Mind, Motion & Matter

Running, Essentially . . .

Category Archives: Culture


by Leave a comment

Highlights of an Easy Week of Running

Sunday is when I tally up my total miles run for the week. When building towards a marathon, I take easy weeks on average, every three weeks. My total for this week is 40 miles. Prior to this I had run 52, 60 and 60 mile weeks. After taking an easy week, in addition to the physical break to rebuild, I find I am mentally recharged as while I look forward to the break, it doesn’t take much easing off before I begin to feel like a slacker.

Here are some of the things I did or did not do that lead to feeling this way.

  • Missed a weight work session
  • Missed a tempo run session
  • Ran 2 miles on a day I had planned to run 5 miles
  • Ran 10 miles instead of 12 miles on Saturday
  • Doubled my typical caloric intake for one day with three large meals while visiting Ottawa

SO that is the point of the easy week, paradoxical though it may be, easing off  and experiencing a bit of remorse for not having made more spartan choices, makes me look forward to the next round of training .  Ultimately, I love the results of being a super-fit, 55 year old and after one week of relative ease I am chomping at the bit to “get with the program”.

Skipping the tempo run and weight workout had a lot to do with being in a rush to visit the National Art Gallery which was a 10 minute walk from the hotel.  I had a thoroughly relaxing time there and visited a number of shows, including It Is What It Is:  Recent Acquisitions of New Canadian Art

Exotic Woman by Shuvinai Ashoona

CLICK HERE FOR MORE work by Shuvinai Ashoona.

One of the most memorable pieces was a very large pencil crayon drawing by Cape Dorset artist Shuvinai Ashoona. I’m happy to know that the National Art Gallery (NAG) has purchased that drawing for their permanent collection. I was unable to find a photo of the drawing in question but did find this example of Ashoona’s work.

The gallery has recently bought and installed a stunning sculpture, One Hundred Foot Line by Roxy Paine. I stepped out onto a terrace with a “Beware of Falling Ice” warning to take the photo below. And did I mention that I set off an alarm when I tried to step out to take another photo.

New Installation-Sculpture

In case you wonder what I consider overeating, my big day started with a large portion of eggs benedict with home fries and croissant at 7 a.m. followed by a lunch at the National Art Gallery of soup and a sandwich, then a three-course dinner with two glasses of Proseco ending with a fancy apple cake dessert.

National Art Gallery Cafeteria Lunch

Some may laugh at what I consider excess however the work of the easy week is done. I’m eager to run 60-65 miles this week, skip desserts and opt for less rich food, that is, until the next easy week.

Spring marathon . . . here I come!

Apple Cake, All Dressed Up


This Dinner View Demands a Toast


by 2 Comments

Instant Replay: The Green Bay Diary of Jerry Kramer

Since football is in the air, I thought to recall the book Instant Reply which I read when I was 13.  I have never been a football fan and just found out two minutes ago that that the Green Bay Packers are contesting the Super Bowl this year when my husband called me upstairs to view the half-time show.   I was however an avid baseball and hockey fan and loved (and still love) to read biographies and autobiographies.

Around this time I was a weekly volunteer at the local library and I began to read my way through the biography section, which included, Fire Wagon Hockey:The Story of the Montreal Canadiens, biographies of Sandy Koufax, Roger Crozier and Bobby Hull, and Ball Four a controversial book which came to be “considered one of the most important sports books ever written.” according to Wikipedia.  Other bios I remember reading then were of Ghandi, Martin Luther, Madame Curie, Dame Margot Fonteyn, Louis Pasteur & Joan of Arc.  This reading predilection fits with my Meyers-Briggs, people-person personality type.

Here is a description of Instant Replay from Amazon.com

“In 1967, when Jerry Kramer was a thirty-one-year-old Green Bay Packers offensive lineman, in his tenth year with the team, he decided to keep a diary of the season. “Perhaps, by setting down my daily thoughts and observations,” he wrote, “I’ll be able to understand precisely what it is that draws me back to professional football.” Little did Kramer know that the 1967 season would be one of the most remarkable in the history of pro football, culminating with the legendary championship game against Dallas now known as the “Ice Bowl,” in which Kramer would play a central role . Washington Post’s Jonathan Yardley, calls it “to this day, the best inside account of pro football, indeed the best book ever written about that sport and that league.”

