Lately, I’ve gotten out of the habit of reading. I used to read a lot. The first time I ever went without cable television, my reading rate exploded. That was causing problems. When you watch a television show, you have an idea as to when it will be over, and can plan accordingly. Say, going to bed at a decent hour. If you read a book, you don’t have that guarantee. It might be too good to put down. And then you’re up past midnight trying to see how the hero is going to get out of this mess.
Most of my reading these days has been subsumed by comics. Comics are easy to read. They are especially quick if you don’t look too much at the images that people poured their heart and souls into. And you don’t have to have too many brain cells firing to read.
Aside: The only good thing to come out of the Smurfs movie is that I could get Smurf books again. I liked the Smurfs growing up, and it was a great tragedy that haunted my grade five experience when my one Smurf book was stolen at school. It was about a flying smurf (because I couldn’t get Astrosmurf) and I still haven’t found a copy of it in all the reprints. But now I’m realizing that I’m not enjoying these books. The last, featuring real Smurf on Smurf action, just left me bored. I think it is time to grow up and put childish things away.
Anyway!
For Christmas, I got the biography of Steve Jobs from my parents. At the time, I would read the later parts of it and find it really interesting. But it soon ended up in the pile of books by my bedside that I intended to read, but never seemed to. Then a couple of weeks ago, my father mentioned that he would like to borrow it to read.
Suddenly this book has become the most important thing to do. Must finish before I see my parents for their anniversary next week. It hasn’t been easy to get into reading again. Part of it is the fault of the book. There is no heroic narrative that will make me inhale the book. Instead, there is a significant slog through the early part of Steve Jobs’ life. Frankly, it is rather boring. Not terrible, but maybe it is a story I’m already familiar with. But now that I’ve gotten to the part where he buys Pixar, it is becoming much more interesting. I can see me getting into the stage of not being able to put it down.
His later life is much more interesting than his early life. He mellowed and became more likeable. Instead of the spoiled brat he was.

I used to write much more in my journal; several times a week. Now it is very sporadic. Is this better? Quality over quantity. (But quantity is its own quality.) Lately, I’ve only been writing when something noteworthy has happened in my life. Could it have something to do with all the spammers that try and post “comments” after every entry?
There was a time when I noticed that I seemed to always update the journal after a Wednesday or Sunday run. Or do people want to know the random trivia that happens in my day to day existence?
I got sunburnt today when I ate lunch outside and decided to try and balance out my extreme Farmer’s tan.
I did seven set of Hotel MacDonald stairs.
Meh.
The Death Race is this weekend. I am not going, but most of my running friends are. I feel left out. I am not doing it because it is only four weeks before Mont Blanc, which is more important. (I keep telling myself that.) I need the recovery time.
But I recovered fairly quickly from the Sinister 7, so I don’t know if that is true. And that was only four weeks ago.
I’m starting to feel more regretful about not finishing the Sinister 7. Immediately after my failure of 135km, I did not feel bad. Time does not heal all wounds. Time sometimes makes them worse.
In solidarity of my friends doing the Death Race, I think I’ll try and run 60km this Sunday. I do need the distance training.

