Mini parade and a cadence fail

There isn't just one parade to start Stampede. There are little mini parades going by every morning. At least that's when I've noticed them.

 Yes, that's a city street sweeper following. The reason should be obvious.

I've known for a while my run cadence is really slow. Lumbering, even. I go through bouts of trying to speed it up, and tonight was another.

After a slow start, I got settled in. Depending on how granular you want to get, my pace was pretty steady for about 3 k (.5 to 3.5), but my cadence started about 85, and gradually dropped off. I could feel it happening, and was working, churning, pushing those legs to turn over, even deliberately shortened my stride, and it didn't work.

This was a fast run pace for me. I maybe could have gone another K, but I think I'd be regretting it. Those middle K's were just under a 6:20 pace, and the fastest K was 6:12. I don't often run that fast.

What I've been feeling in the right shoe is now showing up in the left shoe. Time to go shopping.

Seeing myself in the snug bike jersey on the weekend has had a bit of a galvanizing effect on me. Eating habits are changing. I either need to up the workouts, and I don't think I can, or I need to take in fewer calories.

A white between 2 reds

The hard part about this morning was pulling on compression socks after my swim. Well, even the swim was a bit hard, in that my arms have reverted back to Pastafarianism again. It was a pitifully slow 1000 m. A bit of drill, and a few intervals and I packed it in. At least the lane ropes didn't eat me.

I wasn't wearing the compression socks due to fallout from the run yesterday. My feet and legs feel good. No, this is why.

High socks keep the edge of the boot from rubbing on my calf hairs. It's kind of weird walking in a higher heel than I'm used to. My balance was funny all day. The afternoon was hell because of a bad country band that fired up in the square kitty corner from my office. Mostly it was soft rock with a country twang, sort of. I don't know where they unearthed "Delta Dawn" from, but she belted it out with enthusiasm, if no talent.

The summer it came out I was making a nuisance of myself at my BC relatives, and they packed me off with one of my uncles driving a gravel truck all over the Fraser Valley. He liked to sing along. There used to be a road that essentially was the border, but the USA has probably demanded it be closed and planted land mines in it to keep out the drug smugglers. It turns out this truck has a throttle you can manually set. On one memorable occasion he set the throttle, I steered, while he stood on the gas tank and vented his opinion of the USA in liquid form. I was very impressed.

Tonight was some wine stuff. Here's a Meglioli red, with lots of raisins and grape skins ready to be racked.

Here's the 3 kits on the go. Bottle more in a couple weeks. It smells very good in the basement, in a wine-y sort of way.

Waiting for photos in drobox

The photos ARE coming, and some, only some will be shared. There are many. Some are quite frankly unsuitable for public view. Even private viewing had me covering my eyes. That Ironman Finisher bike jersey is just a bit snug. He said, in an understated sort of way. I should blow up one of them and put it on the fridge.

But first, my coffee moment with Curtis wondering if he wanted to share.

Today was a lovely run up to the South Glenmore boat club. I sang a little ditty to myself as I got there.

There is
a pole
in the aid station,
They call the family jewels
And it's been the ruin of many a guys race
I know
I watched it once.

If you don't know what that is sung to, there is no hope for you. The pole is right in the middle of the bike path, to keep motorized vehicles off the path. It's instantly downstream of where the aid station is. One guy that was trying to open a gel, hold a half full cup, and dodge someone, impaled himself on the pole. Fortunately it's somewhat flexibly mounted, and I think he took the worst of it in his gut, but still. I very carefully ran around it and started towards home.

10 K, 1:10:45, running easy, except for kilometers 6, 7, and 8. I struggled there a bit, falling off the pace. Pulled it together for 9 and 10 though. After all the heat it was lovely running in the sun with a cool breeze. Lots of other runners out. I discovered this graph in iSmoothrun, which I had never seen before. I think it makes things much clearer, though you can't see the altitude part very well, but I'm not sure how much I trust it anyways. It's clear I need to work on maintaining cadence.

My feet felt pretty good throughout, though I think I need to get new shoes. There doesn't seem to be much squish under the ball of my right foot anymore.

After that I sat in the back patio, drinking fruit juice, nibbling a cookie or two (or three) and doing a bit of writing. It's a lovely relaxing way to spend some time.

Michelle and I have been conspiring on photos. Let's see if I can find a couple for you that aren't too bad. These need to be cropped. Here is me desperate to keep up as Michelle pulls away.

Michelle pedaling like mad desperate to pass, me coasting. I am faster downhill, she is faster going up.

Remember the bikes on the fence shot from yesterday? We practiced transitions, so here is the action shot. In a note to self moment, Michelle realized how long it takes to tie shoes, and why triathletes pay for speed laces.

