Not Another Goodbye Post

Hey folks!

So, exciting things are happening here at JJo headquarters. Although by "exciting things" I certainly don't mean "packing." Or "planning for the drive down to my new home." Nope. I mean more like "my last day of work came and went" and "I'm moving in two days." You know, exciting things.

So, two days out, let's take a minute to be mushy and reflect some on the past year.

It's been an incredibly strange, rewarding, disorienting, and surprising year. It's hard to describe the experience of moving home after a six-year absence. On the surface, everything seems exactly the same, but really, it's not. At all. In fact, everything's different. Reestablishing yourself in a place you've never really experienced as an adult is weird.

I saw moving home purely as a means to an end. I wanted to go to grad school, and I wanted to do it sooner rather than later (and, you know, I couldn't stand living in New York). I was fairly certain I was dooming myself to a miserable year, but I knew it would be worth it. I semi-jokingly nicknamed it my "monastic retreat," which is a nice way of saying "This year's going to blow."

But you know what? This year didn't suck. At all! Twelve months later, I've got a really good thing going, and leaving is a lot harder than I ever imagined it could be. I never used to understand the people who grow up here and never leave, but now I sort of get it (sort of. I still think there's a lot to be said for experiencing "something else," expanding your horizons and all that). For the right kind of person ("right kind of person" meaning weirdos like me), Anchorage is a wonderful place to live. It has a few obvious downsides (cold, dark, not as culturally rich as some places, etc.), but for me, these are totally worth the upsides. But I've never lived on the (lower) West Coast - maybe there you get all of the upsides with none of the downsides! We'll see.

So, what's happening with this blog of mine? In all likelihood, it'll be business at usual, at least at first. But in the event that you don't hear from me for a while, never fear! I'm as obsessed with running as I ever was, and from what I hear, grad school is very conducive to my li'l hobby. Even if I'm not writing about it, you can be pretty sure I'll be doing it. I'm also planning to continue to stalk your blogs, although I hope you'll forgive me if I don't comment as often. [quick shoutout to Coach Holly, GCA, and GGR, who ran marathons this past weekend!]

And thus, we conclude the Alaska portion of this blog. See you on the other side.

Favorites from this past year, in no particular order:

 

Had to throw this one in here.

 

 

Love, love, love this dog. She will not be coming with me to Eugene. We are both devastated by this (although she's too dumb to realize it yet). 

Am I A Fat, Balding Man?

Weekly round-up:

Monday: 4 miles, treadmill

Tuesday: hike fail

Wednesday/Thursday: nothing

Friday: 3 miles, treadmill

Saturday: hike win!

Sunday: TBD (probably a few treadmill miles)

I think we can all agree that treadmill miles are the worst miles, but most of the time they're better than no miles. I haven't dared to run outside yet since I know the treadmill doesn't hurt and although my knee hasn't hurt in a couple of weeks, I'm still worried about it. Cutting my run short a few weeks ago (last month? How long has it been since my marathon? Ten years?) was significantly more traumatizing than a non-event like that should be, so I'm eager to avoid a repeat.

This past week I increased my activity level by infinity. That's true of any increase from zero, right? I'm pretty impressed with myself. Of course, I only made it outside twice, which absolutely needs to be remedied this coming week, but it was nice to move again. I'd almost forgotten how.

Yesterday's hike was a real beauty. I managed to convince my dad to return to the site of my awesome banner photo (and the inspiration for this blog's rebirth). It looked like it was going to be a drizzly day, but we really lucked out and were treated to pretty great weather.

I have to admit, I think this area is prettier when there's snow on the ground. Maybe that's my inner Ice Queen talking, but there was something so magical about last fall's hike. Yesterday was awesome, but it didn't knock me off my feet. I think what I'm saying is, I miss snow. YES, I'M CRAZY, THANK YOU. And now I'm sad I'm not going to see snow this winter.

Photo dump!

Towards Anchorage

That light green is all moss lichen! Pretty cool, right?

That cloud was not black. This photo is deceiving. 

Looking towards Powerline Pass, a place I vowed to run to sometime this year. Looks like I was lying.