Last weekend was busy for me. An old friend from out of town came to visit. So on Friday evening we went out for a dinner together. On Saturday morning I snuck in a 28.3km run. In the afternoon, I went to see The Dark Knight Rises with my friend. Then we were up until one in the morning playing board games.
And the next day I got up at five o’clock to go for a 175km bike ride.
Most people will train a long time for an event of physical endurance. Apparently I just do them on impulse.
The Tour d’Alberta. Three days before, I signed up because a friend suggested it. And of course, I’m not going to do anything less than epic, so I chose the full 175km course.
The longest I had ever cycled before was about 56km. My bicycle is about three months old. Two weeks ago I was on the Sinister 7. The day before, the run of 28.3km. At five o’clock I was up, functioning on four hours of sleep, and we drove up north for the start at seven.
It was a well run event, and it left me free from worry. There were lots of aid stations, so I didn’t need to worry about food. Mechanics on motorcycles were always going by, so I didn’t need to worry about breakdowns.
I did need to worry about the pain in my seat. At about the halfway point, it was becoming clear I hadn’t sat in a bicycle seat for long enough to get used to it. Shifting and standing was necessary. The other problem was my hands were aching from pressing against the handlebars. Maybe I should have worn gloves? Would they have helped?
I did approach the whole event from the perspective of a runner. There were four ways this was apparent.
First, I tracked the distance remaining by comparing to ultramarathons. After the first aid station, I only had a Sinister 7 to do. The second left me with only a Death Race. Third was a Blackfoot. It did feel strange when I had to compare to only a marathon.
Second, I announced intentions to pass. I find that runners seem to be more friendly and vocal than cyclists. As a runner, I say good morning and let people know I’m about to pass. When the 100km group (of 700 people) met up with the 175km group (of 240 people) the roads got very crowded. I let people know I needed to pass, and then thanked them when I did. Not many other people did that.
Third, I learned about physics. There was a gentleman I passed, who I noticed was right behind me immediately afterwards. My first thought was, that he was faster than he had seemed, so I tried to pull to the side and insist that he go ahead. I found out that he didn’t want to pass, as he was using me to tow him along. This is called drafting. He didn’t ask for permission to do this. Is this normal behaviour for cyclists? It felt really creepy.
Finally, there are more cute girl cyclists than there are cute girl runners. I don’t know what to do with this information, but I feel I should do something.
In the end, I crossed the finish line at about seven hours and seventeen minutes. And there I was presented the award for finishing.
Last year, there was a medal. But they had polled the participants to see if they would prefer something more practical. However, they instead decided to give something more IMPRACTICAL. When you are at the level that would do this kind of event, the last thing you need is another plastic water bottle.
There was a supposed pasta dinner afterwards. I took one look at it and felt sick. I know I should have eaten, but I just did not feel like I could. I ate a bit of fruit, then we went home where I slept and suffered through the sunburn. In my defence, I did put on sunscreen, but I missed the edges of my clothes. And really, when you are out for over seven hours in hot weather, there is only so much sunscreen can do.

Last week I attempted the Sinister 7. I wish I could say that I finished it, but I did not. I did not make the cutoff for the end of the second last leg; missed by fifteen minutes. It is the first time I have been unable to finish an ultramarathon.
Still, I did 135km under brutal conditions. It was +28 during the day, and the afternoon leg was over a mountain that had had a fire destroy all the trees. Hellish. Apocalyptic. Then at around four o’clock, while I was on top of a mountain, the cold rain hit, turning the rest of the mountain into mud. Slippery mud.
Most importantly, I never gave up. I timed out. I did not decide that I couldn’t make it any further. So I don’t have to constantly wonder if I could have made it.
But I should have been able to. My friend, that I’m personally competitive against, was able to finish the entire race with 37 seconds to spare. I was ahead of him most of the way. Except on leg 5, where I think all my problems happened. It was dark, and I was alone for most of it. It started to wear on me, and doubts appeared.
Overall, the biggest problem is I didn’t take the race seriously enough. I always assumed I would finish, and that is wrong. I should have made plans of how long each leg would take so I could better approximate how much I should rush. Because of that, I tended to linger on the transitions.
My mother was there to provide support, and she was great at it. But she was too good. She was supportive, but she never once told me that I had been there long enough and needed to get going. That is an important criteria in support.
Most legs started with a big hill, which meant that I would walk that part. I should have been more willing to go immediately, instead of remaining sitting down and continuing to digest food I had just eaten.
The first leg was okay, and was on streets a lot of the way. The second leg really started to go into the mountains. I wasn’t doing that bad, but the heat was starting to rise, and there was one part where it felt like they had placed a wall on the trail for people to climb over. The third leg was where things got bad. It involved climbing around a mountain that had been hit by a forest fire in nearly a decade ago; no cover from the sun.
By the fourth leg, it was cooling down and I was able to go faster. But I took too long at the transition to the fifth leg, trying to horn down a soup with much needed calories. I had been told the aid station was ten kilometres in, so two hours later when I met some ATV’s, I was shocked to hear it was still over four kilometres to go. I later found out it was 15km in. But the damage had been done. I had slowed down.
I finished the leg just ahead of the cutoff. I thought I would easily be able to make the next 12km in two hours. It was all downhill; how hard could it be.
Well, it was mostly downhill, but there were a lot of depressions in it that were too steep to run down. The aid station, I had been told was 9km in. But when I hit it, I was told I had 5km to go. That was when I had half an hour left before cutoff. I tried to rush, but there is only so much you can do. So I failed to finish that leg. When the cutoff time hit, I didn’t have the energy to make a strong finish, and I walked the rest of the way in. Fifteen minutes later, I was done.
I’m hoping this failure is good for me. I can’t assume I’ll always make it. This lesson should serve me well in France.