And lastly lunch being a left over bison burger with cheese.

First time photo model shoot

You will be relieved to hear I was not the good looking one of us.

We are entering a photo contest, and today was the day for getting the bike photos. Swim photos happened Friday. Michelle's husband Ken brought the good camera, her buddy Antje came along, and Michelle and I rode up and down a hill while they snapped photos. I haven't seen any of them on a real screen yet. That was fun. I have high hopes for the artistry of the last hill shot.

Then we rode over to have the mountains as a backdrop for a posed shot. My trying to hold my gut in, Michelle showing off her guns. Pity the mountains weren't clear.

Then home to practice transitions. We lined up the bikes like this.

We practiced running up to the bikes as if we had just got out of the water. For some reason Michelle and Antje didn't want to be hosed down to practice it wet, to make it more realistic. Stuff on, ride off for a really short ride, then swoop around again and transition to run. Lots of fun. I haven't done this in a long time.

When the photos show up, I might share the good ones here.

We scurried around a bit getting ready for a garden viewing for our neighbours. They've been curious ever since they saw it going in and couldn't see any more after the fence was installed.

Celina was of course delighted to supervise, in a passive aggressive sort of way. Aggressive first, then passive.

Here's what the guests saw when they walked in the gate. Linda got many compliments on the garden. People were really curious about the lodge.

Naturally, the cats were exhausted with the effort of entertaining.

You look like a maniac ax murderer, she said

At least it wasn't someone I was trying to get into bed.

But the day started really well.

The pre-stampede parade traffic downtown was still light when we got into Talisman. I could see one person cheating on the parking; they were clearly going to the parade, and not coming in for a workout. Both of them, and the kids should have picked the workout.

As almost always, it was a lovely swim. We had a lane to ourselves, and we churned back and forth. The improvements Michelle has made! Her right leg still gets off the reservation, but she is swimming quite well. Soon she will be able to cope with a triathlon wave start.

I played with fish stroke a bit more, and at one point actually ended up in the next lane, to the startlement of me and the girl swimming in it. At least I didn't run into her, though I totally surfaced into the lane ropes once. Good thing nobody had a video camera running. My inner shark showed up briefly to laugh at me. Thanks buddy.

Part of the technique was to work on reach and catch. It messed up my kick, such as it is, because the timing is subtly different. I was really working on keeping my elbows high, and I could feel my shoulders hard at it. It's funny, I was pushing hard, and felt fast, but the clock said 93 seconds (100 m long course). A bit later I tried again, felt slower and more thrashy, even though I was working HARD on form, and the clock said 91 seconds. Some days I don't know. The rest was regular drills and stuff, with lots of kick drills.

Did you know you can't currently buy crushed brick except at Burnco? The problem is the delivery methods discussed on their website involve a dump truck or a big cubic yard bag. I need about 2/27th of that amount. Maybe tomorrow or Sunday I'll show up with a couple pails in my car trunk and see if they take pity on me.

Then it was off to renew my business corporation thingie with the Alberta government. It used to be $20, and that bastard Prentice raised it to $55. Good thing I didn't vote for him. Oh well, it's a deductible expense.

I also had to renew my drivers license. What SHOULD be happening here is that I make an appointment to sit in a car simulator, and they run me through a standardized test to see if I still have the reflexes and skills needed to be on the roads. This should happen to everybody, every 5 years. None of this age-ism shit. More often when you turn into a geezer, but I admit the geezer-o-meter is not yet perfected.

If they can train airplane pilots well enough in a simulator that the first time they actually fly the airplane it has passengers in it, then they can make car simulators for testing drivers. I have this vision of the simulator starting at the bottom of the City Hall parkade. The simulator has a camera looking at your eyes so it knows where you are looking. If you don't look the right way, a pedestrian appears, and gets splattered all over your windshield, and you fail. Maybe they scream a lot. Come back in a month sir or ma'am, and by the way, your license is revoked. You are too dangerous to be allowed on the road, and can buy a bus pass at the kiosk in the lobby.

For training male teenaged drivers I'd be merciless. They make a mistake, and they crawl out of the simulator with bruises from the seatbelt and airbag, their ears ringing, and with wet pants. Again and again, as often as necessary, and in the meantime they are not on the road. There would be one section of the regular test where people try to text on a cell phone while driving. Remember what I said about wet pants?

It sounds harsh, but thousands of people are maimed or die on Canadian roads every year. You, yes you, are almost certainly a worse driver than you think. How can 80% of us think we are above average drivers? Listening to the traffic report any weekday ought to disabuse you of that notion.

I digress. What actually happens is some paperwork gets signed, and they take a photo. This has not been my strong suit in life. The camera loves some people, and I am not one of them. There are fewer than a dozen photos of me that I like. It's not as bad in recent years; I'm not sure why.

