Autumn gardening in Calgary, and a rant

The plants have had a big year, growing tall, developing their roots and bulbs, and blooming their little faces off. That takes nutrients. Linda has noted the soil level has fallen quite a bit since the garden was planted, and has a plan. The delivery guy was helpful in dropping the big bags right where they were wanted. It saves me much wheelbarrow work. I am thankful.

Plus we are starting to get frost at night. The white fabric is cheap. The pelicans help to protect the plants.

Here's some more plants all draped up. We have plans for Halloween to use this fabric. Hopefully there will be a little breeze, and we can send billowing clouds of the fabric towards the little trick or treaters.

Others plants are still working on their blooms. I call them optimists. I'm not sure if they're behind because of recovering from the many hail storms, or they are late bloomers anyways. I am rooting for them, being a bit of a late bloomer myself.

The big event this weekend is the photography course put on by the famous Neil Zeller. I'm so eager to go I'm already packed.

Lets see, what haven't I talked about. Oh yeah. Running. Last you heard we ended the 26 K run at 22 K. I've been hurting in an achy way ever since.  Twinges in hams and calves. I woke up the other day to spasming muscles in the back of my knee, extending down into the calf, and up into the thigh. Not hard and painful like a charlie horse, just little contractions that I didn't ask for. My resting heart rate has been elevated, and my sleep has been crap the last several nights. I suspect over training, or my body not recovering from the last workout.

Doing easy mobility work has twingy moments. The Tuesday swim was ok, but the water running after didn't last long. Fighting off a runny nose cold hasn't been helping.

The Saturday schedule calls for 28 K, and I'd been thinking of moving that to today. I don't think I can cope with staying up late (for me), doing a long run, and then going out for another late night, and then spending all day working with the images.

Now that today has arrived, I'm asking my legs what they think. 28 K is right out. In fact, I'm dubious about 10 K. Stay tuned.

I was into Chinook mall to check out the screen on the new 27 inch iMac. Along the way I saw this totally incongruous sign.

(Rant on!)
What's wrong with this picture? To start with, there isn't a lot we can do about the adults addicted to tobacco. I feel for them, and I weep for the impact it has on our so-called health care system. But we should be doing everything in our power to prevent people from getting the habit in the first place. Tobacco is a foul, noxious product that has absolutely no redeeming societal value, and should have no place in the modern world. None.

That said, it's been legal, and we need to deal with the consequences for much of the next human lifetime. Places like Shefield should exist to supply the unfortunate, under strict conditions. That should be the only place to legally get tobacco in any form. And those places should not be next to a child oriented store. They should be regulated similar to the places selling alcohol.  Test them by sending in underage kids, and if they don't check the ID, they are shut down.

I was thinking about the health care system as I woke up this morning. There is a whole wave of pre-geezer people that are going to be putting increased demand on the system as their bodies fail them. I'm one of them, healthier than most, but the path is inevitable. All we can do is manage how steep the decline is, and how many rocks are in the path. The health system should make this easier, and keep people out of hospitals.

Let's take automobile collisions, or as I like to call them, demonstrations of driver incompetence. DDI for short. One of the unfortunate side effects is cluttering up the medical system. People don't get killed nice and clean, oh no. There are whole teams of highly trained people devoted to getting the injured out of the mangled vehicles and delivered to a hospital. Some of them die sooner or later., how sad for them and their families. Some are injured to a lesser degree, but might take up a bed for much longer while they recover, and many never recover fully. In some ways that's even sadder. Even those not injured will likely be assessed, which takes valuable medical resources.

I've said it before, I'd like to see car simulators built to objectively test people's driving skills, and measure the lack. And boy do I see a lot of skill lacking, or the willingness to employ the skills, which comes to the same thing. You see it too, don't lie to me. Such a test every 5 years or so upon license renewal seems fine, and of course, after a DDI. We should be doing lots more to reduce the number of dead an injured, not just for their sake, though that's reason enough, but to lessen the burden on the health system.

We should be looking hard at people that are involved in any sort of a DDI. Those single vehicle "incidents" we hear about on the radio so often? If it's not a medical event, it's a DDI, unless you convince me the driver was distracted by some amazing event like a meteor strike nearby.  Changing weather doesn't count, this is Canada, the weather changes abruptly so drive that way. After a DDI the driver(s) involved should have to justify why they should be continued to be allowed to drive, and should have to pass an advanced driver safety course. The course and following drivers test should be marked by the infamous Russian judge.