So it is traditional for me to go to the pancake breakfast at the legislature for Canada Day. And for the past few I’ve taken to walking there. I probably got annoyed with trying to park there on the busiest day and I have a pavlovian response to that.
I probably should have left earlier. A half hour into my walk it started to rain. Not a lot, but noticeable. I did not have a jacket or an umbrella with me, because I don’t want the weather to think it can push me around.
It did get a bit worse by the time I arrived. But that actually made it easier to eat. There were no lines. The pancakes were fresh and hot. It wasn’t crowded around the syrup stands. Easy to find a seat.
And as time went on, the rain started coming down harder.
Yes, I did get a little wet. Enough that a politician (I think) took a picture of me getting rained on, saying he was going to put in on Twitter.

There is something comforting about partaking in a work of fiction that has been spoiled.
I’ve purchased many trade paperbacks (i.e. big comic collections) in my time. A lot of the time I will flip through them before I really read them. I usually regret this as it spoils the story. At least I assume it does. With comics it is also fairly easy to find out what has been going on in them by reading the internet. It takes several months of the comic coming out regularly before there is enough that can be compiled together for a book.
But this weekend I purchased a book I don’t know the conclusion of. I’ve been fairly good at not peeking ahead. But it is by an author not known for being nice to his characters.
And I dread reading it.
I know it will be a good story, but the fact that I know bad things will happen, is making me uncomfortable reading it. It doesn’t help that in the first couple of pages, the hero lists the bad things that happen because he didn’t get out of the game.
The equivalent is Joss Whedon, and his predilection for killing your favourite characters.
Compare and contrast with Star Trek. There you know there will always be a happy ending and nothing will change. That is very comforting. It may not be the best, but you don’t always want tragedy in your life.

Last week I did my first race of the year, the Blackfoot 100km. I finished in 13:13:43.
It was not easy.
I had taken three weeks off from running to let my knee get better. Well, not actually my knee, but my IT-band. You feel it in the same area. But it felt like that time off didn’t do a lick of good. After about 10km, my knee felt just like it did before. The vacation hadn’t helped.
But it wasn’t pain. It just felt like something pressing on the side of my knee. And being stupid, I decided to ignore it and keep going. After the first loop of 25km, I put on a knee brace, and that seemed to help. It still felt off, but not as badly. I was able to push on and finished the whole thing. Unfortunately, I didn’t put the thing on too tightly, so the spiky part of the velcro rubbed against the back of my knee for 75km. Skin does not appreciate that.
I did make a mistake on the first two loops. I was running alone, and somehow decided to count the number of uphills. I believe the result came out to 116 uphills on the loop. And the people on the Wapiti aid station seemed happy to know they were hill 69. But the problem was that I focussed to much on the hills. It made the run harder.
Thankfully, on the last two loops I had caught up with a friend. The conversation helped distract me from the agony of the run.
Afterwards, my knee felt fairly good. Well, compared to the rest of my body. But since the rest of me was in a lot of pain, that really isn’t saying much.
On Thursday I did a very slow 2km run. It was painful. But not in the knee. It took several days for my quads to calm down after that. It only got better today.
But when I went for a run today, my knee flared up again. It was as soon as I hit my first uphill. Which explains how I got past it in the race; I walked every uphill on the course. I decided to turn around and go home before I did too much damage.
The problem is that I need to run. It is my best way of being with what I can laughably call my “social support network”. I’ve been dealing with a lot of stuff lately, and I’m not feeling great about life. It helps to talk about it with friends who are forced to stick with you for several hours. I’ve been more open with them than with many other people, probably because my brain gets turned to mashed potato after awhile and my self-filter gets shut off.
Now my next race is the Sinister Seven, which is in a month. I’ve got a lot of doctor appointments this week. Hopefully I’ll be able to get this IT-band straightened out quickly.

I’ve fallen a bit behind in my blogging. My excuse is that I’ve been really busy. This will be my first weekend in the last four where I get to be home with both time and energy. Which means I’ll be cleaning up my condo for most of it.