But when the first picture came up, she exclaimed, "Geez, you look like a maniac ax-murderer! Let's do that again." I have to admit, those eyes were pretty scary. I dialed it back a bit, and it was ok. So why can't I turn that on in work meetings, and quell people that are disagreeing with me because they don't realize I am right and they are wrong?

Which leads to another topic, those disagreements. It's actually a sign of respect. I'm helping them because I like them, or respect them, and am helping them to realize the error of their ways. I can see the pit ahead of them, and I'm trying to stop them from ending up in the pit. Or more to the point, to stop them from dragging me into the pit. Often they don't know there are hungry predators in the pit.

Some people I've worked with (I'm looking at YOU, Lucy, and 3 of 9) I could see the path lying open and clear to the pit. For them I slipped ahead and woke up the predators. You don't need to think very hard to understand what I thought of them.

And then there was the branch of the Stampede Parade through Coop, the toddle of the geezers. Holy cow. They were everywhere. I was in because I'd finished off the sunscreen and will need more soon. Really soon. I was disappointed they didn't seem to have the 100 SPF, and had to make do with 50 SPF. I'll just put on two layers and look elsewhere for the good stuff. I need it.

I need to get a good night's sleep, and be ready for my photo shoot tomorrow.

 The blog sound track.

Trooper (Three dressed up as a nine)
Trooper (The boys in the bright white sports car)
The Knack (Good Girls Don't)
Cheap Trick (Dream Police)
Cheap Trick (Ain't that a Shame, Live at Budokan, video!)
Cheap Trick (Surrender, Midnight Special)
Golden Earing (Radar Love)
Blonde (Heart of Glass) [How on earth can Debbie Harry be 70??!!]]
Sparks (This town ain't big enough for both of us)
The Sweet (Ballroom Blitz) [Do any of you remember the album cover that slid up and down to produce a wink?]
Deep Purple (Smoke on the Water)

Bricks and stuff

I bailed on the ride today, but I played with bricks. It was the right choice. My inviting buddy had a great ride, and I only would have slowed her down, I think.

As you might know, Penn West closes the office before the long weekends of summer, so I've got today and tomorrow off, as well as the stat yesterday. I'm deliberately trying to relax and take it easy. I even slept in till 7:15 today, imagine that! Working lots on the first novel, and actually making some real progress.

The domestic day included washing windows. If you get the right cloth, this is a snap. Spray a water mist, swab with the cloth. Done. Next window. Linda was pleased I didn't fall off the ladder.

Our little composter is finally full and I emptied it out into one of the old Burnco bags. Linda can now use it as she needs. Once empty I sprayed it out and moved it a bit closer to the chimney where I can hide it a bit better. This is the first composter we've had that actually works. Then lawn stuff. You know.

When I was a child living in Ontario, we periodically drove past a brickyard just outside of Brampton. Bricks, bricks, and more bricks. At the time it was the place that had the largest number of identical manufactured items that I knew of. Bricks get used a lot for house construction in Ontario, and from looking at the maps, there's been a lot of houses built since I was last there. Brampton used to be it's own town, and there used to be lots of space between Snelgrove and Brampton. Not anymore. I'm sure I'd get lost if I tried driving in that area now.

Once upon a time we somehow got a bunch of bricks. Mostly they've sat beside the house. Some of the newer ones got used in a vain attempt to keep grass out of the raised beds. Then I started the project to raise the level of the walk between our house and the neighbours. You can read about how that project destroyed my boots here. There is even a photo of the bricks I'm discussing. (I'm so good to you guys!)

Today I finally got around to putting the bricks on top of the gravel. I figured this wouldn't be too hard on me, and so it was. The number of bricks was almost exactly right. The only thing now is to buy a few bags of crushed brick, and fill in some of the gaps. The nice thing about working on this project is that it's in the shade, and there's a nice breeze. Here's some photos, in blogger order, of course.

There was a nice sunset last night, but was was annoying is that I couldn't see the good part. This is where I'd like a drone. If I could have got 20 feet higher I think it would have been spectacular.

Here the before, with the nice gravel.

Flowers! This is one of the roses in the front bed. It wins the blooming championship, roses division, this year.

More yellow lilies. It's such a happy cheerful colour.

Back to the bricks, here it is done.

Lastly, a bit of an arty shot while I was waiting for the BBQ chicken to need turning. With a special Linda marinade, on Yum buns, with some nice cheese and condiments. So yummy, and such a perfect temperature to sit outside and write.

