Lovely swim, clunky spin, cranky rant

After shoveling the driveway this morning I wasn't completely sure I wanted to go to the pool today. I'm glad I did. As soon as I took the first strokes I knew it would be a good swim. 750 m  just a bit faster than a 19 minute K pace. Some kick and pull. All the time dodging a slower woman that wasn't terribly considerate. The girl in the next lane was a rocket.

Then everybody got out and I had a lane to myself, just in time for intervals. I've been struggling with those. Today was 8x50 on 60 seconds, all faster than 51 seconds. Today the water feel was there, and I wasn't breathing as hard as I have been for these. My flip turns were a bit sloppy though. Then some water running, really pushing it, imagining myself sprinting down the path nearly full out. All so good.

Then onto the bike after work. There was no way I was going to risk the sidewalks. Clunkly. 20  minutes to get up to 85 rpm. Nearly 30 to get to 100, all in an easy gear. The top of my left calf was grumpy and complaining the entire time. I didn't push too hard, and bailed at 45 minutes, then stretched and rolled it with the ball for a while.

Planning a 10 K easy run on the weekend. Neither day looks especially good, but I'd still like to do it outdoors. I'm not sure I could face doing 10 K on the 200m track at Talisman. That is 50 laps. Yuck. Let me know if you want a weekend run buddy. There seems to be reasonable odds for tusks.

Work is transitioning me to a new pair of projects. One is equipment I'm really familiar with; but I need to figure out the database they've been using. Calling it a database is being polite. The other is to help manage some pipeline data. This ought to keep me out of mischief at work for a while.

My readers are still chewing through the novel. I've had some hints that they are liking it so far. I've been working on one scene that I wasn't happy with, trying to figure out exactly how long it takes. The tricky bit is that one of the women is pregnant. If the bit is short, she's still pregnant for the following scene. But if it takes longer than I've got it written so far, I need to change the following scene. Decisions decisions.

I wish I could put a news filter to block certain news stories. For instance, there is a particular "celebrity" that is in the news lately, something about a drunk driving charge and assaulting a limo driver. (And you thought I was going to talk about the Olympics. Surprise!) Here we are, Harper ruining the country every chance he gets, and selling off whatever is left, Trudeau making a startling change to the Senate, to say nothing of the various Senate scandals, plus the always odious Rob Ford, and what do the media focus on? An idiot 19 year old. It's a measure of how twisted our society is.

I don't care what a celebrity has to say on any topic. I don't care who they sleep with, or what their next project is. I don't care how much money they make, or where they live, or what toys they buy. I don't want to know any of it, though it's nice they buy things, as it's one way of recycling their obscene wealth. But it's all part of the bread and circuses that distract people from what's important. Like an economy going into the toilet. Massive income inequality. Environmental changes that might kill millions, perhaps billions of people. Many of them are a waste of skin and breathing air and we won't miss them. Like celebrities. Them first, please.

But if humans can't cope, there will be a lot of innocent critters that will go first, and their blood is on our hands.

I'd better write something

Monday. Pool. Katie. Water run. Clunky swim. Evening stretch and core.

Tuesday. Scary run. Thin slick icy. 6K, 40:30, very carefully. Left ham and calf not happy, but not actually cramping. Slow start, not really feeling like going for a run, but I'm happy I did. Even happier I didn't slip.

Wednesday. Stupid traffic. Nice yoga. More stupid traffic. About a dozen cop cars had Anderson and 14th closed off, so we had to go north to Glenmore Landing, over to 24th, and home. Southland was stupid.

Tired lately, trying to get to bed early. I'd have written more, but blame the stupid traffic.

So all you get is a pic of a typical fruit selection on my desk. Dates in the little bag. Yummy.

Those hips!

Today the woman that runs the yoga studio we go to put on a hips workshop. There was a bit of nomenclature, with some diagrams, and lots of long muscle and bone names. I didn't remember any of it. To be honest, it wasn't what you'd call the most dynamic presentation ever. I was sitting behind her, and could see her pointing to the laptop screen as she talked about various things. The problem is that we couldn't see what she was pointing to. She needs a laser pointer or something.

What I remember from the workshop was the moans and groans of the participants. It wasn't quite the level of of a porn soundtrack, but parts of it weren't far off. That's what you get balancing your body on a hard ball grinding into tender tissue. It was all very good, and well worth it.

Before that was a hard spin session for an hour. After a bit of warmup I pushed it harder and harder, for shorter and shorter intervals. That all felt really good and sweaty, with some stretching after.

So far, this marathon training thing is going well. My legs don't feel tired. In fact after yesterday's run I was thinking I could have run much further. But that's what the plan says, that at the beginning it seems like you can do more. Don't. It piles up quick enough.

I'm musing aout where this weekend disappeared to so quickly. A run, a spin session, a yoga workshop, some puttering to start a new wine kit, some novel stuff, a bit of shopping, and boom, the weekend is done.

Oh, and a nice sunrise photo this morning! It was interesting to watch the clouds scudding overhead, and I think something odd was happening because the ripply red light disappeared as the clouds moved, along a nice line. No idea what was happening there.

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.

