I’ve been sitting here for an hour or so waiting for inspiration to hit for a blog topic. However…nothing.
Instead, you get this little slice of awesomeness. When it finally clicks as to what she’s singing, you might be just as OMG as I was.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJGQ_tTmYgI
Found via this week’s compilation of The Anti-Hit List by John Sakamoto.
One of the ways I try to get up-to-date information about the process of the construction of my building is through a forum that someone has set up for the whole development. It’s interesting because there’s a whole lot of hope and aspiration floating around in the different threads. The other day, there were some rumblings though that the possession dates for the condo will be pushed back yet again. I was hoping that it was just a rumour. I mean, the date has already been pushed back twice before. However, today I noticed that someone reported that they’d just received their notice today via registered mail. I knew that it was a done deal.
Sure enough, when I got home, there was the registered letter waiting for me. Indeed, the letter said that my date was being pushed back to August 4. Damn it! Of course, like every other time this has happened, I recognize the obvious bright side that I’ll have more time to earn money prior to moving. My calculations tell me that that will give me an extra five pay cheques to work with.
The thing that’s really annoying the hell out of me right now is how “confirmed” doesn’t mean “confirmed” at all. I made a big deal out of the fact that they changed the wording they used from “tentative” to “confirmed.” I mean, “confirmed” has a whole tone of finality to it all, correct? Lies! I mean, they even started taking elevator appointments last week. What am I supposed to think? I had my time, and had already marked my moving date. Now it’s all useless and needs to be rescheduled. What is that? I’m lucky in that I live at home, but what of the people that have already given their landlords notice that they’re going to be leaving? It’s just not right.
I pass by the building site daily. I’ve seen that they’ve started working on the balconies. Truthfully, at the rate they’re going, I can see why they have to delay things. At this point, I’m fatigued though. I don’t want to pin my hopes down for the time being. Who knows? In a few months they may push the date even further. I’m not trying to be negative, but I can’t rule it out.
So, it’s with some sadness and irritation that I have to readjust that countdown clock. Just 5 months and 12 days left.
Poutine is totally a Québecois thing, isn’t it? I was first introduced to it in the high school cafeteria. Fries are pretty ubiquitous in cafeteria setting. I guess it was easy enough for them to add grated mozzarella cheese and gravy on top. Sure, it wasn’t true poutine since it didn’t make use of cheese curds, but high schoolers aren’t that discerning, right? Anyway, that became a frequent lunch order for me. Unfortunately, the lumpen mass of food sitting in my gut caused me to be pretty lethargic for the rest of the day. Thinking about those days kind of makes me queasy. Ever since then, it’s only been an occasional thing–mostly when I’m in the mood for something totally trashy. Actually, even then, it hasn’t been on my radar at all. That all changed over the past month or two though.
The legend of the recently opened (I think) poutinerie has been bandied about at work and among my running buddies. Mention of it is inevitably followed by the question “Have you been there before?” That’s usually followed by “Awwwww, man…it’s sooooo gooood,” with extended vowels and all. So, earlier this week me and a couple of colleagues made it a point to make the trip down the road to see what all the fuss was all about.
I was half expecting a nasty place with an atmosphere thick with vaporised oil, kind of like the greasy spoons that we visit now and then. I was happy to have been proven wrong: it was clean and didn’t smell of smoke. All the items on the menu were pricey. You’d think that it’d be a factor considering these wonky economic times, but no, the place was busy. Being that there were all of these novel kinds of poutine with piles of other ingredients on top, I figured that I might as well go for one of the hefty ones. One colleague and I picked out the one that came with sausages, bacon, onions, and mushrooms on top of the already loaded fries, gravy and cheese curds. Yeah, I was thinking the same thing you’re probably thinking right now: “holy shit.” My other colleague ordered one with ground beef, onions, and mushrooms. They each came out to about $10. Like I said, they were some expensive items; they were a far cry from the $3.99 trays from high school. Anyway, here are some pics of the boxes we got. I took them with my cell.
Yeah, that’s some pretty heavy stuff. My strategy to make it through my box was just to eat it kind of quickly, thus getting past the “full” signal. I accomplished my mission. The colleague that got the beef one wasn’t so lucky–he stopped at 95%.
So, OK, this totally was one of those things where you would go to the restaurant for the experience, but wouldn’t go back regularly. First of all, it’s expensive. Secondly, it’s completely unhealthy. Ultimately, I think though that if I do ever crave poutine, it won’t be for any of this fancy business, know what I mean? Just give me the fries, cheese curds, and gravy and I’ll be good to go.
