The day after my massage, my legs were still hurting. Not all over, but one muscle in particular. I think the guy called it the Soleus.
This worried me yesterday because that was when I was running the 10 km road race for Corporate Challenge. I did not feel up to it.
I started out slowly, and it wasn’t pleasant, but it soon got better. I picked up speed, and in the end I got a fairly decent time.
And today? My legs feel better than they have for a long time. I guess there is some truth to the saying “Run it off.”
When I got my massage, the therapist said I had the body of a middle distance runner. So, not a marathon runner.
Do I stop running marathons? They aren’t that pleasant. But they are an event! An event that you can travel for. It’s hard to justify going to exotic locations for a 15 km run.
It’s a marathon or nothing.

Movie night was Rocky Balboa

If Philadelphia has a marathon, I hope they end it at the steps Rocky climbs when he trains.

I got a massage today.
My legs have been hurting and Corporate Challenge wants me to run 10K on Wednesday. Someone suggested a massage, so off I went.
I was initially recommended to a place in Whitemud Crossing. But they were busy, so I chose the place three floors below me. It felt nice, and my legs do feel better. The litmus test comes tomorrow when my body reacts to muscles moved around.
It would have been nicer of the massage therapist was a cute girl.

You call Adaptation a comedy? I was robbed!
It’s not like I had a choice in the matter. I have a way of picking movies at video stores that is very quick. I decide whether I want a comedy, or an action. Then I proceed alphabetically, in that category, until I find a movie I haven’t seen that I have a vague inclination to see.
I have been very lax in renting. There are hundreds of movies I have missed. So if I tried to actually think about the movie to see, I would be paralyzed with indecision.

Though, I did have a choice. I should have seen 13 going on 30. Alphabetically it was first.

Okay. The “Fat and Lazy” plan slipped up when I made a salad for dinner.
But we’ll do better tonight. I have to return the movies tomorrow, so I better see the last one.
Would life be simpler if I had Apple TV? I was at Compusmart’s closing down sale. I had one in my hand for $80 bucks off. In the end I decided not to get it. I can’t justify it enough, unless it starts playing DIVX movies.
I think I’ll buy a robot instead. Costco will have them on sale next week.

I get a free pass tonight. My legs still hurt so I don’t have to do my run. I get to be a couch potato!
I’m gonna sit in front of the TV and watch a movie. And there is nothing you can do to stop me.
What’s this? A can of Pringles within easy reach! Bring it on!
Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! Evil!

Now that I have done my run, I am not using my blood anymore. So I felt okay with donating it.
I have a boring blood-type. O+. One away from the cool universal donor of O-. It’s not even a rare type.
I do remember an old commercial which had this slutty vampiress trolling around a halloween party. A nerdy guy says to her, “So, you say I’m your type?”. And she cooly replies: “Oh, positive.”
That is my blood’s claim to fame.

Well that was a nice movie night. We even got around to watching the movie. And, bonus! I was the only guy there with four girls. I guess that happens when the movie features Heath Ledger.
Unfortunately, the husband of one showed up to ruin “my good thing”. 🙂
I would also like to be proud of the fact that I didn’t obviously hobble around. The pain in my legs was controlled, probably from the weird cream that I found in my race package.
Or I faked it well.

When I ran the marathon three years ago, I was knackered for the last fifteen kilometers. With age and wisdom, I figured it was because of my dining habits. I had had only a bowl of honeycomb that morning, and dined exclusively on wine-gums while actually running.
That and I was getting over an injury that had prevented me from training as much as I would have liked.
So this time, I had been training properly. I had a good hearty breakfast and enough time had passed that it wouldn’t be sitting in my stomach while I ran. I downed four PowerGels. All the stars were in alignment so that this would be a great run.
This time… I was knackered for the last fifteen kilometers.
Really, what I can conclude is that running a marathon is hard. It is not easy. You will always be tired for the last fifteen clicks.
Suck it up, princess!