This groundbreaking look inside the world of professional football is one of the first books ever to take readers into the locker room and reveal the inner workings of a professional sports franchise. He also offers a rare and insightful view of the team’s storied leader, Coach Vince Lombardi.

Bringing the book back into print for the first time in more than a decade, this new edition of Instant Replay retains the classic look of the original and includes a foreword by Jonathan Yardley and additional rarely seen photos from the celebrated “Lombardi era.”

Gee, this sounds compelling (well for a sports book at least) maybe I should reread and perhaps this is a good Valentine’s gift for a football fan?   As for runner biographies, I would recommend Running with the Legends:  Training and Racing Insights from 21 Great Runners by Michael Sandrock, the book is as described and will not disappoint.  Complete with sample training schedules, the most important insight gained will be that there is no formula.  This panorama of athletic experience will convince you that, once you have a solid understanding of the basic physiology of training, trusting your own instincts, is what it is all about.  Your own way, also involves the self-knowledge to determine psychological fit with workout types. More generally applied, self-knowledge will also enable you to determine what sport or fitness activity suits your physiological and psychological profile.

As for my love of biographies, these days I’m more likely to be reading about writers and political figures although I did enjoy Lance Armstrong’s, Every Second Counts a few years ago.  At the moment I’m reading a short biography of Lord Byron written by Edna O’Brien.  More out of interest in the biographer, than the subject.  Edna O’Brien has written an excellent biography of James Joyce which both my husband and I read after a trip to Ireland.

A couple of all-time favourites are  Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela and Maggie Siggon’s, Louis Riel, A Life of Revolution.

“There is properly no history; only biography” Ralph Waldo Emerson


by Leave a comment

Winter Running by the Lake

My total miles run for last week was 60 and about 48-50 of those miles were run outside.  While there were some cold days, the wind has been relatively tame making runs by Lake Ontario quite pleasant.

I was pleased to find the Empire Sandy, a tall ship landmark at Spadina Quay in spring, summer and fall, docked nearby at Queen’s Quay.  I also enjoyed the outdoor art near the pond, now skating rink,  just outside Queen’s Quay.

The Empire Sandy, Docked for the Winter

 

Today I was drawn to run outside because of the wonderful blue sky.  It was however necessary to get into full winter gear to stay warm, a key item is the facewarmer.  These items are described in two previous posts, Winter Running Gear Accessories and Winter Running Gear: Base, Middle & Outer Layers.  It’s hard to pick out in the photo below but I am wearing a  vented-bandana-style face protector made by Seirus which was bought at Dick’s in the U.S.  You may find one of this particular style at a store specializing in snowboarding gear but specialty running stores like New Balance Toronto and Mountain Equipment Co-op usually have the plain black styles in stock.

Cold, but too blue to stay inside.

 

Just East of Ontario Place

Here are photos from the outdoor art display near the Power Plant by Harbourfront Centre east of Queen’s Quay.

Harbourfront Outdoor Photo Exhibit

More Outdoor Art

Now that I am taking a photography course, I’ve become acutely aware of the limitations of my mini-camera.  However, I just can’t see myself running with the Nikon SLR camera lent to me by my son.  Even if I did not mind the weight, I’m sure the movement would not be good for the camera.  The instructor will be showing us how to take shots of fast moving objects.  I asked her whether that would apply to the opposite situation, when the photographer is the fast moving object.  She said we will cover that later.  Here is a photo I took for my course with a few painterly touches courtesy of PhotoShop, which I am learning to use.  I think I’ll call it Alley Series: #1 🙂

 




by 2 Comments

Another Week of Winter Running

The wickedly cold Edmonton temperature during our visit last Sunday of -26C has been displaced by +5C.  What is going on?  And here in Toronto, the capital of not-so-cold-but-damp-cold it is -17C.  Wrong place at the wrong time.