Last Friday, I was at a friend’s wedding. It was a nice time, and I’m sorry I had to leave early for a prior engagement. I probably would have done more dancing if my knee had been feeling better and wasn’t needed for the aforementioned prior engagement. The food was excellent and I ate quite a bit of it.
I’m lucky I’m a guy. For men, the bar for wedding gifts is really low. If there is a registry, you just get something on it and call it a day. But for this wedding, there was none. I went shopping half-an hour before the ceremony. That’s probably not good, but the first place I went to, I immediately saw the perfect gift. The place didn’t do gift-wrapping, but I was in and out in less than two minutes. All the staff I talked to were friendly and courteous.
I’m probably going to do all my gift shopping at CIBC now.

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.

I did some stair training today; seven sets of the stairs behind the Hotel Macdonald into the river valley. Afterwards, to get back home, I ran up Scona hill.
The police were out and had set up a speed trap at the Pioneer’s cabin. Of course I had to ask “How fast am I going?” as I ran in front of them.
“Funny guy, eh” was what the cop said to me. He did not sound like he was joking. He sounded like someone who wanted to arrest me on a trumped up charge. Did I do something wrong? I was just trying to be friendly to the police services. Was he blaming me for blocking his machine catching speeders? I’m pretty sure I had to pass in front of them. That’s where the sidewalk was.
Or was he just really sick of that joke?
What else would a runner say?

Sleep was an elusive commodity last week.
Let me recap what it involved.
On Sunday evening I was in Calgary. There was a party I wanted to go to. I had a good time there. But I had to leave at 1:30 in the morning, because it wasn’t a day off for me and I was due in Edmonton for work. So after a drive home that I don’t want to talk about (under my lawyer’s advisement) I got to bed at home at around four o’clock. I was at work at 10:30 and did put in seven hour day. I can work an extra hour later to make up the deficit.
After work I had a movie night that lasted fairly late. So I didn’t get to sleep until 10:30.
It didn’t help that I had to get up at 6:00 for a physical therapy appointment Tuesday morning. But the evening was pleasant. I went out on a date that caused me not to get back home until after midnight.
I’m not entirely sure I stayed awake through my early morning Wednesday dentist appointment. But I felt surprisingly awake that day. Enough to still do 40 minutes on a treadmill in the evening.
And then I got to get a good night’s sleep.
Sleep is my earliest memory.
I remember darkness and slowly becoming conscious of existence. And not just again, but for the first time. I think of it as me gaining sentience. Then I opened my eyes and walked to the kitchen where my father and sister were. I recognized them and I believe I said hello. So it wasn’t my first moments of life, as I had knowledge I don’t recall gaining.

I have entered a new chapter in my relationship with Sears.
If you recall from my previous entries, I have been trying to get the battery on my watch replaced without causing the rest of the watch to fall apart.
At last report, a month after Timex fixed it, the operating system on the watch froze and kept the light on permanently. I took it back to Sears under the assumption that they would send it back to Timex. Clearly it was Timex’s fault, not Sears’.
Interestingly, I got it back two days later. That was convenient, and oddly quick. Just in time for my trip to Vancouver.
In Vancouver, my watch started to fill with water again.
So, I suspect they never did send it back to Timex. Instead of having the manufacturer fix the mistake they had made, they took the easy route. They just popped the back off, took the battery out briefly to reset it. That would make it look like it was working again. But, as usual, that breaks the waterproof seal. And the battery remains drained from having the light on for half a day.
Of course, I took it back. They tried to point out their new sign that claimed no guarantee of waterproofing after a battery change. I pointed out that that sign wasn’t there when the whole mess started. I gave them the watch and expected them to return it to Timex. Shouldn’t take more than a week, I would think. Should I have been suspicious that they nearly forgot to give me my receipt for the watch?
Two months later I got tired of waiting. I had heard nothing, so I went in. Surprise, surprise, they never even sent it. They had decided not to do that. And they had decided not to phone me to let me know.
I think they might be afraid of me. I can’t see why. I’ve never raised my voice. I have been frustrated, but I don’t think angry enough to be rude.
In the time they had it, the watch has, mostly, dried itself out. But it is clear that the battery is nearly dead. And it hasn’t been set for daylight saving time.
The lady there suggested I phone the manager of the watch repair department tomorrow. I took the number and left.
But I left to the main store and found a real manager to complain to. She actually acted like she had power to make me happy. She took my complaint, and all my information. She’ll be getting back to me.
I hope it works this time.
I remember once hearing about making customer’s happy. If you make a good product, the customer likes you. If they have a problem with the product, they don’t like you. But if you then fix that problem well, they like you better than before.
Sears’ customer satisfaction rating hangs on a precipice.