This afternoon, after returning from the coffee shop with the team lead, my project manager came over and told me that he had some news. My immediate reaction was “uh oh…” It’s interesting how my mind just assumed that the news was bad in nature. Anyway, he announced that the project for which I had spent the last two weeks writing a technical specification document for was suddenly put on the back burner by our client. Seeing as how that project has been taking all of my attention over the past week or two I wasn’t pleased at all. At that point I just told him: “That’s it. I’m taking a break.” I got my jacket on, and a colleague and I went out into the heavy flurries to the coffee shop.
On the way there, I was trying to figure out what I wanted. My original intention was to get a large mulled cider. Wow, just typing it out is making my mouth water. Craziness. Anyway, when I got there, I saw the price and compared it to a regular cup of coffee. I don’t know why, but my wallet won out; I ended up getting a large hazelnut coffee. From 4 to 5 p.m. I was basically nursing that thing. Sure, it tasted great, but little did I realize what affect it would have on me.
I was poking fun at my PM, who had also picked up a large coffee. He was saying that he regretted the purchase because he was kind of bouncing off the walls. Within minutes, I was feeling just as buzzed and hyper. God, I was laughing a lot: it wasn’t pretty. On the streetcar, as I was talking to my colleague I was feeling quite twitchy. I didn’t like the fact that the streetcar was very stop and go. I was having trouble sitting still. When the streetcar went underground to the subway station, I immediately became disoriented. I told my colleague that I wasn’t well at all and felt like I was going to puke. I did some deep breathing to prevent that from happening. Once I got into a well-lit area I was OK again. Unfortunately, the dizziness persisted.
When I got on the subway, I managed to find a forward facing seat. I tried closing my eyes to take a nap, but my state was preventing that from happening. The stop and go movement of the train hit me hard. My head was spinning and I was sweating profusely. The transitions between the dark tunnels and the lit stations seemed harsh. When I got off at my station, I had to rush outside to get some fresh air. I felt like I was walking faster to get to my car. On the road, I was irritable and impatient. Aaand right now, to this moment, I feel light-headed.
This is insanity. It’s like I’ve suddenly forgotten that I do not handle coffee well. Actually, no, that’s not true. I just don’t handle large amounts of coffee well. I guess the same thing goes for certain types of tea. Some strongly brewed cups of dragonwell green tea or ti kuan yin keep me up for hours. The whole craziness/paranoia thing seems to only happen though for large amounts of coffee. God, this is not a good feeling at all. I question whether I’ll be able to sleep well tonight.
Part of me thinks that I should train my body to handle caffeine better. The other part tells me that it’s obviously healthier if I don’t. Sure, it’s all good in moderation. Thing is, when I go to these coffee shops I tend to do the whole “go big or go home” thing. Maybe I need more discipline. I don’t know. I guess I’ll just keep it all in mind next time I head out.
Ever since I started participating in 10K clinics and up, speed training has been a part of the training regime. Using the whole Running Room “house” analogy, getting the cardiovascular and breathing down is part of building a good foundation. Then you build the walls of the house via hill training–which is where you gain strength. The roof of the house comes on at the end with speed training.
For the longest time, I’ve dreaded the speed training phase. My first experience with speed training back at the end of 2007 was rough. I missed the previous day’s talk on how to do it correctly, so on the day of I just went all out and blasted as fast as I could up the 400m road. Oh man, what a mistake that was. I ran out of gas part of the way up and I was unable to recover properly after that. That has coloured my view of speed training ever since. If you asked me about speed training, I would always have the same reply: “I hate it!” Inevitably, that would be followed with “I much prefer hill training to speed training. At least you’re going somewhere. With speed training I just feel like vomiting.” No kidding. I should have realized that I was just doing it wrong.
I full realize now that my mistake was that I was just going too fast for my purposes. I have to go at a speed that I can maintain the whole way through. Say, my tempo pace is a very modest 7:30/km. That means my speed training pace should be about 40 seconds less. Going any faster is just ridiculous. Why the heck didn’t I pay attention to that before?