Just yesterday I watched a woman trying to get out of a tight parking spot in a big vehicle, while holding a phone to her ear. I was watching carefully so I didn't get run over. I caught her eye, did the phone holding gesture, while shaking my head at her. She just got angry and revved the engine more. Fortunately I was beside the vehicle, not in front or behind, but I was beginning to worry about the surrounding vehicles. What could be so important that she couldn't complete the call while parked, then devote her full attention, such as it is, to the difficult task facing her? I don't think she had completely grasped the concept of turning the steering wheel this way, while backing, to make the front of the car point that way. Sigh.

I wish I knew what caused people to make choices that they know are bad for them. Driving is one of the most dangerous things a Canadian can do. The manufacturers have made cars ever safer, yet people are devoting less thought to driving. They know they can't (not in the legal sense, but that it's nearly impossible to) text and drive, but seem compelled to pick up the phone.

People know that smoking tobacco is a disgusting habit that will damage their health, and that of the people around them, yet they continue. Worse, they somehow start.

People make poor food choices, sometimes because that's all they can afford. I've been asked at work where I get the food I bring for lunch, it smells so good. I tell them it's often what we had for dinner the night before. Yes, they say, but where did you get it? Umm, Linda cooked it. They don't get it. Many of the people I worked with over the last while not only don't cook, they can't cook, unless heating up canned contents counts. Not.

Trinkets like the iPhone are all very well, but there's lots of days I think there are some fundamental things wrong with our society. Do you agree? Stories you can share?

7:15 or bust

How times change! For a long time I ran at about 7:30 per K. Recently I've been getting faster and it feels great!

But training for a marathon is weird in some ways. Consistency is huge, of course. But so is doing your easy runs slow. The point is to make them easy and relaxing, giving you time on your feet, learning to run more smoothly, getting your mind used to the idea that you're going to keep going. Part of it is to stay aerobic, getting your body to burn fat without building up lactic acid in your muscles faster than they can deal with it.

The problem is that once your legs know how to run faster, it becomes difficult to run slower. So tonight, for example. My legs are still feeling the Saturday run a bit. This was to be a recovery run, slow and easy, 8 K. Things were clunky to start, and stayed clunky the entire run, excepting a few times, for a few seconds, where my legs escaped and picked up the pace. I ended up taking 58:08 which is 7:15 pace, which is about what I was aiming at.

What's funny is that I clearly remember the first time running that distance in that time, and practically turning myself inside out doing it. I was perilously close to the retaste zone. Now I'm hardly breathing for much of it.  The work is to keep my legs turning over in what feels like a plod.

The Saturday run I wore my heart rate monitor for the first time in a while. Normally about 129 bpm is a chatchatchat pace near the top of zone 2. I was told I should be a little slower than that, hence the monitor. Blue is pace. I started about 7 min per K, and gradually slowed down. Heart rate is red, and you can see it gradually rises with a couple little burps for hills, where I really slowed down. So yes, for much of the run I was mid zone 2 which is success in my books. As I slowed I was running less efficiently, plus it had started to rain. That last half hour was brutal. You can see where my heart rate jumped up and stayed up.

Swam this morning and that was a bit of a plod too for much of it. 1K, 19:15, which is slow for me. First 250 m felt ok but was slow, slow, slow, next 500 m struggling to keep it together, and the last 250 m was a bit of a  slow flounder. Plus, (and Talisman I love you but you're killing me) the hot tub is STILL out of service. It's full of bubbly water, just to taunt us. Sigh. I'll be there on Thursday, Talisman! Just saying.

We are refugees from Talisman, we said

This last week Talisman has been hosting a big swim meet so there isn't much lane space for us recreational swimmers. I didn't mind taking a week off, but I wanted to swim today. No, really, what I wanted was the hot tub. While checking lane availability at Talisman I noticed the hot tub is out of service till further notice. Catastrophe!

Then I noticed they had made an arrangement with the Y to accept Talisman memberships during the swim meet. I call that good service on the part of both organizations. I got all excited about swimming in Seton, as I remember a buddy of mine saying she had a job there. I couldn't find any swim times though, and there was a blurb about construction starting in 2018, which seems odd to me.

Eventually I called the Shawnessy Y, and confirmed swim times. Me and my famous swim buddy strolled in, and tried to show our Talisman cards. "We are refugees", we said. He sent us back to another person. She took a copy of our Talisman cards and drivers license. Then started asking about emergency information and contact numbers.