There was a book I got a few years ago for fairly cheap, Fleet of Worlds. I enjoyed it. While going through a purge of my household, I found my copy again and thought that i would like to read the other three books in the series. My natural inclination would be to go buy it on Amazon. But I’m purging, I want less stuff at home, not more.
Then I made a brilliant leap of logic. eBooks! Sure enough, I can buy the other three books on iTunes. However, they aren’t that much cheaper than paperback copies there. They might be cheaper at another store. I’ll have to look into it. But this would be a way for me to read the books and then not have to deal with clutter.
And not once during this time did it occur to me that I could just go to the library, become a member and read these books and more for a significantly smaller amount of money.

I once again tried speed dating tonight. I haven’t been for a year, so I’m a little rusty. Or not as traumatized. There was a reason I hadn’t been for awhile?
The reason I decided to go was that it was located on Whyte avenue. Finally one I can walk to. And because I’m not driving, I can take some liquid courage beforehand. I know many people would disapprove of that, but I think it did help to take the edge off the evening. I did relax more. And it is a situation where I want to be more myself, and not tense.
However, I have never had any luck at any of these, and I don’t see why this will be any different this time.
Hope springs eternal.

As the season turns, I enjoy noticing the effect of the earth’s rotation. Each day I can see that there is a bit more daylight. There was a time when I left work and it was still dark out. Now, I can leave fairly late and there is still a chance of light. I feel like I’m earning my summer.
Which is why I am so annoyed with Daylight Saving Time. Suddenly, all the hard work is gone. It is back to dark when I go to work, and it will be light past the point where I would notice it.

I’ve been so tired lately. Everything seems to be happening at once and I’m falling behind in the tasks that I want to do. This weekend pretty much evaporated on me.
But I did go for a run. I finally broke the 40km barrier today. Although I’m not proud of it. I ran 1.75km to the Running Room. Then did a nice 25km run from there. Once back, I still had 13.25km to go, and I figured out a route home that, surprisingly, was exactly that. However, there were some cupcakes at the Running Room and I took one.
I’m not sure if that was a mistake. Lately, I’ve taken to skipping breakfast before the long Sunday run. I read an article that it is a good way to lose weight, and I think I need to do that. (Because 40km of running will not do that?) In any case, the 13.25km run home was very unpleasant. It started out with a weight in my stomach bouncing up and down. This caused a bad stitch in my side. Then I just started running out of energy. Probably because I hadn’t eaten enough. Irony?
Let’s just say there was a lot of walking in that final part of the run.
But according to Steph, when I run, I’m doing God’s work. So I’ve got that going for me.
I did make one discovery when I got home. Adding salt to chocolate milk makes it taste really good!

