Running Commentary (pt. 3)

Ah, that's some good word play. Shoulda been a headline writer.

Just got back from a run. Able to run 5k in 28 minutes, which is only 3 minutes off my end-of-February goal. This amounts to 14881 m^2/s. Gotta start upping the pace now -- see if I can get it to under 4 min/km.

Very good weekend. Another snowstorm hit us on Friday, so apart from a brief happy hour at Arriba's, nothing happened that night. Saturday afternoon involved an obligatory trip to Canadian Tire, along with a bunch of other errands.

Had a bunch of souls over for some Saturday night drinking, and then off to... well, you know where. Did my favourites, but I was pissed when Free Bird was commandeered by some douchebag. Afterwards a few of us braved the cold and headed to Oscar's for some grub. Then braved the cold back home. Thankfully I was wearing my beer coat ;)

Another snowstorm in the works for tonight, which will bring it to 4 in the last 9 days. Ugh... not even through January yet.

Snow day!

It was very nice to have the day off work yesterday. If it's going to snow and be miserable, may as well do the job right. I love it -- big old feed of bacon and eggs, chased with a pot of coffee, sitting in front of a fire, listening to the endless list of cancellations on VOCM, and watching some Family Guy.

Went for a run on Tuesday. 2.5k in 14 minutes, which gives 2500^2/840 = 7440 m^2/s. Progress, albeit slow. Probably because I had taken a week off between runs. I'll try to get back there tonight. The inhibiting factor is not the legs or back, it's the asthma. Hopefully that'll bugger off soon.

Weekend walloped with weather woes

HaHA! Alliteration.

A few of us were supposed to go to Gander this weekend, but the insane wind and driving rain received on Saturday morning put the kibosh on that idea. A few hours later, it was the very picture of a nice April day. Spiteful. But not going turned out to be the right decision, owing to the assload of snow we got yesterday.

But it was an OK weekend. Went to Mama Soula's with Richard & Co. on Friday night. Afterwards we headed to his house for a natter. I pissed away Saturday afternoon at Kent. Bought some wood for a project I hope to get done soon.

That's right... once upon a time I had a to-do list. Well, it's grown. But:

Organize Entertainment Center
De-Christmasify house

As much as I hate doing it, I finally took the tree down. Another nice thing about real trees is that they tell you when they should go, by means of littering your floor with needles.

Holy fucking cold, Batman

It's been freakishly cold out the past few days. It's now -17°C with a wind chill of -30. It's nice to have a wood stove to huddle around on days like this. Had a piece of 2x4 which was warped beyond repair, which I turned into 3 hours of comfort.

The cold front is supposed to bugger off by Saturday, at which point we'll get a bucketload of rain. From one inclement weather condition to another. Right about now, I'm craving a nice, cloudy, -1°C day.

Oh, and an amusing anecdote. Last winter, I taught an electromagnetics course at the university. At which time, I ordered a "desk copy" of the textbook I was using for the course (profs get it free if they prescribe the book). Got it... yesterday. One year later. And the best part: not even the right book. Wrong authors and edition. Way to go, Prentice Hall.

It didn't, in fact, kill me

So I went for a run last night. My back, by and large, behaved. And this morning there was no backlash (oh you better believe the pun was intended). My running ability hadn't atrophied as badly as I had feared -- I was able to run 2k in 10 minutes, and after a breather, 1.5k in 8 minutes. I felt like I could do more, but decided not to push it after a four month hiatus. Gotta leave room to improve, eh?

And also, since my blog isn't boring enough, I'm going to start tracking my results. My goal is 5k in 25 minutes by the end of February. The metric I'm going to use is a speed-distance product. If I increase either my speed or distance, this number will go up. So, for yesterday, it was 2000^2/600 = 6667 m^2/s. By contrast, the record for the Tely 10 is 16.1k in 47:04, or roughly 91788 m^2/s.

Yikes.

There's nothing like freshly brewed coffee...