----

I got sucked into an internet black hole yesterday and am now obsessed with the story of Emily Dirr. Have you guys heard of this lady? She started impersonating an older Canadian Mountie (!!!) when she was 14 years old, which turned into her impersonating an entire family (WITH 11 CHILDREN) for, like, 8 years, and then killing them off when one of the Flickr accounts she stole pictures from to use as her character's "cancer-afflicted child" became private. This family experienced tragedy after tragedy and yet no one ever suspected a thing, probably because she never asked for any money. Oh, and because she created something like 81 Facebook accounts to make the whole thing more believable. To me, the craziest thing of all is that Emily Dirr was a med school student. When did she have time for this shit?!

Of course, Emily Dirr's story got me to thinking about all the blogs that I read. Are you guys real people? Am I real? Am I a fat, balding man sitting in his basement? The world may never know. The internet's a crazy place, y'all.

----

In life news, my dad dug up his passport and discovered it expired two years ago. He's working on renewing it ASAP, but since there aren't any "regional passport agencies" in Anchorage (where you can go to really expedite the process), it seems my road trip to Eugene may turn into a solo effort. Oh, Canada, do you REALLY need passports from Alaskan citizens?! But actually, this may not be the worst thing ever, since in my (admittedly limited) experience, solo road tripping is actually pretty fun. Oh, and I have housing in Eugene now! Temporary housing, but still.

Note: it was a busy week at JJ-o headquarters so although I read all your blogs like the diligent blog-reader I am, I didn't comment on many. My apologies!

This Hike Sponsored By Murphy's Law

Monday workout: 4 miles on the treadmill, socks, 11:30 average

Tuesday workout: hike

Today's hike was a doozy. The bad doozy, not the good doozy. Because doozy means both really good AND really bad. English makes no sense. Anyway, I took the ol' ball and chain (my mongrel, Bailey) for a hike and we Murphy's Law'd the shit out of it (literally). Let's count the ways:

1) Bailey disappeared for, like, thirty seconds and came back full of porcupine quills. I definitely didn't see that one coming! Fortunately, she was totally fine. It hardly even seemed to register. She sat calmly while I pulled them out and seemed bored by the whole thing. I got stuck with a few, though, so I was NOT bored by the whole thing.

It must have been a smaller porcupine because I remember seeing a neighborhood dog get quilled once (is "quilled" a word?) and the quills were next to impossible to remove. It looked incredibly painful. Bailey's weren't deep and came right out. And NO I DIDN'T TAKE ANY PICTURES. Who do you think I am?

2) When we started, it was beautiful out. Ten minutes after we started, a thick fog rolled in. Fog is cool and all, but I really wanted to get some views. View fail. Also trail fail, because I could barely see where we were going.

This is from a previous hike at the same place, but fog is fog.

3) Bailey disappeared into said fog for a long time and I was flipping out. She ran off to chase something or other and I was terrified she wouldn't be able to find her way back.

4) Bailey finally returned... covered in bear shit. My dog is REVOLTING. I can't even say any more about that except that I took her to get groomed this past weekend. I think this was payback. It took a good half hour to wash her (wearing surgical gloves) when we got home.

Bad dog.

----

All you power jammers do yourself a favor and listen to this. This would be a killer song to run to.

Question:

• What's the dumbest thing your pet's ever done?

Lazing Jeano

Weekly recap: 3 miles on the treadmill, 12:00 average, socks

So, some of us are out there killing 22- and 27-milers in soul-sucking heat and humidity. Others, determined to stay positive and maintain fitness while unable to run, have been cross-training like madmen. And then there are the rest of us, who have been sitting immobile on our asses for the past two weeks. We do this to make the rest of you feel really good about yourselves. YOU'RE WELCOME. And also because we've been sidelined, sick, and completely uninterested in cross-training.

Yes, this is the sad state of affairs here at JJo headquarters. Last year when I couldn't run, I'm pretty sure I increased my activity level, doing hours of (boot-clad) walking, swimming, at-home pilates, and light spinning. This year, my heart's just not in it. I want to run or hike. That's it. The weather's not really cooperating with me on the hiking front (the Chugach Mountains should be renamed "mud" every August), so for now I'm "Lazing Jeano."

