Tag: 2000km

week thirteen

Books Read:
24. The Shadow of the Wind — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Kilometres Ran:
this week — 46.08
to date — 425.12

Sometimes I’m reading a book and I think that it’s going to get better or at least I’m hoping that it’s going to get better and sometimes it does and other times it does not and then I get to wondering if I’ve wasted my time and if I just should have stopped reading this book that I’m not really enjoying and forego the sense of accomplishment that comes with being able to put down a book as finished rather than as abandoned. I wanted to like this book, but I just couldn’t get into it, and as a result it sucked up way too much of my time. Mostly because I tended to avoid reading it. And to say that I read it is a stretch. To say I skimmed the last half of the book is probably also a stretch. I don’t know what it was about it that I didn’t enjoy. Maybe it was that I didn’t find the attempts at suspense suspenseful. Maybe the mystery wasn’t very mysterious. I’ve disliked characters a lot more than I disliked this guy. Maybe I didn’t dislike him enough. I don’t think I found him emotionally engaging at all, like or dislike. And (I think I mentioned this last week) I found the dialogue mundane and pandering to the reader. Perhaps it was the translation. I don’t know. I’d wanted to be excited by the book about going to Barcelona next week. I am excited, but not because of the book. Alas.

Normally here is where I steal a running photo and insert some completely non-related quote from whatever I’ve been reading into the photo as a sort of mock motivational image, but I’m not going to this week. I did it last week, and I don’t think this book deserves two. And I’m feeling lazy.

Not too lazy, though, but perhaps a bit tired because this is one of the best weeks for running that I’ve had so far this year, including another half-marathon-plus at a decent pace that makes me think that the impending BMO on May 1 isn’t going to be so bad, though that’s still a bit away. But I’ve done two half-marathons now in the past couple weeks and if nothing else I have the mental side covered in that I’ve no doubt in my mind that I am going to be able to run it and finish it and maybe even finish in a decent time. We’ll see, since with this trip overseas looming I’ve a bit of a break from my running routine to get past, and then I have to get motivated to get back into it when I return. The head games that I play with myself seem to be my greatest obstacle.

week twelve

Books Read:
24. The Shadow of the Wind — Carlos Ruiz Zafon (in progress)

Kilometres Ran:
this week — 36.31
to date — 379.04

I’m going to Barcelona for a week in a couple weeks and I wanted to read about Barcelona so I picked up The Shadow of the Wind and George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia and, perhaps, made the mistake of starting with the Zafon book. It’s okay, but I’m finding it a slow read. Mind you, it is quite a bit longer than the average book I’ve been reading of late. But I’m not really getting into it so I find that I’m not looking forward to reading it as much as I probably should. By Jonathan Ball’s “rules” in 95 Books I probably should have just given up. The story is interesting but somewhat formulaic and some of the dialogue is patronizing. Maybe it gets better.
week twelve
I ran a half marathon this week not to see if I could but to see if I felt like dying in the hours and day or so afterward and it wasn’t that bad. My time was alright too. When I signed up back in December to run the BMO half I estimated that it would take me about two hours so I entered my time guess as 1:59 and it turns out that was rather conservative. But I’m not really sure what I should be aiming for. I don’t have a goal in mind at this point and I wonder if that’s not a good approach to be taking. I’m thinking that I should aim for something between 1:45 and 1:49 for the BMO and then try to beat whatever time when I do the Scotiabank half near the end of June. Though I’m really going to have to figure out hydration if I want to not die during a summertime half marathon. I’m really bad at the science of running. I liked running because I could just go do it and that was that but now I have to warm up and stretch after and eat and drink “properly” and pay attention to what I eat before I run (usually nothing, which is probably a problem too) and strength training between run days and blah blah blah. It’s more work than I’d anticipated. I didn’t really anticipate anything–just point my shoes and go. I’ve learned the hard way that there’s much more to it than that.

week eleven

Books Read:
22. The First Bad Man — Miranda July
23. Erec & Enide — Amy De’ath

Kilometres Ran:
this week — 42.62
to date — 342.73

I really liked Miranda July’s short story collection No One Belongs Here More Than You so I thought that I would like The First Bad Man and I didn’t to begin with and then I did later on towards the last third of the book. It had nothing to do with the fact that the entire time I was reading the book I was thinking that I know Cheryl Glickman in real life or at least I know someone that could convincingly play Cheryl in the film adaptation and it would be the easiest directorial project along the lines of you, you just be yourself. It’s the same way I felt watching Ben Affleck in Mall Rats. Kevin Smith just telling Ben to be his douchebaggy self and everything would be fine. Not that Cheryl is a douchebag, nor is the person I have in mind to play her. You know what I mean. I picked up Erec & Enide at an Amy De’ath & Anne Boyer reading at Or Gallery back in February. I’m a big fan of her and her work and I thought this was pretty great. De’ath is a British poet currently completing her PhD at Simon Fraser University under the supervision of Stephen Collis. I hope the Coast Salish territories gets to keep her around once she completes, though with her talent I’m not holding my breath.
week eleven
Running this week is bit deceptive because the number is decent but it includes a rather paltry 5.34 km today that followed a lunch at Nuba in Gastown. Suffice it to say Lebanese seasoned ground lamb and humous, though delicious, is not recommended pre-run meal unless running while carrying bricks in your stomach is your thing. It’s not my thing. I don’t believe in karma but sometimes when I’m out for a run and I get to (common for runners, so I’ve come to understand) wondering what exactly it is that I’ve done to deserve this feeling that I’m going to crap myself. The other day I was listening to Julie Moss talk about her first Ironman Triathlon in a Radiolab podcast. So I guess it happens to even the best of us.