Total mileage this week was 50 miles, with four indoor and three outdoor runs.  Five or six years ago during a particularly cold January, I ran 31 days with only three outdoor runs.  So it could be worse.  Thinking of worse I’m reminded of the power failure two winters ago.  Funnily enough, our gas furnace was so old (since replaced) that it was able to continue to produce heat and with gas stove and oven, the hardship was not severe.  I’m also remembering that a few years ago, I ran the Robbie Burns 8K in Burlington in a time of 34:58 in -20C temperatures on packed ice and snow.  Needless to say, I felt that were conditions better, I might have run faster.

The Communal Mule

We have stayed close to home these past chilly days.  Once again, we considered a movie outing and once again, we chose to hunker down on the homestead our only outing, to shop with a coffee break enroute.  We tried a new coffee bar The Communal Mule on Dundas west and enjoyed as my husband calls it, “Being tourists in the land of youth.” as inevitably we seem to be the oldest people about in our travels to nouveau espresso bars.  I had an excellent shortbread with white chocolate chip cookie and my husband enjoyed his latte.

As for me, I’ve become a bit stuck on Stumptown coffee.  Give me Stumptown coffee, Stumptown I say!  I’m a believer.  There is only one place in Toronto (2 in Canada total) where Stumptown coffee is available, LIT Espresso Bar. We have only been to the College street locations.

Stumptown Coffee at LIT Espresso Bar

Quiet days mean more time to read and I finished The Sea Lady by Margaret Drabble. The “elegiac” writing and pace of the first 250 pages led to a disappointing finale, complete with a surprise ending, where everything came together, not with elegance but more like a season-ending episode of Desperate Housewives.  My very humble opinion for what it is worth, although still recommended as a pretty good read.

The final pages of The Sea Lady contain these words from Scotland’s favourite son, whose birthday is celebrated on January 25th.  And — to my husband, I’ll dedicate these lines from Robbie Burns and repeat that NO, the final quote of yesterdays post was in no way related to your plan to watch six hours of football this weekend.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my Dear,

And the rocks melt wi’ the sun:

I will love thee still, my Dear,

While the sand o’ life shall run.


by 1 Comment

The Running Photographer

Taking my camera with me on my daily runs has injected a new and big element of fun to my running, even when I’m doing a treadmill run, as you’ll know if you read my blog a few days back.

I started this blog as an outcome of taking a course at the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD) on The Art of Blogging (and social media).  I am about to start a second course on digital photography.  An exciting aspect of this second course is that it will be held in the main building rather than in the less glamorous annex facility across the street where my blogging course took place.  This is one of those love-it or hate-it structures and I am on the love side, from the outside at least.  Soon I’ll get the inside scoop.

Ontario College of Art and Design - Toronto, Canada

A funny thing about aging is that as the years go by you sometimes forget about past lives, so to speak. When I bought my point and shoot camera this summer, a Canon, I thought of myself as something of a novice. How could I forget that in my early twenties, I was considered an up and coming avant-garde photographer in my small world of fine-arts at Concordia University.  I had also  forgotten that when I first moved to Toronto decades ago, I used to develop photos in the darkroom at OCAD.

Artist - Previous Incarnation, a Few Decades Ago

I once googled myself and was surprised to see a reference to an exhibit at Optica Gallery in Montreal where I was part of a four-person exhibit of young artists. I found this description of my photos which I cannot remember writing  perhaps it was the curator who wrote this. . . . takes photographs of things from her immediate environment to which she is attracted in every possible sense.

Now I’ll take a moment here to do a mini-lecture to the young, to whom, the idea of how much one might, can or will change through the years is elusive.  My advice is to be careful how you present yourself on-line because you may live to regret the social media trail you’ve blazed and recorded for posterity or notoriety.  Never say never.

On the topic of running and photography, my friend John is a marvelous photographer and all-round-great-guy who runs and has started a blog!  I can’t tell you how many memorable running moments he has captured on film.  CLICK HERE to get to John’s blog.  The impetus for his blog is a one-year job posting in Hong Kong. Lucky fella!