Michelle gave hers, but I was baffled. I gave them our home number, which is the number we give to people we don't want to talk to, but told her she had to talk to the answering machine before someone would pick up. She asked for a cell number. There is no point giving Linda's cell number, so I told her my wife didn't have one. I got this look of stark disbelief. Then she wanted mine, and I was trying to explain it would be in my pants pocket, in a locked locker, doing no good to anyone. In the end, I just told her to find Michelle if I was hauled out of the pool drowning or spasming or something.

The pool would be sunny if it wasn't raining out. It's odd the guys locker is upstairs, and the women's is downstairs, but ok. The locker rooms are nice, and they have the little spinny swimsuit dryer. That's a nice touch.  We had a lane to ourselves for most of the swim. Mostly an older crowd that time of day.

My flip turns were slightly off. I think the way they've tiled the lines is slightly different and it threw my perspective off a bit. Still, I had a nice swim. Maybe 1 K or so, nice and easy, mostly, with a tiny bit of fast. I couldn't really see the pace clock very well unless I stopped to look. Can't have that.

The hot tub is nice. We were in there for a while, me stretching and enjoying the heat on my legs, Michelle recovering from specialty workouts of her own.

Napped with the cats. Easy core, going through the motions mainly just to get used to it again. Contrary to what some of my fitness buddies think, you don't just jump into core, and bang out 2 minute planks, and dozens of push ups and pull ups and squats and who knows what else all. That will put your body into shock and it just might pack up the whole show in protest. No, you have to sneak up on it, gradually working in more and harder core stuff. There is a list. Of course there is a list. I even found my old jump rope, and that's supposed to be excellent conditioning. Before the patio the only place I could use it was the front sidewalk, and I just couldn't. Now the patio will give me some privacy, so when the rain stops, I'll have a go.

I have the run plan up on the fridge. I suppose I could put it in my phone to remind me not to schedule anything else. I already know the weekend of Aug 13, 14 is going to be tough because of the writer's convention I'm going to. Let's hope there aren't any really really compelling panels first thing in the morning.

All you people that have done a marathon. I know some of my readers have done this. What advice do you have for someone tackling their first stand alone marathon, and wants to finish under 5 hours?  What got you through yours? What did you wish you had known before you started? Any funny stories? Would love to hear what you have to say in comments.

 It's still raining, so the grass is still wet, slowly turning into a jungle again. I don't think Calgary has ever seen so much rain. I'm sick of it, myself. If I wanted this much rain I'd live in Tofino.

Here's the last major treat before going into serious marathon training. And Curtis, supervising me.

MEC half marathon

It struck me I hadn't done a race report in a while, which I suppose is the inevitable result of not racing in some time. In some senses today was a very cerebral race for me, so I thought I'd talk about the whole experience.

I'm what you call an adult onset runner. I ran in high school, then nothing to speak of till about 9 years ago. It's been a long slog, trying to build milage. I'd get to about 10 K, then it seems I'd push too hard and have to rest.

I was a swimmer, but as the triathlon saying goes, you can't win a triathlon in the swim, but you can lose it. You can win it with a strong run, which I don't have. Again and again I'd get out of the water in a reasonable time, and then everyone would pass me on the bike. The only reason people didn't pass me on the run is they had already finished.

For whatever reason I've wanted to do a stand alone marathon for a while. This year I got serious about running consistently. As I got to a long run of 10 K, I stayed there for a while, till it felt comfortable, then started adding distance again. It really helps to have a run buddy who is amiable about distance, doesn't care about route, and naturally runs about the same pace I do. (Hi MC!)

Gradually the distance grew, and the times got a little faster. One of them she snuck in a faster pace on me because I hadn't been paying attention, which sort of got me off the plateau I'd been on. All good. Then the 10 K earlier this year was essentially an hour, which was a surprise to me. My weight had been slowly creeping up a bit since Ironman, but this year it's been sliding back down. That helps the running too.

This race was a big step for me, to see what my time was, see how I felt. I've no need for another medal or shirt, so the MEC race was the right venue and the perfect time. This is the first one of their's I've done, and I'm impressed. The race experience was flawless! It started on time, there appeared to be enough volunteers, the aid stations were where expected, and a good time appeared to be had by all. There was the faintest rain shower during the race, and shortly after I finished it started coming down cats and dogs.

I didn't have specific goals, though my recent training had me thinking I wasn't likely to be faster than 2:15 (a 6:24 per K pace or so) and I wanted to be faster than 2:30 (just over a 7 per K pace). I pretty well nailed it, so I'm quite pleased. I deliberately hadn't looked up previous half marathon times, and it turns out this is only a few minutes slower than my fastest one. Yay me again!