But you know what? Who cares? Sure, I'm significantly weaker than I was on June 22 and carrying around 5 or 6 extra pounds (about that... my appetite's still raging despite the fact that I don't move anymore), but I'm going to be just fine. The world's not crashing down around me, my jeans still fit (for now...), and I've got more important things on my mind. Like having fun and, holy shit, moving to a place where I have no housing and no friends (or even acquaintances)!

That's not to say I'm not itching to run again. In fact, I ran 3 amazing miles this morning and loved every second of it. I just mean that I'm finally being chill about my running (although let's be serious: if I were training for something right now, I'd be flipping the f-ck out). Finally. It's unfortunate that I've lost a lot of the fitness I worked so hard to gain, but in the long run, running injury-free is much more important to me than getting back to higher mileage as soon as possible. It definitely helps that I'm moving to ultraland and have ultra fever. I can't wait to get going on that once I've figured out my life.

Oh, and can we just pretend I never mentioned that half marathon next weekend? I'm fairly certain I could run 13 reasonably-paced miles right now, but given my recent mileage (or lack thereof), doing so would be dumb. This, my friends, is why I don't talk about running in my normal life. Now I have to go crawling back to my coworker to tell her that not only am I not going to win, but I'm not even going to run. I'm really looking forward to the "scared by the competition, huh?" comments I'm sure to receive.

I'll leave you with what has become one of my favorite pictures (collages?), and my motivation to get back out there even if the weather blows.

RST, Brought To You By Bedsores

Before we start: I wanted to double-check proper title capitalization, and apparently everything I thought I knew (by which I mean capitalizing "principal" words) is wrong. According to this random website, the only two consistent rules are a) capitalizing the first word, and b) capitalizing all proper nouns. Another method is to capitalize every word in the title. I have opted for this for simplicity's sake. My world has been shattered.

----

For the first time in my life, I'm experiencing a double-dip sickness; just when I thought I was in the clear, I got knocked right down again. My body likes to live on the edge. Fortunately, I can see a light at the end of the tunnel and I think I'll rejoin society tomorrow.

Apart from basic dog duties, I've largely been confined to my bed since last Friday. Four days is a lot of time to spend in a bed. I wish I could say that I've used this time to expand my mind, make glamorous plans, and think about the future, but in reality I've spent most of my time watching Orange is the New Black (raunchy but SO GOOD) and West Wing (one of those shows people have bugged me about for years to whom I've always responded, "Yeah, yeah, I'll watch it someday, lay off me." Well, someday is NOW, and it's bad).

This post, the result of four days confined to a bed, is going to be randomly shitastic, so let's slap a RST label on it and get to work:

• I'm back on THE CORE train. This is the one weight workout I can tolerate, although I'm not sure why. Maybe the free weights make me feel like a 'roided Soviet Olympian? Which, let's face it, is every woman's dream, amirite? THE CORE isn't the most interesting workout (in fact, another name for it could be "do 200 squats") and fails to target a lot of the muscles I use for running (most importantly, calves), but I do feel like it must be beneficial in some way. I managed to cough through an entire set this morning, albeit with 5-pound weights (HOTR uses 10 pounds, that beast!).

• Speaking of 'roided Soviet Olympians, I'm reading "The Sports Gene" on GCA's recommendation, and it's pretty awesome. In one chapter, the author talks about the huge progress female athletes made in the 1970s and 1980s and how the rate of convergence of male/female records suggested that women would surpass men (athletically) sometime in the 22nd century. Well, the author dug through the available evidence and concluded that much of the huge gains made during those years was due primarily to widespread testosterone injection. In fact, many of the female world records in sprint and "power events" (I assume this means shot put and the like) were set in the 1980s. Bummer. Another cool tidbit: in whatever year studied, half the players on the Dodgers had 20/11 vision, and about 2% dipped below 20/9, "flirting with the theoretical limit of the human eye." Oh, and apparently ALL fetuses are female during the first six weeks of life. I feel like this is common knowledge but I had no idea. So much knowledge in one little book.