So back to the running . . . today I ran just over 8 miles on the treadmill with 5 x 5 minute sections at tempo pace, did upper and lower body weights and did not take any photos of what was on the treadmill TV 🙂

The bottom line . . . the more reasons you have to run or exercise, the more you’ll stick to it.  This year, I discovered a new one – photography.


by 1 Comment

Challenges to Young Poets, (Bloggers and Runners)

“Challenges To Young Poets, (Bloggers and Runners)” With apologies to Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Ideas, inspirations, and starting points for poets, as proposed by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the poet laureate of San Francisco with my additions and very slight changes in italics.

Climb or run up the Statue of Liberty.

Reach for the unattainable.

Dance or run with wolves and count the stars, including the unseen.

Be naive, innocent, non-cynical, as if you had just landed on earth (as indeed you have, as indeed we all have), astonished by what you have fallen upon.

Write living newspapers.  Be a reporter from outer space, filing dispatches to some supreme managing editor who believes in full disclosure and has a low tolerance level for hot air.

Read between the lines of human discourse.

Avoid the provincial, go for the universal.

Think subjectively, write objectively.

Think long thoughts in short sentences.

Don’t attend poetry or running workshops, but if you do, don’t go to learn ‘how to” but to learn “what” (What’s important to write about).

Don’t bow down to critics who have not themselves written great masterpieces or have run masterfully.

Resist much, obey less.

Secretly liberate any being you see in a cage.

Write short poems in the voice of birds. Make your lyrics truly lyrical. Birdsong is not made by machines. Give your poems wings to fly to the treetops.

The much-quoted dictum from William Carlos Williams, “No ideas but in things,” is OK for prose, but it lays a dead hand on lyricism, since “things” are dead.

Don’t contemplate your navel in poetry and while running and think the rest of the world is going to think it’s important.

Remember everything, forget nothing.

Work on a frontier, if you can find one.

Go to sea, or work near water, and paddle your own boat.

Associate with thinking poets and runners. They’re hard to find.

Cultivate dissidence and critical thinking. “First thought, best thought” may not make for the greatest poetry. First thought may be worst thought.

What’s on your mind? What do you have in mind? Open your mouth and stop mumbling.

Don’t be so open-minded that your brains fall out.

Question everything and everyone. Be subversive, constantly questioning reality and the status quo.

Be a poet, not a huckster. Don’t cater, don’t pander, especially not to possible audiences, readers, editors, or publishers.

Come out of your closet. It’s dark in there.

Raise the blinds, throw open your shuttered windows, raise the roof, unscrew the locks from the doors, but don’t throw away the screws.

Be committed to something outside yourself. Be militant about it. Or ecstatic.

To be a poet at sixteen is to be sixteen, to be a poet at 40 is to be a poet. Be both.

To be strong at sixteen is to be sixteen, to be healthy at 50 is a to have good genes, good luck and good habits.

Wake up and pee, the world’s on fire.

Have a nice day.

First read at the 17th Annual San Francisco High School Poetry Festival, February 3, 2001

My first exposure to Ferlinghetti was in a grade nine art class where we read from Coney Island of the Mind and did drawings inspired by these poems.  I also recall creating a giant papier mache pizza a la Claus Oldenberg.

City Lights, a must see when in San Francisco

During our short 1 1/2 day stay in San Francisco earlier this month we visited City Lights Bookstore which was co-founded by Ferlinghetti.

Wishing you a Happy New Year filled with poetry, running and blogging or whatever you like to do for FUN!

Purchasing Nox, by Canadian poet Anne Carson

Extensive Beat literature and poetry section


by Leave a comment

Merry Christmas all!

Busy day.  Ran one mile to  buy the missing ingredient for punch.  Family dinner, turkey, children, an infant and a birthday cake for Steven.  Purchased from ITunes a beautiful Christmas tune performed by Steve Winwood, who has been around forever. Check it out below on YouTube.

Two grandmas and their four month old grandchild, baby Zack

 

Good times! Belated birthday cake for a 23 year old

 




by 1 Comment

Christmas eve greeting

Cradle Song

Sweet dreams, form a shade
O’er my lovely infant’s head!
Sweet dreams of pleasant streams
By happy, silent, moony beams!
Sweet Sleep, with soft down
Weave thy brows an infant crown!
Sweet Sleep, angel mild,
Hover o’er my happy child!

