Tag: 95 Books

week eighteen

Books Read:
29. The Trouble with Brunch — Shawn Micallef
30. M Train — Patti Smith

Kilometres Ran:
this week — 42.81
to date — 558.44

Hey here’s an idea let’s go spend the majority of Sunday’s midday standing in line outside of some kitsch-decored otherwise hole-in-the-wall restaurant so we can pay $15 for $1.50 worth of poached eggs and fried potatoes. I guess the other $12 goes toward the shitty service? Nope, you have to tip for that. Anyway, I never ever liked going out for brunch. I don’t worship at the cult of bacon. And I pretty much agree with everything else that Micallef writes in this book. But especially his hatred of brunch. That’s okay because I know a lot of people that hate even the idea of running. I really liked Just Kids and so I thought that I would really like M Train but I did not. I found it dreadfully boring, and for some reason the Patti Smith voice in my head the whole time I was reading this was this whiny, dramatic, annoying voice that seemed perpetually on the verge of catastrophe, even if that catastrophe was something as mundane as someone sitting at “her” table at the coffee shop she frequents. I feel her pain; I used to love to spend my Saturday mornings in Kamloops having a coffee and reading on a street bench in the middle of the 200-block of Victoria Street in Kamloops and I’d be pretty disappointed to get there and see that it was already occupied. But not quite Patti-Smith-disappointed. I read that people disliked the overly romanticized (revisionist?) historicity of Just Kids but I didn’t mind. Plus, at the risk of alienating any photographer friends that might be reading this, I kind of like Robert Mapplethorpe. He’s a tragic story to say the least, and yet somehow I didn’t get that from the invariably tragic Patti Smith. But who am I kidding? Nobody is reading this, much less any artist acquaintance. Anyway, since no one’s reading this anyway, all aboard the M Train to Yawnville.
week eighteen
So it happened that on Sunday, May 1, I dragged my ass out of bed at 5 a.m. not to stand in line for brunch but rather to go to Queen Elizabeth Park and stand in a corral with a couple thousand other geniuses waiting for a 7 a.m. gun to tell us it was time to spend the next couple hours running 21.1 kilometres. But to each their own, I suppose. The BMO Half Marathon was my first official half marathon and it was really great. I’d been looking forward to this race ever since I registered back in November, immediately after purchasing the XBoxOne/Fallout4 bundle. I figured I needed to strike a balance. I mentioned a few weeks ago that I’d won a Platinum race package from Air France and all that I will say about it is if I had actually paid the extra $100 it cost (as 199 other people did) I probably would have asked for my money back. Not worth it. At all. Otherwise, the race was really great. I learned that I might need to add a few more hills to my running repertoire, and reconfirmed that I need a sippy-cup if I want to stay hydrated and not attempt some unerotic-asphyxiation. I bought one of those dorky looking fuel belts. I’ve yet to use it. When I signed up for this race back in November, I estimated my time to be 1:59. At that time, I’d never run more than 15 kilometres, so I was really guessing. I read that the average time for my age is 2:02 so I thought I’d set a goal of under two hours. A couple months ago I reassessed and set a goal of 1:49. My official time ended up being 1:46:00 and I am very happy with that. My knees cooperated the whole race, which was really great. Everything was great, right up until the last two or three kilometres when I felt like a pylon as runner after runner passed me. I need to work on my end game. Hills-hydration-finish. I have a few weeks until the Scotiabank Half Marathon at the end of June.

week seventeen

Books Read:
27. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running — Haruki Murakami
28. The Hatch — Colin Brown