The quiet part of the day was racking some wine from one carboy to another. Then rack and stabalize another kit. The timelapse movie below isn't quite what I'd hoped for, but shows things settling out really well. The shifting light is me moving around cleaning stuff. Then started another Meglioli kit. Three kits on the go now, 2 more waiting.

Oscillating while barbecuing. Or vise versa

Linda would say I'm dithering. Bah!

Sunday into an almost empty long course pool. Stuff. I did stuff, but the only thing I remember is playing with fish stroke a little bit. I think it's faster. It feels faster, but I'm hardly flexible enough to do it well. Plus I don't have the aerobic endurance to do it for very long, so there's that.

It was smoking hot all weekend so I didn't do much other than the run and swim. Rolled the soft ball on my butt, and worked on trying to get my back to crickle crackle. No real luck there.

Monday was a quiet work day. Since Penn West office is closed Thursday and Friday, most staff have taken the whole week off. It's amazing how much more productive I was. I managed to finish off two tasks that I thought would take both days. Imports into Maximo are so picky. I found out my one import was failing because I didn't end each line with a ",0,0". The other one failed because a particular reference number wasn't in the data twice. Picky picky picky.

Tuesday I was worked over by my wonderful massage therapist. There was a huge knot in my low back. Plus tight hams, and one really tight adductor muscle. Really tight. I whimpered. I'd been thinking about going for a run afterward, but when I could barely walk from the car after a long drive home I gave up on that idea.

Turned out there had been flash flooding so Glenmore trail was flooded where it dips under MacLeod Trail. Completely closing that road leads to chaos on every other road anywhere around it. I was envying my buddy that rode from work and avoided the whole darned thing. Once upon a time I used to have a massage therapist that traveled to my house. That was lovely. Pity she moved to New Brunswick.

Wednesday I ran, 5K, 33:30, trying to keep my cadence up. My legs felt heavy, weak, feeble. My hams and butt were on strike, I think. They didn't want to run.

Which leads to the blog title. There I was, tending salmon on the barbecue, and being offered a chance to ride with a buddy tomorrow. Do I go or not? I'm not really feeling up to it at the moment, but I could get a good night's sleep (stop snickering!) and be ready for action tomorrow. Or not. I was trying to have it both ways, saying I'd get in touch in the morning, but really, I should make up my mind. Commit or don't commit.

Or as some people say, shit or get off the pot. Which leads to performance anxiety of a wholly unexpected kind at races. There's a huge lineup, and a limited number of porta potties. I digress. This is one of those things I want to do, but it's getting closer to race day. I really should focus on my swim, since that's what I'll be doing July 26. Doing something that might interfere with training is a bad idea. I don't want to let down my relay partner.

I have been thinking about other races. Not before the 70.3 relay of course. I might get through an Oly ok, and there are a few to choose from, but I'm done doing races with the aim of just completing them. Even though I'm getting old and decrepit, I'd like to get up into the middle of the pack for my age group. I still want to do a marathon, and I noted it's 333 days till a nice one here in town. I wonder if I can build from about 8.5 K per hour, which is a 5 hour marathon if I could keep the pace (I can't right now) in 11 months.

I had a great idea for The Bone in the Digester, and have been busy writing in a couple scenes that need doing, and tweaking some others. I hope at the end I have a coherent love story with a side of mystery. I've only been working on this for about 20 years, so you'd think I'd have it figured out, but no. Part of the problem is that the plant itself was trying to be a character, and while it worked for me, and might work for anyone that's operated that plant, it wasn't going to work for the casual reader. I've been cutting out plant bits, and adding people bits. I think this makes it much more interesting.

My big need is an opening. I first started with the actual discovery of the bone in the digester. It's a great opening, wonderful atmosphere, except that it starts with two minor characters that barely appear again. The major character doesn't come into it till a bit later, and even then you don't really know she is the major character. Plus it's very planty. Then I rewrote a minor disaster. This had the advantage of meeting Dwen right up front, but it's a plant opening and a bit icky. The thing that happens chronologically first is the job interview where Dwen is hired. Even cut down, I'm not sure it's a good opener.

Hmmm. Maybe tweaking the piece I'm writing now. What do you think of this as an opening line? “Sit down, Dwen, you’re making me nervous.”

We had a really strong thunderstorm come through about 3 am. I could hear it off in the distance, then closer. Then Closer, and CLOSER! I got up to shut the window just in time. For a short while there was lots of wind and rain with a tiny bit of hail, along with an amazing lightning show. The white peony was already losing it's blossoms, and the rain pretty well finished them off. It looks kind of sad now, but the red one is doing very well.

Here's the Canada Day BBQ salmon and salad. It's really good wrapped up in herbs with a bit of butter, wrapped in tinfoil, and left on low heat for a while. Don't be silly, of course there was wine.