The pace right from the start was surprisingly fast. Within the first K I was running nearly alone, a few behind me, most out in front. It took a few K to settle into the groove, and I chugged along averaging about a 6:10 pace. I was happy and comfortable, and would have been able to chat, if there was anyone to chat too. For most the race I was leapfrogging a woman doing a walk run, but we didn't talk.

About 9 K I was getting some chatter from my legs and I slowed down a little, then about 12 K my pace fell again to about 6:30. K's 14 to 18 were tough sledding, with my pace falling to 7 per K. I was focussed on keeping my legs moving, thinking about my posture, trying to keep my hands and arms relaxed. I was determined to run the whole thing, no walk breaks. The cadence stayed about where it was, but I could feel my stride shortening and becoming stiffer. I got passed by a couple people that had been staying behind till then. I still wasn't breathing any harder, but my legs were starting to protest. I kept moving. There was a funny niggle up the outside of my left thigh to behind the hip bone. Never had that before, but kept my feet going. It got a bit easier as I got closer.

I tried staying with the people that passed me, but they ever so slowly pulled away. Sometime during the last mile I got another wind and my legs picked up, so the last K was a 6:20 pace.  Photos and buddies and bananas at the finish line!

Overall, my phone thinks I ran 21.56 K in 2:19:56.  The big surprise of the race is that the 5 K best pace was 30:36 and the 10K best pace was 1:02 which is essentially the pace I ran the 10 K in. Maybe that means I started too hard, but it didn't feel that way. My legs liked the pace and my lungs were happy.

The phone thinks the half marathon pace was 2:16:57, which is nearly exactly what I ran the 2010 Hypothermic half in.

I think it's clear I need to work on leg endurance, to be able to keep running at a desired pace. Core. Hill work. Hope it doesn't snow for Oct 22, MEC race 7.

Here I am finishing, photo credit Patricia.

And a couple more, credit Ken. This qualifies as a focussed look, I think.

My buddy Patricia, happy after a great race.

Marathon and regular running maps.

You don't want to hear about Thursday at work. We both had a big glass of wine after. I felt fine after the fast run on Wednesday, and still feel fine now.

Friday was a bit of thrashing around in the pool. First in the dive tank, then the hot tub, then back in the (cold) competition pool for an easy easy 500, chat to Katie as she ran, back in the (what seemed lukewarm) hot tub.

Home. Breakfast, then picking up my buddy Janice. We had a nice cup of tea as she checked out the garden she's only seen photos of. Then it was off to drive the marathon course. Mostly. She lived here a long time ago, and there's been lots of changes. There's one piece near the zoo we couldn't drive, there was some road closures in East Village, and we skipped one bit of it going downhill through Mt Royal around K 25.

We both realized we were hungry just near the out and back on Memorial, so of course we stopped in at Lazy Loaf and Kettle. Then the rest of the course and back for package pick up. No line up. Strolled the expo and said hello to several buddies (Neil, Richelle, Rose, Madi, Martin ). Then back through really heavy traffic home again. There are some last minute nerves, but we are ready!

I, of course, am not doing the marathon. Here's the 10 K route.

It was a lovely way to spend most of the day, chatting with someone I've only seen a few times, but we both blog, and comment, and exchange witty banter on Facebook, so it's seeing an old friend again. (And neither of us are old, so lets just make sure that's clear!)

So the map project. I knew I was going to be doing lots of running this year. Along the way I've heard of people walking every street in New York, and there's a guy doing that in Calgary. I had the happy thought of doing my runs on different parts of the bike path, and decided to start with the ones nearest water. That's along Fish Creek, the Elbow River and Glenmore Reservoir, Nose Creek, the Bow River, and as an extension the Western Irrigation District canal.

I've been marking them off by highlighting them on a bike path map, but they don't show up quite as well as I'd like.

In case it doesn't show up in your browser very well, it's from the reservoir, down to Fish Creek, across to the Bow, upstream on both sides in places, missing one spot, then up Nose Creek to 32nd. Along the Bow, missing a spot, out to Bowness. I'll do missing bit on the Bow on a lunch time run from work, and along the Elbow maybe partly a run at lunch from work, and maybe from Talisman home running after work. There is sort of a plan. We did along the canal till the construction at Glenmore. I'll need to scout out a place to park and make sure there isn't any more construction along the canal. It would be nice to run it all the way out to Chestermere, over several runs.

Once all that is done, I'll start on the round Calgary bike path. I've already done some of it, but there's lots more. I think it's done early 2017, so some of it might be a next year thing.

