling horror stories. It’s brand new, factory sealed and saved my over $100 and then yesterday Fitbit announced the Blaze that is basically the Surge but with a colour screen and more features and much finer aesthetics for less money so that makes me just thrilled. Up until Surge I was tracking my running with the Walk Tracker Pro app (it was free from one of those Starbucks free-app-card thingies a while ago) with decent success but the accuracy wasn’t always great–like when it tells me that I ran a kilometre in under three minutes–and I really didn’t want to carry my phone any more. My left knee that I had bent the wrong way in a ju jitsu class a few years [lifetime] ago is starting to hurt more than usual which is a concern. I think I should stretch once in a while.