Tag: 95 Books

forty two by forty two week six

Books Read[ing]:
14. The Mercy Journals — Claudia Casper

Kilometres Ran:
week fifteen — 84.8

To date: 873 km

I was looking at my bookshelf and I have no idea how this book got there or where it came from or who it came from. Actually now that I think about it I think that Elee gave it to me when she returned some books that I’d lent her and this was not one of them but it ended up with me anyway so if you’re reading this and you are missing your copy of The Mercy Journals and you want it back I might have it. But I need to finish reading it before you can have it. Oh, and wouldn’t you know it, the book is dystopian, post-apocalyptic speculative fiction. I wasn’t even trying. So far it’s okay.

I ran 36.5 kilometres on Sunday and I didn’t die, though I also got a bit bored at the end and ended up running the last couple at a slightly sub 5 minute/kilometre, which is not exactly the goal of an LSD day. I still don’t quite understand the LSD but I’m still trying to follow it. Regardless, at the end of my Easter Sunday LSD I was pretty confident that I could easily do another 6 kilometres and being that according to this schedule I’m following it was my last long run before the marathon May 7 I’m pretty happy with my mental confidence and my physical level. I’m not sure that I’m going to meet my rather lofty goal of finishing in under 210 minutes. I’m okay with that. I think. We’ll see what happens race day.

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.