Then to now

I realized as I was about to push the publish button you'd probably see the full horror of the first tummy shot in your Twitter or Facebook feed, and I didn't want to put you off a meal or anything. So I put in this pair of quiescent kitties. So calming, soothing.

Now to the subject matter at hand.
March 15
An ongoing post starting just after the Talisman 10 mile tri. There was a photo of me being passed by Terry on the run. My gut is way out in front, like below only more so. Sheesh. Time to do something.

I decided to cut down on sweets and taper back on the wine a bit. In discussion Michelle generously offered to support me by giving up gummy bears. Not that her petite geometry needs to lose weight.

The big trauma right from the start was freezing 13 of Linda's wonderful cookies so they don't tempt me day to day. These are not empty calorie cookies. Lots of good stuff in them, but there are choices that are more nutritionally dense.

So, for the next month, what does this look like? Wine, no more than one 5 ounce glass a day, and if I miss a day it doesn't carry over. No cookies, cake, bars or other treat sweets. Dial back on how thick the peanut butter and honey is spread on sandwiches.

Not that the scale number is the ultimate or anything, I weighed myself today, and will do so at the end. It isn't the measure of success, it's just an indicator number. (238.8, if you were wondering) Maybe I'll get a cloth tape and do some strategic measurements. (I didn't.) Or maybe I'll get a duplicate of that shot above, same shorts and jersey, see if it makes a difference. (I sort of did.)

March 17
So far so good. I haven't broken down and defrosted a cookie, or bought one from anywhere. I'm still feeling a bit tired from daylight savings time, at least I hope it's that and not my metabolism shutting down on low fuel.

April 16. So much for a near-daily recounting of the month. You weren't interested in the trivia anyways. You want results. RESULTS!

 I'm feeling great! The running has been going really well, running faster, and generally feeling lighter on my feet. Except for the last couple that happened shortly after tough bike rides, so that sort of understandable. The bike fitness is about where I expected it to be. Swimming sort of comes and goes.

Overall I got through the whole month without any sugar cravings. No cheating on cookies, and not even getting carried away with little balls of energy and recovery goodness. No cakes or treat bars. The closest I came to busting on the wine was one Saturday when I had two (measured) glasses, one 3 oz with lunch to finish a bottle, and a 4 oz with dinner. Lots of days I didn't have any wine at all.

There was one bad day where I'd eaten all the dates I'd brought for snacks, and all my lunch, and right after lunch I realized it was a long stretch to dinner. That wasn't much of a fun afternoon. Fortunately there was no work stupidity, or a bout of hangry might have happened.

I even had coffee at Purple Perk with buddies, and didn't have one of their treats in spite of being seduced by the 3 part butter tart chorus. I was pretty proud of myself after that. (Have you seen their treats? They are awesome!)

What is the future? I will go back to eating cookies and treats of course, but the trick will be cut down on the quantities. There's still lots of tummy that can be trimmed back, and I've got several months before the contemplated marathon. The lighter the better for that. The MEC marathon I've got my eye on is in October. So I've got 7 months to gradually build volume, and trim weight. At the 5 pounds a month rate, I could be down to what I weighed in high school, though I was pretty skinny then. I don't think that's a realistic target, or even a particularly desirable goal. During the IMC expo I got weighed, and they said I was 218 pounds. I'd like to be down around there again, and I think that is reasonable.

Here's the current tummy. It wasn't the best place for a side shot, because there's a really steep hill about 2 steps in every direction sideways and forward, but it was the best we could do post run.

That post run just happened to be 15 K, 1:52, for a 7:27 pace. The idea was to start at the canoe club, run down the canal to 50 Ave, cross over, get on the Bow River path, cross on Ogden Rd, go through the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary, cross the Bow again at Blackfoot, then run up to the pedestrian bridge over Deerfoot and back to the canoe club.

I'd consulted the detour map, which told me about some detours near 50 Ave. The map was wrong. We ended up going lots further south, and then cut off the loop north of Blackfoot. I was feeling really good till the last K or so. I thought we were at 12 K or so, and was surprised to hear the phone say 14 k. Getting back to the car was almost exactly 15 K and we strolled around the parking lot to cool down. It all makes a very nice addition to the pathway map I'm colouring in.

The swim yesterday was ok, and the one on Wed was very clunky. There was a 6 K, 43 min run on Tuesday that felt very heavy and slow. No surprise after a really hard bike ride.

So the month of no cookies, et al was good. The number on the scale was 233.3, so down 5.5 pounds in a month. I think most of it was off my tummy, since the fit of my pants hasn't changed. I'm pretty pleased about that.

