Tag: 2600 km in 2017

forty two by forty two week three

Books Read:
11. Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse — Ed. John Joseph Adams (in progress)
12. Everything is Awful and You’re a Terrible Person — Daniel Zomparelli (in progress)

Kilometres Ran:
week twelve — 71.6

To date: 646 km

So continuing on with the theme of reading collections of short stories, but breaking away ever so slightly from George Saunders, I stumble upon the apocalypse, and the gay male dating apocalypse. First impressions of course, because as you can see above both are still in the works. And that’s really the beauty of short stories. For my short attention span. Daniel launched his book last night at a fancy hipster donut shop in East Van that ran out of donuts. Before I arrived. Which makes it read as though I would have contributed to the selling out, which if you would have believed, you would be wrong. Consequently, I was under no peer pressure to consume deep fried dough. Just as well. Daniel read an entertaining story that involved a Bill Murray looking dude in a Hawaiian shirt but in the story it was a “tropical” shirt because, I assume, “Hawaiian” is trademarked or something. Probably by that old Global BC weather guy. I’m cognizant of the possibility that I wasn’t entirely fair earlier when I wrote “gay male dating apocalypse” but I’m a couple stories in and, well, maybe. It’s not quite cooking and eating dog or some near future neo-luddite theocracy.

I forced my cough to get back into running. It’s still lingering, but I don’t feel like it’s hindering. I went to Forerunners because I had a coupon and gawd knows I love a deal and it expired at the end of March and I wanted to have a conversation with someone about gels because I do not know anything about that sort of stuff and I’d rather have someone talk at me than Google. Most of the time. And I still have trouble wrapping my head around this because maybe I read too much about the apocalypse or dating or maybe having lived both in some form or another but the people at Forerunners are really nice and helpful. I learned a trick to put a gel into my Fuel Belt bottle and that worked out pretty well. Except that I have to actually wear my Fuel Belt. This week was supposed to be a milder week but I modified since I basically missed all of last week. So I did 30 kilometres today and it was awful. It was cold and it rained and by the time I hit 15 km right around the concession at Sunset Beach I had to use the washroom to thaw out my (soaking wet, gloved) hands under the hand dryer. I think it might be the most miserable run that I’ve ever done, that I can recall. But I did it. Onto the next one.

forty two by forty two week two

Books Read:
10. The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil — George Saunders

Kilometres Ran:
week eleven — 12

To date: 575 km

If I was going to make it to 95 books in 2017 I would need to be currently read my twenty-first right now to be on pace. I am not going to make it to 95 books. I realize that there are still forty-one weeks to go and there are a lot of poetry books out there that really deserve to be read. I have a couple that still are on the to-read. I’ve been reading a lot about running (duh) and one thing that came up a few times is that training plans should be written in pencil. I think that extends to life in general. Set goals in pen. Make plans in pencil. Phil kept bringing to mind the guy with the flowers in the banned Appetite for Destruction album cover art. So thanks for that George.

And then I got really sick, which really sucks. A chest cold like nothing that I’ve ever experienced before and hope to never experience again. I spend a while trying to appease my confirmation bias searching fruitlessly on Google for a reputable-sounding article that said that it was fine for me to run with the kind of sick symptoms that I had and I couldn’t find anything. And I really tried. But everything just said don’t be an idiot just rest and recover or you’re going to make it worse. So I did. And hence I ran 12 kilometres this week. My training plan called for 80-something. I’m concerned about missing a whole week with only six weeks to go until BMO.

forty two by forty two week one

Books Read:
…some architecture stuff…

Kilometres Ran:
week ten — 73.7

To date: 563 km

Other than some architecture stuff around my course and an architecture book that SC lent to me and the odd article in the New Yorker and Playboy I haven’t read much of anything. I was sort of disappointed that Playboy went nude again. Fortunately, it has retained its clean layout and design, but I don’t quite understand why it felt it needed to go back to bare. The course I’m taking is very interesting and much more course-y than I expected. I’m enjoying it, and just like real school I’m already well behind. It’s ten weeks, but I have a year to complete. I won’t take a year. I also won’t make it anywhere near 95 books this year. Not at this pace.
Pacing is the issue. Thus ends week one of marathon training. SC introduced me to Hal Higdon (no not actually introduced me jeeze) while I was looking for training plans. The appeal of the one I chose is that all the technical mumbo-jumbo is nadda. It’s an 18 week plan, but week nine was pretty close to the same as what I’d done last week so it seemed reasonable to jump in. Plus I wouldn’t need to learn WTF a tempo and a fartek is. Maybe one day. Today was long run day, and until probably yesterday I did not know that LSD means something far different to people that run. And I’m not very good at it. Following Hal’s advice I tried to stick to a pace of around 5:30/km but ended up being quite a bit quicker: 5:16/km over 30.6 km (19 miles), which on one hand I was rather pleased about since I’d never run more than 25 km before today, but on the other hand I’m really trying to follow the training plan…something that I am not very good at in any situation, running or otherwise. Next week I’m staring down 80 km with a 32 km run on Sunday and already there’s a part of me that wants to do the 32 at 5:10.