It’s been awhile, so I really should at least comment a bit on my trip to Vancouver.
It was my first time to the city, outside of airport layovers. It really is a beautiful place, although I think it was trying too hard. The downtown waterfront was filled with tall, glass buildings, that all, generally, looked the same. Expensive, but none stood out. Anywhere else each would have been fantastic. There: face in the crowd. (Brick in the wall if we want to use an architecture metaphor.)
I noticed a number of interesting differences between there and Alberta, that probably aren’t mentioned in any travel books.
The first difference was that it is a lot more socially acceptable to smoke. I have two theories as to why that is. B.C. and Alberta both have laws against smoking indoors, but in Vancouver it is not necessarily an excursion into winter to do so. You don’t have to suffer nearly as much for your habit. Also, because a lot of people smoke pot, and don’t think I didn’t notice the smell, it is hypocritical to complain about smokers if you are an illegal one.
The second difference was more beggars. Similar to the above theory, they have less chance to freeze to death. Why wouldn’t you go there?
The third difference was the credit card machines. Here, I have trouble remembering the last time I signed a credit card receipt. There, I did it almost all the time, including the old, chunk chunk carbon-copy “machines”. Chunk chunk, sign here. Pin numbers haven’t caught on yet.
On one of the days I hung out with a friend from Seattle who had driven up. She had a car so we drove around looking at things she was interested in. That included vintage clothing stores. In other words, I got to talk to the local proprietors for long periods of time. One was complaining that the city was very expensive. Everyone was so busy trying to earn money to afford their homes.
That may have been true, but what they spend on homes, they save on food. Two restaurants stick out in my head. The first was the sushi place that I went to with a bunch of friends after my run. Because I was on a post-run meal, I was hungry and ordered a lot. Still much cheaper than Edmonton.
The last meal I had was at Save on Meats, a diner. A store clerk had recommended it to me. It was fantastic. It used to be a cheap diner, but it had been gentrified recently, even featured on some reality shows. They had their own butcher and bakery on the premises. The food was great, and quite affordable. I would recommend it to a friend.
I’ve covered food and accommodations. Now I need to turn my attention to transportation. My flight to the city was annoyingly delayed, so I was late to the party I wanted to attend that evening. I made up the time by springing for a taxi instead of taking a bus to the hotel. While in the city, on the last day, instead of taking a convenient bus downtown, I walked, despite being told, truthfully, that it wasn’t scenic. But the hotel clerk had also said it wasn’t walking distance, and if they lie about that, how can you trust them. Pfft. 5km is totally walking distance.
The return trip to the airport was confusing. I used my iPhone and Siri to try and use the bus system. It wasn’t entirely easy. But I paid $2.50 for a bus back to the hotel so I could pick up my luggage, and then transfer right back out to go downtown again. (The bus stop I waited to go back downtown listed the bus number but implied it was drop-off only. Thankfully it lied. Thankfully there was also a small woman there taking the bus to help me out.) When I was back downtown I got onto their train system to get to the airport. I still had my bus transfer, but no one asked to see it. And I don’t even recall seeing a place to pay for the train. I just walked on and sat down. Security?
For the flight home, I was able to score the exit row seat. The window seat even, so I was responsible for the safety of the plane. Unfortunately, I probably didn’t give this as much respect as I should have. I had my GPS watch with me, and I decided to ignore the electronic device warning and use it for the whole trip. (It doesn’t broadcast, I’m pretty sure.) If this was the US, I’m sure some air marshall would have been handcuffing me on the floor before the flight landed. But, due to sensical Canadian policy, I have a nice map of the route the flight took. I wish it had been daylight so I could try and recognize landmarks for the map.
In any case, good trip.

I’ve nearly made it. In less than an hour, the relay racers can sign up for the Death Race. Soon, it will be impossible for me to sign up.
I need to start concentrating on training.

I have defied the Word of Steph. I can only hope to beg for forgiveness for my sins. Maybe a gift of some nice dessert.
Today I rented a bicycle with helmet and put foot to pedal. I went cycling around Stanley park for almost two hours. It was actually rather pleasant, but not much faster than running. Well, it probably was faster than running, but I stopped every so often to take pictures or mug someone into taking a picture of me. My GPS watch will probably tell me when I have a chance to plug it in.
The biggest problem was that they had closed part of the seawall trail. Specifically the part that stays low and does not climb up a large hill. It was actually the first time I’ve ever used gears on a bicycle. My bicycling history is pretty much Winnipeg, Montreal and Edam. All known for being flat. Now I know the joy of being able to switch to first gear.
I had planned to run in Stanley park, but that goal was thwarted. A friend from Chicago had agreed to run with me while she was in Vancouver; probably drive to Stanley park and go from there. But she had forgotten her runners. Such is life. So, yesterday, I left the hotel, and ran 9km to the park. I did about 2km of running there before I had to return the 9km back to the hotel so I could make dinner with other friends. I wish I had had an hour more so I could have properly experienced the park. Something to look forward to next time.

The reason I’m in Vancouver is that a couple of women I know from Jamaica are here as well, along with a a man who is a local. There is a conference that they are attending that I thought I would check out. It hasn’t been as interesting as advertised, but I’m having a great time reconnecting with old friends.
At the party for the conference’s first night, we pretty much avoided everybody and spent the time talking amongst each other. I even made a vague plan to go for a run with one of them.
After it was over, I went back to the room of one of them to fix her computer and get it connected to the internet. We then talked for nearly two hours. It is now very late at night, and later for me with the timezone change. Hopefully I can be up for breakfast tomorrow.