• I continue to search for housing in Eugene and it's really stressing me out. You mean people actually want to MEET me before letting me move in with them? That's whack. In the past, I've already had a roommate(s) and we searched for a vacant place together. Now, I'm trying to latch onto strangers already living in an apartment and it's proving to be tougher than I had envisioned. It doesn't help that I won't have a chance to fly down there before I move (22 days and counting!).

• The Civil Wars have a new album out!!! The band broke up but now, magically, there's a new album, recorded while everything was going to hell. Hurrah! I've only listened to the first single off the album, but I think it's gonna be pretty awesome.

• I recently became aware of the website "Get Off My Internets" (GOMI to the uninitiated). It's insanely mean-spirited, but in fact there's a lot of legitimate (and entertaining) criticism on there. Plus, those ladies write better than most bloggers. New life goal: get a thread on GOMI! I kid. Also, they just managed to unearth something that I'm pretty sure is going to make the internet explode, so I guess it's also a (trashy) detective agency?

• I watched a delightful documentary about Tetris last night. "Delightful" if you spent half your childhood playing Tetris. "A study on extreme nerddom" if you didn't. You're welcome for that link.

I can't tolerate a post without a picture, so here's one of a horrifying, mutant baby Jeano my mom recently sent me (I'm the fivehead in the middle). This is unassailable PROOF that babies can, in fact, be ugly.

Questions

• Thoughts on GOMI? Disgusting or fun?
• How have you found housing in the past? I've always used Craigslist, but Craig's failing me at the moment.
• Learn any cool new facts recently?

Failing With the Hansons: A Book Review

Oh hey there! Miss me?

A number of things conspired to prevent me from posting last week, namely a math final and a pretty nasty (ongoing) respiratory ailment. Also, there's the fact that I haven't been running.

I wish I could say that after my last post I "listened to my body" and stopped running right then and there. But actually, it took one more run to get to that point. An attempted interval workout, in fact.

WHY did I attempt this run when my body wasn't 100% up to it? Well, I was obviously trying to cement my status as a totally irresponsible, injury-plagued blogger, by which I mean a successful blogger. That, or I mistakenly believed a faster run with faster leg turnover would be easier on my body. Lesson learned!

I took the entire rest of the week off and am going to try again tomorrow, lungs permitting. I noticed I didn't have any pain running in socks on the treadmill (the socks are because bare feet on the treadmill results in a bloody mess), so I'm going to stick with that initially. Exciting stuff.

Here are some pictures from a jaunt up Flattop on Wednesday.

----

Since I haven't been running and I'm trying to perpetuate the idea that I'm a runner or something, we're going to talk about a running book today. Before I go any farther, though, I want to reassure Megan that this review isn't a dig at her or her tastes. I heard about this book through her comment on Professor Amy's Kara Goucher post and was really excited to read it. [side note: Amy, I just saw your response. Unfortunately I bought the Kindle version so it's pretty non-transferable!] As you'll see, it did not, ahem, quite live up to my expectations, but I still really appreciate the recommendation. I hope you won't take my review personally, and keep in mind: who the hell am I? Some nobody on the internet. My opinion doesn't matter!

So, the book is Sage Canaday's "Running for the Hansons: An Insider's Account of The Brooks-Sponsored Marathon Training Group Made Famous By Olympian Brian Sell." Yes, that title and its strange capitalization should have alerted me to the fact that Canaday's writing is not on the level of, say, Hemingway, or even freaking E L James.

If "worse than the lady who wrote Fifty Shades of Grey" wasn't clear enough, I'll put it in plain English: the writing in this book is atrocious. Like, much of the shit you see on these here interblogs is better written than this book. I was astonished that a publisher would print this swill until I noticed it was actually published by "Vo2max Productions, LLC," which I believe is Canaday's company. Well, that explains it.