Sweet smiles, in the night
Hover over my delight!
Sweet smiles, mother’s smiles,
All the livelong night beguiles.

Sweet moans, dovelike sighs,
Chase not slumber from thy eyes!
Sweet moans, sweeter smiles,
All the dovelike moans beguiles.

Sleep, sleep, happy child!
All creation slept and smiled.
Sleep, sleep, happy sleep,
While o’er thee thy mother weep.

Sweet babe, in thy face
Holy image I can trace;
Sweet babe, once like thee
Thy Maker lay, and wept for me:

Wept for me, for thee, for all,
When He was an infant small.
Thou His image ever see,
Heavenly face that smiles on thee!

Smiles on thee, on me, on all,
Who became an infant small;
Infant smiles are His own smiles;
Heaven and earth to peace beguiles.

William Blake

I dedicate this favourite poem for a Christmas Eve to newest nephew Zack, little Henry and nine year old Tigist Dallesa who lives in Ethiopia. You can read more about Henry on his mom’s blog Fit ‘n’Frugal and check out the recipe for carrot cake oatmeal.

Sweet dreams all!

Henry's first Christmas!


by Leave a comment

Photo finish

Taking photos of runners is not easy.  One of my favourite photos was taken by a friend who had his wife positioned 50 meters ahead to alert him that I was about to run by.  The wisdom of this method is illustrated by this photo from the Sacramento marathon taken by my husband of where I was seconds before. He made up for the photo-less-ness with some very exuberant cheerleading.

Where I was . . .

Fortunately, there are always professionals along the course and at the finish ready to record our moments of glory, for a price. In this case, I purchased three of the digital images taken of me during the race. While $49.99 seems pricey the logistics of taking all those photos and sorting them by race number must be onerous, not the easiest way to make a buck.   Here is one of the shots of my finish.



by 1 Comment

Budding blogger

Listening to Murakami’s book has been cause for some reflection on how running became such an integral part of my daily routine.  In addition, I’m asking myself, how is it that I have somehow also acquired the “habit” of blogging.  There are clues to be found in the life I led as a 12 year, almost 13 year old.

I was given a journal Christmas of 1967 by my mother and thereupon began 20 years of keeping a journal.  The journal keeping ended when I became a mom.  Life just seemed too busy and immediate, that I did not have the desire to mull over the contents in writing.  Not that I did not reflect on my life, as in fact, that is a lot of what I do when I run.

Portrait of a blogger as a young athlete

As a child I was not in any way precocious but I was extremely active and involved in all kinds of games and sports.  I had forgotten how so.  In my journal I drew pictures to illustrate my entries including pictures of a new hockey stick, a high jump made by my dad, a baseball bat, a basket player and much more.  I noted, every single occurrence of gym class and all viewings of hockey night in Canada.

Wednesday, August 14, 1968

Because of my dad’s makeshift high jump, high jumping became a neighbourhood sport and I was the champ.  Thus, when I attended my first track meet, an inter-park affair, I placed first in my Junior age-group.  Our park, was a very small park and I was the only first place finisher.  I remember being feted quite thoroughly for this, nearly carried home on the shoulders of my teammates, or at least that is how it felt 🙂

I should mention that one of the first conversations I had with Friend 2 from yesterday’s blog involved the discovery that my favourite girlhood sport of high jump, was her most despised sport and sports in general are not her thing.  In spite of finding a certain camaraderie with sports-mates, most of my female friends generally fall into the category of being non-athletes who read a lot.  Although an active child, I did love to read and was the youngest volunteer at the local library.  I diligently worked my way through the biography section in alphabetical order and more.

I’ve kept a few of my journals, but thrown out those from age 20 to 32 as my only interest in them seemed to be worry that they might be read, so out they went.  Maybe tossing the records of the brooding days of my twenties is related to Rainer Maria Rilke’s advice in Letters to a Young Poet.

“…have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”

Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903