I’ve gone through my previous journal entries. I have come to the inescapable conclusion that I am a boring person. All I do is talk about running, or ultramarathons. And, as far as I know, none of the people who read this have ever even considered going out for a jog. I have no idea why they keep reading. Maybe they don’t.
So I need to be more interesting.
That’s it. I’m going to Vancouver. Right now. That’s what an interesting person would do.
Unfortunately the flight is delayed by an hour and twenty minutes. So I’ll try and be interesting waiting in the departure lounge.

Actually, the Death Race will probably be available for sign up for a week. They are letting the soloists sign up seven days before the relay racers. So there is plenty of room and time for me to fall off the wagon.
The thing I have to remember is that the Death Race is safe. I’ve done it four times. I know what to expect and I have, I believe, a fairly good chance of completing it every time. In other words, I’m stagnating. I need to attempt something new. Evolve to a better person.
That said, I couldn’t have qualified for Mont-Blanc without the Death Race. It gave me the points I needed, and the confidence to sign up.

Tomorrow is the day you can sign up for the Death Race. It is probably the only day. It will most likely sell out quickly. I would really like to sign up. I really shouldn’t. I have an important race three weeks later. That is not enough time to recover.
I’ve done it four times in a row though. After three you set up a mathematical pattern that is hard to break.
What has made it harder is that my good running friend looks like he is going to attempt the Alberta triple this year. I wanted to do it last year except my injuries prevented it. (I hate that guy who got his car stuck in the snow.) I was able to still do the Death Race, but not the other two.
There is always next year.
Just keep telling myself that.

And my watch is back for repairs again.
Today, I noticed that its light was stuck on. Further investigation showed that none of the buttons worked. This can’t be good. I gave it a few hours, but nothing changed.
So, back to Sears. Once again they are sending my watch away to the manufacturer, and I’ll have to deal with my dreaded backup watch.
The timing (no pun intended) could be worse, but not by much.

So some people wonder how Steph could possibly be supporting me on this endeavour. Well, I remember her biggest encouragement:

It was on a Friday night, October 28th in the year of our Lord, 2011. I arrived at her domicile, and found her sitting in her master chair. “Steph,” I said as soon as I laid eyes upon her. “I am in need of your counsel. Should I train for and partake in the triathlon known as the IronMan?”
She looked up at me and replied. “Erik, my dearest friend, I have thought long about this very question. I have come to my conclusion after many months of pondering. You should not put hand to water, or foot to pedal. Never shall you know the joy of two-wheeled manual transportation, or the cardiovascular benefits of the waterborne. You shall not participate in the IronMan.”
With great respect, I asked for confirmation. “Steph, this sounds unlike your previous decrees. Are you truly convinced of this?”
“Hear my words and know them to be true. I say unto thee, Nay, thou shalt not IronMan. You must continue with the treading of foot on pavement and trail for distances and landscape hither to undreamt of by common man. The Steph has spoken.”
“Truly you are wise, and I cannot go against your wishes. I will do as you say,” I humbly accepted her decision.

I may be paraphrasing a bit, but that was the gist of it.

I got the email this morning. “The draw has taken place and we have the pleasure of confirming your registration for the UTMB® race!”
Wow.
I’m terrified right now. But I’m sure the training will take that away. Probably until the week before the race.
A big part of me still wants to do the Death Race. But that is only three weeks prior, and probably not enough time to recover. But I’ve done it four years in a row. A mathematical pattern has been set!
In any case, I would really like to thank Steph. Without her support and encouragement, there is no way I would have signed up for this.

Tomorrow is the big day. I find out what I’m doing for the next year and a half.
If I win the lottery, it means I do not do the Death Race. Instead I will do the Mont-Blanc ultra at the end of August.
If I lose the lottery, it means I continue to do the Death Race. On Labour Day I will go to Montreal like I had originally planned. However, the worrisome part is that I will now need to earn a total of seven points over two years to qualify for the Mont-Blanc. If I have them, I automatically get in. No lottery needed.
I only found out last week that I need seven points. Usually it is five. The Death Race gives me three each time, so having run it twice I would easily have enough points. Now, I’m short one point.
So, I just need to tack on another ultra and I’m good? No. The two other ultras in Alberta that are worth points are full. A friend recommended I write them directly and plead my case; that might get me in. Or I have to travel somewhere else, far away, to get that last point. Assuming I even finish the Death Race.
In either case, I’ll probably do the Blackfoot ultra as a training run.