Kilometres Ran:
this week — 34.21
to date — 515.63

Alright so I’m in a bad mood. I’ll get to that later. Anyway, Murakami. I think that the first thing that I heard about this book was, “Not his best work.” Suffice it to say that Murakami fans seem to dislike What I Talk About When I Talk About Running; however, I am not a Murakami fan. That sounds bad so let me qualify. I’m reminded of being much younger and person X asks me if I like band Y and I have never heard band Y and therefore I have no opinion of band Y so I reply, “No, I do not like them.” Which is then interpreted as I hate band Y when in fact I simply do not like band Y because I have never heard [of] band Y. I neither dislike nor like band Y. I have no opinion. But the question was, do you like band Y. To which the only answer is, “Nope, I do not like them.” So I digress. I cannot tell you much about Murakami, or if this book is any good within the context of his catalogue, but I can honestly say it is my favourite book of his that I’ve read. I will even go so far as to say that I found this book, not inspirational, but motivating, and I can see myself going back to it from time to time. I didn’t like all of it, for instance I found the bit in the last third or so where he posits some doubt about global warming and tries to imply that the scientific consensus on the matter is not really a consensus, and really, really makes himself look like an ignorant ass, a bit trying given his massive influence and readership. But there it is. Maybe that’s why it’s not his best work. I should read some more and decide for myself. As far as books about running go, it was pretty good. Yesterday on the bus and Skytrain I read The Hatch and then last night I went to the 2016 Talonbooks spring launch and last year Colin Brown headlines the launch with readings from The Hatch and all that is to say that it took me a year to get around to reading Brown’s book. I think I need to revisit it and explore more of the Surrealist themes, but I probably won’t because there’s a lot of other stuff to read. But I liked it. Brown is one of those interesting characters in my life. We all know people that we mostly only know from social media and seeing them in the real world is sometimes weird. I especially like to make it weird because I have zero qualms about saying hello and trying to have a conversation with someone that I “only” know on social media. The results vary. Brown is in a different category, though, because he is an active member of the board of The Capilano Review society for which I was the managing editor for over two years, and yet interacting with him outside of a Capilano Review context always seems to inspire the “social media friend” reaction. “Hi Colin.” But in all honesty it could just be that he has no idea who I am. His book is good though. You should read it.
week seventeen
So I mentioned that I’m in a bad mood and the reason I’m in a bad mood is because I went for a run today for what was supposed to be me last or second-to-last run before the BMO Half Marathon on Sunday and at around kilometre six my knee started saying, “Nope” and by seven-and-a-half it was definitively NOPE and for the first time since I started running seriously I had to stop and walk. I ended up walking about two kilometres of my 12.5 km route and I’m not happy and I’m really concerned that Sunday is going to be ruined by this stupid knee. So I’m in a bad mood. Oh but I broke 500 km so far this year this week.

week sixteen

Books Read:
25. For Your Safety Please Hold On — Kayla Czaga
26. The Apothecary — Lisa Robertson

Kilometres Ran:
this week — 25.15
to date — 481.42

I’d read and heard a lot of hype around Kayla Czaga’s first poetry collection and I’ve wanted to read it for a while, and I finally picked up a copy at Russel’s Books in Victoria when I was there for the Easter weekend. I really like that bookstore. Its poetry section is a gem for contemporary Canadian stuff, especially Western Canada stuff. The collection is really great and it did not disappoint in spite of the hype. My favourite is the long piece Many Metaphorical Birds that completes the collection. I’m a sucker for existentialist philosophy. That shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. The day after getting home from Barcelona, The Paper Hound hosted a poetry reading featuring Michael Barnholden and Catriona Strang and it was really great and I left with half a dozen Lisa Robertson titles. I don’t know what the connection is there, except for The Giantesses, I guess. Incidentally, Robertson is going to be in town in mid-May to read alongside another Giantess Christine Stewart at READ Books over on Granville Island. I’m excited. It should be great.
week sixteen
I Sun Ran on Sunday. It was another gong show. I can’t decide if it’s become too big or just poorly managed. I set a new personal best time for 10 km, which is great, but I’m not sure it was worth the near panic attack I had after 30 minutes corralled with a few thousand people. I understand that pretty much everyone lies about their expected finish time when they register (I don’t, but I’m beginning to wonder…) but the problem was the people manning the corrals did zero to segregate bib colours and consequently the yellow section was flooded with every other colour, not to mention at least a half dozen strollers. Seriously. Fucking strollers. Then the number of people already walking at the 1 km marker. I’m not quick, but for the second half of the race I was passed by maybe ten people. I like the Sun Run, but if they cannot figure out how to manage it better I might stop participating. There seem to be a bunch of alternatives that likely have less aggravation. But it’s my own fault, really. It seems like every other post here is me lamenting how much I dislike other people when I’m running, so what the hell was I expecting joining a race with 42,000 other people. The BMO Half Marathon is in ten days. I’m hoping for a dearth of crowds at the start line. Fingers and laces crossed.