The other piece we were talking about on the run. Typically running at a 7:30 per K pace my heart rate was up in the 130's. Today the average was 120 it says, but it took me a minute to remember to turn the Garmin off at the end. But most of the time it was low 120's today. So I'm running further with my legs feeling fine, at a lower heart rate, while maintaining the same pace. I'm pretty pleased about that too.

Spring is full go here. The grass is greening up, the lilies are going gangbusters. Linda has the garden pretty well all cleaned up from winter, and is thinking about annuals, and filling the planters she found. I still need to pressure wash stuff. Later today, if I get at it.

The downgrade

I finally did it. Realized the truth. Came, mostly, to terms with the inevitable. On the weekend I changed my registration from a marathon to a half marathon on June 1. Even that had me wondering, but then I realized there was no way I would be ready to try to run 10 K fast either. And what's the point of racing 10K just to finish? So (fingers crossed) with some consistent training (which I've really struggled with this year) I ought to be able to run the entire thing. I hope.

Another thing we're coming to terms with is clutter. There is an old plasma TV to be recycled. A VCR and some tapes to be tossed out. (If you want a functional VCR with tapes of Miss Marple, speak fast!) An assortment of other odds and ends to be tossed out. A water damaged phone (who knew plastic would degrade and crack by itself?), several old leaky irons, an old coffee maker, and I'm not sure what else all.

Even though all this stuff is essentially non-functional, I still have a pang throwing it out. The VCR, for example. There is a story there. Once upon a time, I was helping my dad's family clean out my Grandma's room at the lodge. Her funeral was the same day as the Oklahoma City bombing; we were watching the coverage as we were getting ready for the funeral. 19 years ago in a few days.

My uncle picks up a small TV, turns to me, and says, "Your dad got this for mom, so I guess it's yours now." (My dad had died a few years earlier.) I had turned to run, but there was no escape. It was reasonably well known in my family that I don't watch TV much. I carried it out to our car; Linda nearly left me behind when she saw what I was carrying.

So we took it home, and a few days later we went out to find the cheapest possible VCR player. I toyed with the salesman's hopes, then crushed him mercilessly. "The cheapest", I said, "that plays and rewinds VCR tapes." He started with the extended warranty spiel, but I gave him the look and he stopped part way through.

We mostly rented VCR's, but bought the Miss Marple ones because they are so good. (Joan Hickson was born to play Miss Marple.) We played a few DVD's on the computer, but lasted till Boxing day 2002 when we bought the plasma and a DVD player. So that VCR player is 19 years old in a few days. Hard to imagine. I'm not sure why we kept it. Mostly because it was sitting there inoffensively hooked up, I guess. Gathering dust. I'm not even sure if it can be hooked up to the Blu-Ray, and I don't propose to find out.

I can remember when VCR tapes and players were a novelty. An expensive one. Anyone remember the VCR and Betamax wars? Once could join a video club for a fairly steep membership fee, and it was $20 or so to rent a tape. Buying them could be 3 figures. Imagine!

Now DVD's and Blu-ray are nearly dead. More and more content will come from the internet. Maybe 20 years from now I'll be writing a blog about these shiny plastic discs and an impossibly coarse ancient technology called HDTV. (We used to have to put bolts into the wall for a mounting bracket! They were several inches thick! And if you looked close you could actually see the pixels!)

So even though the VCR was under $200, I think about how long I had to work, back then, to buy it. (Not that long, now that I think about it.) Still, my Granny went through the depression, and as a child I remember her being extremely careful with money. There was a strong element of "make do, or do without" there. Things were expensive, and you were expected to take care of them.

Now our things turn into clutter. It would probably cost me more effort than buying it, to find a home for the VCR player. Much easier to throw it out. And no, they say you can't even recycle them. The City website says to throw them (household quantities) into our black bin, which is garbage. Tuesday evening, unless someone speaks up, claiming it or the tapes. The countdown has begun.

Oh, and water ran this morning with Katie for a while, as she filled me in on her Maui trip, and adventures with her rental bike, dubbed Two Ton Tessie. Ran a bit more after she left, then slipped into the pool for a quick 600 m. For once the competition pool was warm.

The idea is to run tomorrow. It could well be snowing. I'm not kidding. I'm weeding a flower bed today in the warmth and sunshine as chicken cooks in the BBQ. Shoveling the driveway tomorrow. Spring, you are depressing. I hope for nice weather this weekend to clean out the garage and fix the BBQ.

What do you have in your house that you really should throw away?

First marathon training day, so nice!