Why yes, I did run a marathon today.
I did it in approximately 3:44:47, placing 54th out of 227 people. Which is a bit depressing, because it wasn’t my best time. That is still with the first marathon I ran three years ago. It wasn’t a lot worse, but it was still worse.
But, it is an accomplishment to actually run one of those things.
The weather in Red Deer was very nice. Which made it a bit hot as the day continued. I started out a little too quickly. I blame a friend who said she starts quickly to get out of the crowds of people. Seemed like a good idea at the time.
Twelve kilometers in, I felt a blister on the bottom of my right foot.
Fourteen and a half kilometers in my pace band fell off, so I couldn’t keep track if I was still on pace to my goal time of 3:30:00. I tried to keep up with my friend, who had the same goal, but at around the half way mark I started falling more and more behind. By the end she had finished ten minutes before me.
At the seventeenth kilometer a blister appeared on my other foot.
The period from the half way point, which I reached at 1:43:20, until kilometer 35 is mostly a blur. I can barely remember it. It was mostly a slog.
Seven kilometers before the end, my right calf seized up. The muscle suddenly contracted and wouldn’t stop. I walked it off, and then kept running. But it would hit a few times more for the rest of the run. I’d complain more, but those walk breaks were heaven.
It was nice of the organizers to pass out PowerGels to the runners. But I noticed that I got very gassy; All the sugar fermented in my stomach. Bodily noises were made.
After it was over, some friends of mine, and my parents (there to cheer me on) went for a brunch. The place we ended up in was Montana’s. I don’t care for that restaurant much, but the quarter chicken dinner filled a void. Unfortunately, the run had made my stomach bounce so much that it had contracted. I couldn’t finish the meal.
And now I’m hungry again.

Okay. I have a plan.
Today I will go buy some properly flavored PowerGels, drink lots of water, and have a pasta dinner. Then I will go to bed early and hopefully get some sleep because I need to be up really early tomorrow morning. The weather in Red Deer is looking like it will be good for a run, without actually raining. I’ll need to pack as well.
In the meantime, I’m going to try to play an hour, (and only an hour!), of Civilization IV and then try to do some programming.
The plan is good.
The plan is sound.
Do not argue with the plan.

In 36 hours I hope I am not running a marathon.

Oh god. In 36 hours I’m going to be running a marathon.

If everything goes according to plan…

Navigational Marker and dog1
Originally uploaded by ad_havoc.

I finished the navigational marker. It definitely looks less tall than before. More rocks will be needed.
But, due to popular demand, I am posting pictures of the pile of rocks in question. I signed up for a Flickr account to allow this. Hope it works.

Yesterday was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, birds were chirping, familiar stereotypes were typecasting.
The perfect day to rethink the navigational marker.
When it was first made, I used a pile of random rocks that the previous owner of the property had dumped in a corner. The new pile was made without any plan. Rocks were haphazardly thrown together.
There were a lot of ugly rocks there. (I think they are slate.) They were a depressing gray color. They brought the whole quality of the marker down.
So I took the thing apart, organizing the rocks into piles of quality and size. And we can rebuild it, we have the technology. The ugly rocks were put on the bottom, complete with pre-made nooks and crannies so that various woodland forest creatures have a place to live. With that base, nicer rocks were placed on the outside, keeping similar colors apart to give a nice artistic effect.
And the result? I’ve now got a very sunburnt back, and muscles are aching.
The thing isn’t even done yet.
I still have the upper layers to complete. It looks like the base may be larger than before; version two may not be as tall. It does give the whole project that long-term feel that gives it that extra pep…and continuing interest.

I’m in the greater Calgary area now. My sister came into town at 3:45 this morning, and considering that we live an hour away from the airport, it was a major undertaking to pick her up. But now she is here. Good times will be had.
We’re in the middle of nowhere, so my usually goal of exhausting her won’t be easily accomplished. Nobody is around here.
Usually when we are out and about and meeting people, I will explicitly introduce her as my sister. It might be rude, but if there is a pretty girl involved, I don’t want her to thing that I am unavailable. Not that anything is likely to happen anyway.
Interestingly, yesterday while I was in the elevator, there was the cute girl that lives in my building. I thought she was with her boyfriend, but she explicitly introduced him as her little brother…
Is she doing the same thing that I do? Is she available and finds me interesting? I’ve got to get on the ball here.

So much to do. I am fleeing to Calgary tomorrow for the weekend. I still have to do some packing, and yet here I am, listening to music, trolling the web, updating my web page to reflect movie night changes.

You guys aren’t helping. You’re enablers.

After work I grabbed Michael and jmacaig and went off to see a movie. Spider-man 3! It was immediately after work, so dinner wasn’t possible. Instead I used a coupon I had to get a pair of tickets, popcorn and drinks for a reduced price. I then spent $0.50 to upgrade the popcorn to a larger size.
Dinner of champions.
Oh, what is that on the horizon. Looks like a bunch of spoilers.
BTW, there is no sneaky scene after the end credits.
<Spoiler>
Too many super-villains. And they keep killing them off!
It’s a common complaint I have about superhero movies. They keep killing off what should be a recurring villain. And as the series progresses, they feel they need to up the ante, and do that by piling on the evil. That just dilutes them.
It was too much of a coincidence that the alien-being/costume would fall to Earth right next to the person who could do the most with it. I can accept the initial coincidence that led to the entire series (spider bite) because everything else followed logically from that one event. With a whole planet available, it seemed a too arbitrary that the symbiote would end up where it did. It just felt like a rushed way to stick another super-villain in.
I also disliked having Mr. Marko be the one actually responsible for the death of uncle Ben. That destroyed the mythology of Spider-man. It meant that even if Peter had stopped the mugger, Ben Parker would still have died. Well, maybe he wouldn’t have, but it made the thief that Peter let go too indirectly responsible for the great responsibility he was forced into.
Other than that, I enjoyed it. I did find Harry Osborn to be a more interesting character than Peter Parker. I think he has more depth.
More J. Jonah Jameson would have nice too.
I stayed until the credits were over in hopes of an additional scene. It wasn’t there. The scene I would have loved to see would be to have the snarky butler saying something to Norman Osborn, still alive and well.
He came back from the dead in the comics…