The pigeonaires, and what I put up with

Yoga was wonderful last night. I mean, it's often good, sometimes really good, and every now and then it's just wonderfully lovely. Which is a big contrast to last week, where something in my low back was unhappy with me. This week's flow might have been designed for a runner. Gotta love our yoga teacher! She worked pigeon pose into the flow, which was very nice. A few people winced, but most liked it. Linda asked if we were in any danger of getting pigeonaire disease from doing it.

Tonight was just brutal for a run. I mean. Look what I have to put up with for scenery! These are not retouched in any way.

I just had to stop to take the pics. Even so, 6K just over 42 minutes. Mostly nice and easy on a somewhat icy path, but one of the K was quite quick. Good cool down walk and stretching after.

Heading to bed pretty quick. The plan is to meet up with Katie in the morning at the pool. She wants me to try to swim 5 K, which I haven't done for years. I figure 2 K is more than enough, especially since my employer will expect me to work a keyboard during the hours they pay me.

The wine kit I started is perking along. There is a faint yeasty wine smell throughout the whole house. How we suffer.

Running. Ice. Dark.

Look Maw, no slips or falls!

Out for a fairly easy 5K, looking to go a bit faster than the easy weekend runs, but not so fast as to worry about footing in the dark. I can't wait till the days get long enough to run in daylight after work.

It all turned out really well, back and forth on the 37 St path. It's in pretty good shape, mostly just hard pack. The sidewalks are brutal right now. I'm pretty sure I could skate to the path without any difficulty, and no risk of ruining the skates. You can bet I walked carefully. It took a bit of doing to get warmed up, then settled in around a 7 minute K pace that felt pretty good. The last bit was faster, and by then my legs felt like running.

Here's the pace graph. 5K 35 minutes almost exactly. Legs feel good after.

The next 4.5 months the blog will be a bit more fitness oriented as I train up for the Calgary marathon. I'll try not to go too overboard on it. For those that come here for the rants and the photos, there will still be some of those. If you come here for something else, don't be afraid to put in your request now.

Almost beginning

Sunday was a nice easy day, restworthy even. The important part of the day was this. One of them is started already.

Monday I water ran with Katie, moved on to swim when she got out, with some kick and pull. Working on intervals. 4x50 on 60 s, all under 50 seconds.

After work there was a 40 minute mostly easy spin, but 5 minutes fairly hard. Then a nice stretch and core session.

After looking over the marathon plans, I'm mostly going with the one on the Calgary Marathon website. With some changes. I'm not going to run 5 x a week. At least not to start. One of the runs will be done as a water run and some high intensity swimming, the other will be a spin session. On both of these I can push the cardio effort quite hard, without running the risks of doing so running on outdoor paths. The actual runs will be the LSD,  a run with strides or Fartlek or hills, and one other at a steady pace faster than LSD, but slower than full on. I haven't yet built a spreadsheet to track all this yet. I know that astonishes some of you.

The main reason for doing that one is that it's already in Km, and the weeks are already numbered. Yes, I'm lazy about some things. I've discovered over the years that miles mean nothing to me for distance anymore, and a plan built on miles is just blah blah blah. Besides, miles are obsolete, archaic, and backwards.

Once the daylight is around longer, the paths are better, and I see how the training goes, I may run more. Not going to push it though. My goal is to finish the marathon without needing a trip to the med tent. Half the battle for finishing in good shape is to get to the starting line in good shape.

I was listening to a CBC interview that was talking about a study showing that happy people are healthy, and it makes total sense to me. One of the metrics they used was walking speed. People that walk faster are both happier and healthier. Which means that woman that passed me this morning on the way to the office must have been nearly orgasmic. I was going at a brisk but not all out pace, and she passed by with a zoom. That doesn't happen very often.

They are onto something though. I know from experience that having a positive outlook makes getting the workouts done that much easier, and I think you get more out of them if you enjoy them. That's why I'd like to get up, and get on with the workout first thing, before I have time to talk myself out of it. I feel for the people that have to drag themselves into it, and struggle through. I've certainly had tough workouts, and times I wasn't in the mood, but mostly I've loved getting it done.

The guys at work were watching the hockey fights. The "line brawl" between Calgary and Vancouver. Disgusting. It started seconds after the game started, so they were told to do it. There's no place for that sort of goonery in the game. Shit like that is what drove me away from being a hockey fan.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. If you don't want that in the game, you fine it out of existence. Pick the things you want to ban. Stupid fights like that one, bloody stick work, head shots, whatever. First offense, 10K fine, 10 games off. Second office, 100K fine, 100 games off, and third offense a million dollar fine and you are out of the game forever. For every incident, the team gets a flat million dollar fine. That shit would stop, right now. Even regular penalties should be upped. Instead of 2 minutes, it should be 10 minutes, and no back on the ice if the other team scores. Each player should be assessed fines of 1K per penalty minute.

For the really bad stick swinging intentional assaults, I'd go straight to the 3rd offense fine. For extraordinary shit like that game earlier this week, I'd fine each of the players on the ice, (except the goalies) 100K and out of the game if they ever do it again. The Calgary centre started it, so the Flames should be fined $1,000,000. Coach, each of them, 100K.

Grrrr.