There are many sentences which, at first glance, seem impressive. There are some big words in there and, hell, Canaday is an Ivy! League! graduate!, a fact he cites at every opportunity. But on closer inspection (or any inspection, really), his sentences are whack. They often read as though Canaday threw some fancy words into a hat, pulled them out at random, and then challenged himself to make a semi-coherent sentence out of it all. The results... are terrible, at best. Those that do make sense are riddled with "kill-me-now" spelling and grammatical errors.

I rarely use the Kindle highlighting function, but I think I spent more time hate-highlighting than I did thinking about what he was actually saying. Here are some examples of what I'm talking about:

"In retrospect I think maybe I got the swine flu, although at the time I didn't think it had hit Michigan that hard yet. Hopefully I'll recover soon enough; I just hope I don't get pneumonia or a lung-infection." Canaday switches from past to present tense all the time, as though he's interrupting his journal entry to talk about it in the present day. It's maddening.

"Anyway, a caravan of cars led by infamous driver Rizzo headed out of Rochester Hills in the dark... Anyway, we rolled out of Rochester Hills around 6:15, a string of cars with Rizzo in his Mercury Sable leading." Repetitive, much?

"Sell remembers the time fondly, hinting that the label of blue-collar becoming attributed to his character was no coincidence: 'We were like these low-class guys.'" Fondly? Hinting? What about Sell's quote suggests fond remembrances of this time, or hinting of any kind?

And one of my favorites, in which Canaday tries to sound deep, philosophical, and well-educated but comes off like a doofus:

"Perhaps, ultimately that desire, that pinnacle on Maslow's pyramid consisting of self-actualization, was what initially compelled me to start writing this book."

Canaday must have taken some economics classes in school because he sprinkles totally unnecessary economic-ish terms throughout the book. "Opportunity cost" is a favorite, usually used in reference to regular costs (note: you can't take any ol' cost and add the word "opportunity" to it. An opportunity cost is the value of a forgone choice, ie. the value of lost hours of work if you choose to, say, go to the beach. It's not, for example, the cost of gas used to drive somewhere).

Some other things that bothered me about the book:

Incessant Brooks name-dropping

For example: "I'm thinking of wearing 3 layers on top, my warmest Brooks hat, Brooks Paradox Mittens, and Brooks Equilibrium Windbrief Boxers with my Brooks Podium Pants. I also wear my Brooks Nightlife Jacket to top it all off..." I understand the desire to thank a sponsor, but this is so over-the-top.

NOT TELLING US HIS BOSTON MARATHON TIME

The entire book is about his year spent training for the Boston Marathon, a race he says he tanked. He gives us his teammates' times but, probably because of his bruised ego, doesn't tell us how he did other than to say that it was terrible. That drives me crazy. He later mentions being a 2:24 marathoner, but I don't know if that's in reference to his Boston time or his PR. I was too lazy to look up his official time, but I feel like he SHOULD have included it.

Girls, girls, girls

I get it: Canaday was lonely. This book serves as a journal of sorts, and he often had hot coeds on his mind. But whenever he talks about going anywhere, it's always accompanied by, "There was a group of really hot girls sitting in the corner. I wish I had talked to one of them." Even at Boston, he mentions a girl looking at him lustily at the marathon expo and regretting not approaching her. Easy, boy.

So after all that, did I enjoy this book? The obvious answer is no. But, surprisingly, I couldn't help but enjoy it. WHAT?!?!

Well, despite his awesomely terrible writing, I found myself drawn to Canaday's earnestness. In fact, he's a lot like my dog, Bailey: adorable, eager to please, but not all there. Of course, I would never let Bailey write a book.

There's also the fact that Canaday is a f-cking stud runner. There's no denying it: if someone runs fast, I'll give them much more leeway than I would a hobby jogger like myself. It's unfair, but it is what it is. I like reading about fast people and their fast lives. The fact that the Hansons feature (semi-)prominently in the story also helps. I love all things Hanson.

Canaday is more into mountain- and ultra-running these days (he won and set a new course record at the Speedgoat 50k recently), which is something I can totally get down with. He's also got a blog, which I think I'll probably start reading. Hey, I never said I was reasonable! Fast people get fast people leeway.

Question: do you have any runner book recommendations? Lay 'em on me. I'll reward you by writing a scathing review of it.