Friday I tried keeping up with Katie in the pool. I lasted 50 m front crawl, and lost her on the turn. A bit later in the swim I was doing pull, and kept up for about 150 m, working hard. Both times I was trying to draft close, and not succeeding very well.

Overall it was an excellent swim, in the water for about 50 minutes. After a chunky start I busted out a 20 minute K in the long course pool, dodging a floatie, and trying to keep up with 4 or 5 other people. Lots of kick and pull. 100 m aiming for 100 seconds, almost flat out, fading badly about 75 m in.

Saturday was my first marathon training day, only 10 K LSD. It turns out that it's 5 K from Anderson road up to just the bottom of the little gully before the South Glenmore park boat launch parking lot. It was a perfect day, nice and warm. No really, warm, above 10 C. I was in shorts and tech shirt again.

I ran really nice and easy, trying to keep the pace even and did pretty well. The slow time at 6K is for this selfie. Sorry, no tusks. Maybe next time, it's supposed to get cold again.

Here's the splits.

I'll be doing long runs on the weekends, either Saturday or Sunday depending on weather, other scheduling constraints, or when buddies can run. As you can see, a 7:30 K pace is nice and easy. Next week is 10 K again, then 2 weeks at 13 K, then 2 at 16 K, then progressively longer distances, topping out at 32 K. Get in touch if you'd like to meet up for a run!

Just lately I've been noticing big black pick up trucks, and their ignorant bullying drivers. I've had a couple close calls with them cutting in and out of traffic. One of them I'm quite sure never saw me, but then again, he didn't look either.

Friday afternoon my neighbor and I were out chipping some ice trying to get the water draining. Yes, we are out on the road, in the space that would normally be parking, but right now it's an icy no-mans-land. We looked up to see this guy swerve into the flowing water, deliberately trying to splash us. We didn't get wet only because we moved pretty briskly. I was thinking of throwing my shovel at the truck, but the moment passed.

On the bike, it's either pickup truck drivers, or BMW's. Both have given me several close calls and made my heart go pitter patter. I suppose I should be grateful that BMW doesn't make a pickup truck. I don't know what it is.

In the one parking lot I use occasionally, I see big trucks parked badly all the time. One guy took up two spots deliberately. Someone had already written in the dust on the drivers window, "Learn to park, dickhead!" I added "What, couldn't find a handicapped stall?" I only hope other people added to the commentary, or someone with a small beater car wedged it right in there.

And those swinging balls hanging from underneath the trailer hitches. Like this.

So classy. One morning, same parking lot, where someone with those on their truck usually parks where their trailer hitch juts out into traffic turning from a ramp, I happened to see a young woman draping a small sock over the top metal trailer ball. The effect was uncanny. So little in comparison, but still visible. I gave her a smile and a thumbs up. I wonder how long it was driven like that. Lots, I hope.

Wait 5 min, oops, too late

Bed early last night. Slept like a rock. Up at 5 to feed the mammal horde. Curtis starts with polite reminders that we've perhaps forgotten something really, really important. Then it gets louder.

I cogitated on the book, and think I've worked out an alternate ending.

About dawn Michelle picked me up for her long run. She finally got to check out the FA50 race course. We parked at 8th Ave and ran south to the Canoe Club. Going we went right along the start of the WID canal, then on the way back we went up the hill and ran beside Max Bell. Going over the Deerfoot pedestrian bridge I got this post-dawn shot looking at the remains of the Harvie Passage.

Along the way there was the obligatory selfie. I made her put the snack back in her mouth!

This is Michelle scoping out the parking at Canoe Club. Let's just say there isn't much for a 200 person race plus volunteers.

From the Canoe Club we ran back to 8th Ave and along the path all the way up to the parking lot at Beddington Trail. Linda was waiting for me and it was all timed very well. The last couple K got a bit tough with my legs getting tired. In hindsight I should have brought a snack along the run.

Those of you that have been reading my blog for many years might remember some of my first runs along there, back when I was doing 4 and 1 run walks. It was a long time to work my way up to get as far as the golf dome. Today it was nice to revisit the old running grounds, and then explore some bits I haven't seen on foot. There were a couple bike rides home from Skystone along this path when their office was north of Deerfoot mall.

My run meter didn't register the leg from 8th ave to Canoe Club and back at all. It kept the time so I know I ran 2:10 minutes. It's 7.7 K for that bit, and Runmeter says it's 10 K almost exactly to the FA50 turnaround. So 17.7 K at a 7:21 K pace, including a couple photo and snack breaks, but overall nice and easy. That's just over a 5 hr marathon pace. Hmmm. I've had lots of suggestions for books and info, thank you very much everyone. Now I get to read through and figure out a training plan to survive this crazy idea!

