Tag: Nevergettingto95

Summertime Slacker

Books Read:

25. Hysteric — Nelly Arcan
26. Chinese Blue — Weyman Chan
27. Forthcoming organized labour history book

Kilometres Ran:
week thirty — 58.3
week thirty one — 56
week thirty two — 69.7
week thirty three — 56.6

To date: 1,922 km

So rather than read and write about it I decided that since I’ve barely read anything there wasn’t much point in writing about how I’ve barely read anything. So I didn’t. As you can see. Does anyone enjoy reading Nelly Arcan? Are you even allowed to enjoy reading her? I think I have two left to read of hers. Her work is so good but so heavy and depressing. I got to see and hear Weyman Chan read at the Talonbooks launch for Human Tissue, which I also purchased along with Chinese Blue but haven’t read yet. But I will, not least because Chinese Blue is so damn good. Trudging through nearly 400 pages of MS Word manuscript is rarely enjoyable, but I find the subject matter very interesting. I hope it gets published. And properly edited. You know, unlike this blog.

In three week I fly to Copenhagen for the Copenhagen Half Marathon on September 17 and I’m pretty excited about that. Travelling gives me an excuse to update my wardrobe, so travelling for a race must mean new running gear, right? It’s not like I need a new pair of racing flats but that didn’t stop me from picking up a second pair of the Adios 3. Plus they were on sale. I’ve been very curious about On Running shoes since their propaganda somehow started ending up in my Gmail inbox. They’re a bit pricey to just take a chance on, which makes me lament that there’s no test drive for running shoes. And then, as if my mind had been read, on Thursday at Forerunners on West 4th’s sunset run On was supposed to be on hand to demo their line up so I showed up. On, however, did not. But I had a good time anyway, with a short 9 km out to Spanish Banks and back to the store. The group is really friendly, and the run met at 7:30 p.m. rather than the typical 6:00 p.m. that every club seems to love but precludes me from being able to participate. I make it sound as if I would if I could. I’ve written here before, and numerous times, how I enjoy running for its solitude, But once in a while it’s nice to get out and be around people that also like to run. I do not know very many.

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.