And keep your mask on for god’s sake!
</Spoiler>

So, no hill running, but that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped running. Or being busy.
I did the regular Wednesday run today. And then rushed off to Goldbar park to take part in orienteering. I signed up for it in corporate challenge despite having absolutely no experience. I gave the condition that they should only use me if they can’t find anyone else. Apparently they couldn’t. So I better get as much training as possible beforehand. Which is why the team got together to practice tonight.
It was fun. We were able to mainly stick to trails, but there were a few moments where I went off road. And because it is early in the season, vegetation is more thistly than soft and cuddly green.
My legs hurt.
Still I get to have a sport that combines my love of maps with running. What could go wrong?

Well the first public movie night didn’t go so well.
Oh it was fun, but we neglected to actually watch the movie. We just got to talking and before we knew it, it was past 9:00.
So instead of a whole movie, we watched episodes of Robot Chicken.
I guess A Knight’s Tale will have to wait until next time.

I would like to try holding regular movie nights on Mondays. It would give me an excuse to start watching the movies I have already purchased, and rent the ones I’ve always been meaning to see.
The past two Mondays I had people over to see Spider-man, and Spider-man 2. Well that series has run out, and now I need some others.
jmacaig seems to want to see A Knight’s Tale so I’m going to be playing that this Monday. Open invitation for people who know me and want to come. If you don’t know me, please don’t come.
But since I want to do this more regularly, I figure I should treat it like the Friday Feast; put on my website the movie that will be shown…
I would also need to put a list of other movies I have and hope people would let me know which ones they would most like to see. A movie night doesn’t work if nobody else shows up. Especially with comedies.
I have, in theory, already done this, but my website seems to take forever to update after I’ve uploaded the files. I’ve seen that if someone uses Internet Explorer to refresh, that usually gives it the kick it needs (stupid Shaw), but I do not have that program at home.

I haven’t read a book in a quite awhile. I’ve read “graphic novels” but not a book without pictures. I hadn’t realized how much I missed it.
The other day I got an Amazon order in. Included was the latest Lawrence Watt-Evans book, The Spriggan Mirror. He is easily my favorite author. I proved that by positively inhaling the book. After the farmer’s market this morning, I started reading it. I just finished.
He’s just that good.
I would feel guiltier about it if it was a beautiful day out. But it is only an acceptable day.

I’m a little upset with Air Monopoly right now.
I get a lovely email this morning talking about a seat sale. Since I have a resort in Jamaica reserved for November, and I just need a flight, I thought I would check it out.
Why yes, that is a good deal.
So this evening I started the process of signing up. I give them all the information they need, and in the end they snub me. I am not using an approved computer. They don’t support Mac OS X.
It’s been a long time since my choice of OS was snubbed. I’m not used to anymore.

The nine hills I did yesterday weren’t easy. It was especially hard to convince myself to actually do them. I finally did it by telling myself that this would be the last hill training I would do. And that is plausible, because any training you do two weeks before a marathon isn’t going to help.
Then, this morning, I get the idea that next week I could still do the ten hills I had originally planned. But if I do that, I’ll never trust myself again.
Does that sound weird?
It doesn’t help that today’s run involved going up that exact same hill. I’m totally destroying my body’s faith in me, never high to begin with.

I say hello to a lot of people. And apparently I meet a lot because I always try to go out and do things.
Today, I went grocery shopping immediately after a training run (Up and down Emily Murphy hill 9 times. I don’t recommend that.) So, while I am still hot and sweaty, in shorts with no pockets, I navigate the aisles of Save-on-foods looking for the groceries to sustain me for the next week.
Into this scene I bump into a woman, good looking and obviously healthy. And she says “Hi” like she knows me.
I apparently can not recognize people I don’t see on an ongoing basis. She looks vaguely familiar but I can’t place her. Since she is healthy looking, I’m going with the theory that it is someone I ran with as part of the Running Room.
I make small talk, and it seems to go well. She has no idea I don’t know her.
This has happened before. Pretty woman say hello to me, and I have no idea where I know them from. If I even do know them.
This is a good experience, I just wish I could act better on it.