It was beautiful out! It gradually got nicer and nicer. Clear blue sky, and well above zero when we got home so I fired up the BBQ and did some Bison tenderloin. So very tender and yummy!

By the time I finished my glass of wine it had started getting blustery. There's some sleet in that, but I don't know if you can see it.

Curtis was fascinated at the noises of the snow sliding off the roof.

Not sure how well you can see, but it turned into a nice little blizzard there for a few minutes. Then it was gone, and now it's overcast. No idea what's going to happen next.

I'm sitting here nicely tired from the run, but not whacked out exhausted. My calves are a little tight, so I'll go roller them some more. The plan for this afternoon is to take the tree down and put away the ornaments and decorations. Let's see how that goes.

And almost a PS, now it's bright and sunny, and things are melting.

AMA Whoopsie!

So long, so hard, so wrapped up, I was too tired to blog yesterday.

Water ran with Katie first thing. I ran a bit over an hour, but she had been in the pool for a while already. Her idea of "taking a break" is water running at least 1.5 hours. Almost 2.

Home. Novel stuff.

Ran 45 minutes at lunch time, such a beautiful day out! Ran 6.25 K, in 45 minutes, nice and easy. 7:10 per K or so. I was choked to see that Runmeter provided no map data at all. It used to be the getting a bad map was a rare thing, now it's rare to get a good one. I upgraded it to the recent version and will see if that makes a difference. A run buddy has suggested Irunsmooth, or something like that. It looks really good; the problem is that it needs iOS 7, and I've been resisting installing that on my iPhone 4. Everybody that does that regrets it.

Maybe its time. Ive been looking at the 910XT off and on for a while. Calgary people, how well does it work here?

My neighbor, supposedly, is going to Dominican Republic this morning. The plan was to have a limo come get them a little while ago. I didn't see one leaving, but I was busy with important things like making coffee and placating a cat. They may have a problem.

I spent much of the day buried in my book, going through a text doc version of it, looking for things to fix. Let's just say lots. Up to 88K words, and one section that needs a bit of smoothing.  Linda will start reading it later today, and if it passes muster with her, I'll be looking for Beta readers. Wait! why are you all running away? Not looking for line editing, I'm more interested in finding out if people think the story is interesting, and if they care about at least some of the characters.

Last thing last night I went crazy! CRAY CRAZY! Look.

My goof, one more AMA question from Janice.
Janice L
AMA: What's the most adventurous thing you've ever done besides an ironman?

This sort of implies that Ironman is the most adventurous thing I've done. That was fairly straightforward, actually. I think there were other things more adventurous. Here's a selection, see what you think:

• Once upon a time I packed almost everything I owned into a 78 LeMans and drove from Streetsville to Calgary. 2.5 days. Alone. That went fairly well, with only a minor adventure in Pence, and fixing a radiator hose somewhere along the line. I had a job lined up, and a place to live. It's all moved forward from there.
• Getting married/buying a house. Sort of a package deal, when you think about it. I didn't know what was going to happen, and certainly never predicted where I am now. After a life where I had lived in 9 homes I can remember, I've been in this home for longer than all the others put together. Maybe you should have asked Linda about HER most adventurous thing.
• In more specific things, one day I packed up my bike, drove down to Longview, then into towards the mountains. I drove up to the top of Highwood pass so I'd know what I was getting into. This is the highest paved road in Canada. On the way back down to my starting point I saw a big grizzly bear was sitting on the side of the road. There is no cell phone service on this road. I was riding alone, except for the other traffic on the road. Details.
• Exploring my head space while doing a crazy shift work schedule for years. Some crazy things happened there, some of which made it into the first book I wrote, which is currently on the shelf awaiting the completion of the NaNoWriMo novel this year. (See Beta reader note above.)
• Visiting a job site way north of Fort McMurray. Watching this in action. You can't tell from this shot, but the business end of that would be glowing red hot in spite of it being -40  or so, and the ground frozen solid. Getting back out again was an adventure, what with a cement truck dropping the tailer across the only bridge out, and rush hour traffic in Fort McMurray. The camp with the inedible food, and snowdrifts in the hallway between the rooms.
  
• Now that I  think about it, I've actually lived a fairly sedate life. When I think of the adventures my office roomie has had, just in the not quite two year's I've known him, I'm a positive recluse.

And now, back to the novel, that one last bit of smoothing. For now. No doubt other things will come up.

Comment please, 910XT users in Calgary? What is your experience with it?