Author: arfenarf

I went for a short run in New Westminster last night and decided to stay on pavement because the boardwalk I like to run on looked very slippery in the rain.  I looked at the map and decided to run up a bit of New West’s main drag and then back along Front St., which runs along the water.

Hey, I like water.  Water has views and all sorts of good, peaceful, after-work evening happiness.  And bridges, too. Who can pass up a chance to run under road and rail and Skytrain bridges a few times?  That’s really cool.

Continue reading “Thank You, Mr. Truck Driver.”

Was at the pool this morning, mid-way through the warmup’s 200m kick.  I noticed, all of a sudden, that I was really kicking hard, trying not to get passed by a teammate who is a) younger and b) a guy.

And I thought, “Whaaaaat?  I’m racing a guy during a kickboard set in a warmup for a routine Monday swim?  Really?  What kind of goof am I anyway?”

And I finally realized, after eight years in endurance sport, that I’ve been doing it all wrong.  I think I also have figured out why.  I’m packing to move house in a few weeks and just blundered over the packet of old report cards again.  They’re a twelve-year litany of, “Miss Weber does not seem to be working up to her capabilities.”  (Kindergarten appeared to go OK, though.) I think an awful lot of me is still trying to prove that I am not a slacker, and I’ve been driving myself to go win every goddam workout for the last eight years so I know it, and you know it, and Coach knows it.

The poor slob sharing my lane, however, does not know it, does not care, and has no idea that he’s being hunted.

I’m going to try to really take the easy, EASY.  So I can go bust my backside and kick yours when I really do need to go hard.

Me: “Oh, hey – lookit me, Boy… I’m all set up to be the Great Commuter Cyclist. Don’t I look spiffy?”
Boy: “Mom. You look like a Fred.”
Me: (crushed)

I was fussing in the garage with my 17-year-old on Saturday.  He’s been growing up on his own schedule, treating most sports with deep suspicion.  He didn’t ride a two-wheeler until he was six-ish, and only swam in middle school because we kept driving him to the pool after school and taking away his clothes. He took up cycling a couple of years ago and has engaged the sport and the art of bicycles with a passion.  I taught him everything I know about cycling (which took about five minutes) and he’s gone off on his own roadie-hipster-track guy path.

He was tinkering with bikes and I was tidying up the mess he makes when he tinkers with bikes.  I realized he had put his mountain bike back on the hook and had our little hardtail out, working on it.  “Your sister won’t be back in town for a month,” I said.  “You might as well hang it up.”

“Oh, no,” he said.  “This is for you to ride.” Continue reading “Turn the Tables”

Well. My foot still hurts.

It hurts a lot. In fact, it hurts precisely as much as it did the day I hurt it, almost two weeks ago. I’m going in for a bone scan tomorrow to rule out a stress fracture, but even if it’s “just” soft tissue, it’s taking its own sweet time to heal. I’m pretty much confined to the pool and a trainer for the duration.

I spent the first week with this injury
wallowing, pouting, and eating cookies. The only thing that had a visible effect on my heath was the cookies, and that effect (loosens belt a notch) was instant and not good.

I slouched around the house while I was busy Not Riding or Running a couple of days ago and found my guitar. Then I realized what a terrible thing it is to have “found” my guitar, because doing so makes it clear that I hadn’t noticed it was missing for a year. I dusted it off and am back to forcing fingers into weird chord shapes, but it was good to rediscover the thing.

Continue reading “Beauty in Unexpected Places”

This.

Every good thing can be taken to extremes, to the point where they go from life-giving to ridiculous or even destructive. Food, for example, is essential to our bodies, and well-prepared food is a deep pleasure. Eat too much, though, and your health will suffer. Rest recharges, but a surfeit will leave you bleary and blobbish. Even chocolate has its limits. Or so I’m told.

Now, of course, this has absolutely nothing to do with trail running. Trail running is my healing respite from a hard summer of training and racing. Soft ground eases asphalt-shock. Trees make a happy trade, CO2 for oxygen, as I pass by them. And if some trail is good, lots of steep, rocky, wet, and/or muddy trail is better. I delight in crashing through stinking black puddles swamps, skidding down banks into floodwaters, and romping over fire roads whose loose rocks are hidden in a nice thick layer of fallen maple leaves. The whole experience is physical and emotional therapy for me, essential to sanity during a dark wet winter. And if some is good, more is even better.

Continue reading “On Being Five Years Old Again – Run Edition”

So here I am, on a clear, dark winter evening. Distant lights ease by as I spin along. If I coast and look up, I can see bright stars over the water. The dark shapes of the islands beyond rise to block the Milky Way before it hits the horizon. I’m well-bundled against the breeze and moving briskly enough to keep the chill at bay, although that middle toe on my left foot is starting to pinch a little. I can feel the steady headwind tickle its way under my toque, ruffling my hair.

Continue reading “Coastal Celebration”

The first essay I remember writing (in sixth grade) was called, “Getting My Eyes Full of Water.”  It described the inelegant start to my swimming career.  I was deathly afraid of putting my face in the water and opening my eyes (this was in the Dark Ages before goggles), and refused to even attempt to swim the length of the pool, a stalemate that lasted until my little sister up and did it and I was compelled to follow suit (so to speak).  Stoopid sister.

Continue reading “On Being Five Years Old Again – Swim Edition”

…or, as I’m reminded by the more constructively-minded, “recovery.”

It’s been a little over a month since the big race in Auckland. I spent the three weeks after the race being gently active: I hiked and biked all over New Zealand’s South Island and came home refreshed. And I’ve spent most of the last two weeks readjusting to life, work, and the small matter that it is, in fact, autumn on BC’s South Coast.

You may thank me now for refraining from posting a big NZ travelogue.

Continue reading “Sloth and Gluttony”