...to get your ass outta bed in the morning. I'm liking this timer thing. By the time you hit the snooze button twice, the aroma has reached my bedroom. I even get up before sunrise now. I guess I hate rancid coffee even more than I hate mornings.

Good weekend. Went to a hockey game on Friday night. 2-1 overtime thriller in favour of the Fog Devils. Beautiful tip-in goal on the powerplay one minute into the extra frame. Afterwards I crossed the road and went to Normies for a nursing mixer. Very cheap drinks...

Went up to Richard and Jennifer's place on Saturday afternoon to get their wireless router working. Final score: Router 1, Dave 0. In spite of my vocation, I really fucking hate computers. That night, we had a pretty quiet movie night. Couldn't go drinking, cuz I had to drop mudder at the airport at 4:30am. She's gone to Ottawa to confirm the existence of the other grandson -- I still can't believe I have two nephews now.

Gonna try going for a run tonight. Either it'll soothe my aching back or I'll be paralyzed with pain. And I'm not too optimistic about the former...

Now that was a fine mullet

Oh ya. Older guy with a grey, wavy mullet. Smoking a cigarette and striding towards some unfortunate destination.

I shouldn't be judging other people, given my behaviour over the weekend. I think I hooked some more people on the joys of Georgetown karaoke. It truly needs to be seen to be believed. In fact, there are tentative plans for even more this coming weekend. I'll see if my voice is equal to some Bon Jovi.

I'm really enjoying my new Sawzall. It makes pallet wrecking a lot safer and easier. I'm gonna need some more now... I'll see if I can sucker Mike into pimping out his truck. While walking around now I always think, "I could totally burn that..." This does not bode well for the general public's well-being.

Happy New Year!

Ah, neglect. I'll do this one in timeline form:

December 22 - Got off work, went home, and got a little drunk. Not too drunk though. Went downtown, which was kinda disappointing.

December 23 - Picked up sister and brother-in-law at the airport. Nixed the idea of making pasta, on the grounds that it's a big hassle. Got Chinese food instead. Wined and dined at my place which was a hoot. Went to the Duke with sister and got plastered. Won $8 on the VLT and promptly called everyone and bragged about it.

December 24 - Christmas Eve at Mom's house. Big ol' drop-in affair -- it was good to see family and friends I hadn't seen in a while, including Clayton, the dirty old man archetype. Went to the midnight service, which was shorter than usual.

December 25 - Christmas Day. Lots of cool swag. Awesome turkey dinner, followed by an intense game of Pictionary with the family.

December 26 - Boxing Day. Tried to watch world juniors, but instead spent the day in the emergency room with neck spasms. Just brutal.

December 27 - Neck pain abates after a lengthy sleep-in. Had supper at the Celtic Hearth with the guys. Watched a period of hockey at the Duke and then headed to the peelers.

December 28 - Sam's stag party. Didn't really amount to much, and I'm glad I got my peeler fix the night before. Lotsa free booze though, and I got to see a lot of old friends, so no complaints.

December 29 - Woke up to a frozen pipe. Nice. Mr. Rooter tried to charge me $250 to thaw it. Told him to fuck off. James and Paul swung by, then headed to Richard's Christmas party, followed by another "party" on Gambier, then to Hanz and Leigh's for pizza and some TV.

December 30 - Woke up to another frozen pipe. Declared 2006 the Year of Frozen Pipes. Got one of them thawed with no damage (thank God). Went to Sam and Meg's wedding, which was fantastic. Found myself in possession of many drink tickets, which were put to good use.

December 31 - Thawed out last pipe with no damage (thank God). Nursed hangover at Bagel Cafe with other wedding victims. New Year's Eve party out in CBS. Very nice house, very drunk Dave. Good, good times. Eventually got home at 5:00am.

January 1 - Slept in till 2pm. Went to Aunt's house for dinner. Chewed the fat with mudder until 12:30.

January 2 - Facing the music at work. Wrote long blog entry.

All in all, not a bad break. Not tremendously relaxing though, with the neck and pipes and such. I feel like I could use another week off, but that'll have to wait...