On Saturday I have a big race. Well, it isn’t big, but it is long. I haven’t had a good run in four weeks. I had a pain in the side of my knee that made running risky. I took a week off, and it got better, but after 8km of running it was back. Now I haven’t run for three weeks. So hopefully I will have healed enough.
To help it along I have been getting physical therapy and frequent massages. I also tried out a new physical therapist at River Valley Health. There they are more specialized for runners. They noticed that there were some important muscles that were very weak, so I have to do some exercises for them.
They also gave a quick review of what to watch for when I run. Most importantly, I need to keep my hips level. To demonstrate what not to do they did a movement that looked straight out of a salsa dance.
I have a wedding to attend tomorrow. How will this affect that? Will I be able to do the Funky Chicken?

I’ve been away from Edmonton for the past week. I’ve been in Calgary for some training. This has given me an excellent opportunity to observe the city in its native environment.
It is quite clear that Calgary is the richer city. Not necessarily better, but it is richer. The locals feel much more open about spending money on expensive cars. Or fashionable clothes.
The buildings are also higher (do they have something to prove?) but that might just be because they haven’t had an in-city airport that prevents skyscrapers from being built.
Now, I’ve never really been in downtown Edmonton during the workday, but I don’t feel it flaunts its money as much. That same fact makes it hard to compare/contrast, because I’m not sure what my Edmonton baseline is.
I have to continue with my theory that Calgary hates drivers. They seem to work very hard to make it as inconvenient as possible.
I wish I could say more, but on the drive down last Saturday, I felt myself getting sick. It really hit me by Tuesday, getting the worst on Wednesday. That evening I started taking cold medicine so Thursday was pretty good. I’ve slowly been getting better. This did mean I didn’t get to do as much as I would have liked to do.
There were two things I would have liked to try and do. I could have checked out the zoo, which I’ve heard very good things about. But I felt that it was more important to get a lot of sleep instead of gawking at animals. The other thing would be to perform my favourite foreign city hobby and climb the Calgary tower. Unfortunately I found out that you can only do that on one day each year.
I did have a good walk to what I think is the best game store in Alberta, and then along 17th Avenue.

You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it.

I haven’t seen the movie We Bought a Zoo, but I had somehow heard the quote. It was going through my head a month ago.
A month ago I was at an event, with people who had similar interests, and watching a performance. I got to talking with a beautiful woman near me. A woman who laughed at my jokes. I used those twenty seconds of courage to ask for her phone number, and she gave it to me.
We talked a bit on the phone and then we went out to see a movie. Drinks afterwards. I had a good time, and I learned more what dating should be like.
My previous attempts at dating haven’t gone well. And that has been partly my fault. I now realize there are two things that make dating go well.
Firstly, it is very important to have similar interests. I have met women I like, but dreaded phoning them up to plan something, because I had no idea what to do with them. The activities they want to do, don’t match the ones I want to do. There is only so long that I can talk over coffee. I am a goal-oriented person, and talking is not a goal. It is part of the journey.
Secondly, dating should not be a one-way street. It should be a mutual relationship. If I’m doing all the work, then something is wrong. She should want to see me as well.
Now all of this information is great, but things didn’t work out. I wish I knew why. A friend has called me “an acquired taste”, and it may be unfortunately true. After the one date, and a brief meeting at another event, the plan for dinner was cancelled with half an hour notice. (She got called into work.) That is last I have heard from her. I assume she has decided that it wouldn’t work out.
I’m trying to figure out what I did wrong. I thought it had been going well. She had been willing to return calls.

I wonder if I have an enemy out there who is spreading lies/truth about me?

There is a video that I found that is spectacular, both visually and the audio. It was originally at this location, but I have now learned to hate Terje Sorgjerd. It probably was violating a copyright, but the original location credited everyone. Fortunately, the internet considers censorship to be damage and you can find it here.
While, it is visually great, it is the music that concerns me. Wolf, by First Aid Kit. I went and purchased the music soon after hearing it. While I was driving today, it came up in my iPod rotation. And this time I listened to the words. Usually I don’t. (Mostly because I have bad hearing and miss crucial words. Despite the title, “Wolf”, I never heard the characters referred to as such until I read the lyrics. I think I heard “Woah” instead.)
But the song refers to running in two places. The first is “Let me see you run”, but the second meant more to me: “When I run through the deep dark forest long after this begun”. That is beautiful imagery. Since the singer is a woman (to the best of my knowledge, but Hanson and Shaggy have made me doubt my ears in the past. See previous comment.) that affects the visual.
I have, in my mind, a picture of a woman running through a northern rainforest. Vibrantly green. Moving swiftly. Leaping over fallen, moss covered trees and hurtling among the creeping roots. Dew hangs in the air. The sun is hidden behind leaves, casting speckled shadows. (Wearing a white dress, implying that she is in some gothic horror. Don’t know where that came from.)
I would like to do that. I would like to be physically fit enough to bound through a forest, covering distance rapidly.
But I can’t.
I will admit, I am better equipped than most to be able to do that. To this day, I don’t consider myself a real runner, despite overwhelming evidence otherwise. But the running in my dream is quick, anaerobic style, with lots of jumping. I do a slow, plodding, aerobic run, and will stop to carefully go over obstacles so I won’t hurt my knees.

I talk about running a lot. And it seems I can bring every subject around to it, if given time.