So, this epiphany has only come very recently. A week or two ago, my coaches were saying that this week’s speed training session was going to be 4 repetitions of 1.6K at speed training pace, with 400m walk breaks in between. All I could think was: “Damn, that sounds far!” I was used to running 400m lengths; running four times that distance sounded insane. Well, I thought that if I had to do it I was going to follow the book as much as possible. I tried to keep it at a 6:45/km pace. It was slower than the rest of the group, but it was correct for my abilities. To my amazement, 1.6K came and went without issue. By the end of one set, I was fatigued, but not grossly so. The 400m walk was enough recovery time for me to be ready for the next set. From what I could tell, I was actually running somewhere between 6:00-6:30. By the third I slowed down a little just because I continued to push myself. My breathing was a bit hard, but not to the point where I wasn’t getting enough oxygen. For the last set, the coach joined me (because everyone else was done). I was tired but I found something within me to push harder. I finished off strongly. I was proud of myself.
Heading back to the store, I couldn’t help but feel that something clicked. I didn’t feel like puking at all. I was feeling awesome and fresh. This was in total contrast to my previous images of speed training. I am in shock. It’s kind of too bad that this was my last speed training session for this clinic, but all the same I know that next time one such phase rolls around I’ll be prepared. I can do this!
Family Day is a fairly new holiday in Ontario. I don’t think I’m getting full value out of it. What do I mean? Well, for me, all it is is really a day away from work, which I’m totally thankful for. To be honest, I wish I had the next few days off as well. I need to take a few days off to allow my appreciation and enthusiasm for work to build again.
Oh, but we’ve already been over that.
Well, notice then that I seem to be over looking the whole “family” aspect of today. On the news they were showing the happy faces of families going out to the museums, the zoo, parks, etc. Most people were happy to be with their loved ones as if it was something novel. Why do I seem in shock? Well, the obvious thing in my case is that I basically see my family every day. Today I was with them again, and to be honest it just felt like any other weekend. The three of us are a solid unit. Perhaps that’s why I’m not making such hoopla over the meaning of this holiday, you know? If we had a national holiday like Heritage Day or Flag Day in February, I suspect I’d probably have more enthusiasm for those days than Family Day.
I’m not saying that there’s no value in it. I mean, there are people out there that don’t have families, or have family members on the other side of the world. I’m sure they’re wishing they could spend the day with their loved ones. I feel fortunate to have my family here with me. It’s just that my current situation means that I just won’t put much meaning behind this day. I can’t.
It makes me wonder what next year’s Family Day will be like. In three months time I’ll be leaving the nest. Even though they’ll be a drive away, the separation will have a big effect on both ends. Will Family Day click? We’ll see. I’m sure I’ll have a greater appreciation for the intentions behind this holiday.
In all honesty, this morning’s run has left me a little bit raw–not physically, but perhaps mentally and emotionally. How so? Coming out of this run, I was really questioning whether I’d made any improvements at all during this whole training period. This run was a struggle. Have I been working hard enough? Have I been putting the mileage in? The answer to both of these questions is: yes. Yes, I’ve been making it to as many runs as I could. I even added a fourth run to most of the weeks during the clinic by tacking on a run on Saturday mornings. I’ve been doing the long runs. I’ve been making sure to make it to speed and hill training if work and weather allows. I have to trust that my training will carry me on race day. Sure, I can make sure that I’ve got the right amount of supplements, and that my form and breathing are OK, but it’s hard to predict what effects training will have had for me.
Today’s run was a little bit different in that I actually had a running buddy run with my for the whole distance. We were both determined to take it easy and find a pace between 8 and 9 minutes per kilometre–in other words: really slow. It just so happened though that through the first 2 hours and 20 minutes we were going at a faster pace–probably averaging at 7:40/km or so. We knew we wanted to go slower, but we were still comfortable, so we just kept it going.
At some point after 2:20 all of the aches and pains basically hit us. The other guy’s knees weren’t doing well, and his IT band was feeling weird. For me my glutes and hamstrings were really fatigued. The interesting thing was that we both had gas left in the tank, but our legs just didn’t co-operate. I can really only speak for myself, but seriously, I was so sore and achy that I could not get any good speed like I was earlier in the run. So yeah, fatigue won out. We still managed to make it back to the store, but only through the use of more frequent walk breaks.
That makes me question whether I’m really ready. It’s not like fatigue will suddenly not affect me on race day. I’ve gone through all of this apprehension before when I did my 21K run for my last half-marathon clinic. The difference between these two runs is that the previous one was done during the summer with high humidity. I’m sure the cold weather made it easier for me to stick it out, but it won’t solve everything, right? I worry.
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