Item 1 - Run a marathon

He has no idea what's in store for him

I was going to run my first marathon last year. I had been practicing for almost a year prior to that; I had slowly ramped up my training, plugging away with good gains on both distance and time. The marathon I was running was in September. Then three days before my marathon I started to get sick. Up until the day before the event I still thought I could do it, but the sheer amount of crud that I was coughing up told a different story. I dropped out and spent the next few days in bed. It was a crappy end to an utterly crappy September.

So this year I planned to really get a marathon done, come sickness or shin-splints. I maintained a good training regimen and my health has been relatively good all year. Summer hit and the heat meant that I fell off on my distance a little bit, but nothing that I couldn't make up. A little over a month ago I realized that it was do or die time. I signed up for a marathon that was in a nearby town and started making plans.

In the days leading up to the marathon this year a lot of people asked me things along the lines of "Are you sure you can do a whole marathon?" or "How far are you running these days?" My answers were "Of course," and "Around 20 miles," respectively.

Here's my confession: the real answers to those questions were "God, I hope so" and "About 13 miles."

Okay, so saying I fell off a little bit is kind of like saying that "Pacific Rim" was a bit of a disappointment. I got downright lazy. But marathon season is almost over and if I had told people the truth they might have (rightfully) tried to talk me out of it. In my defense, I really wanted to do it (which is, of course, the greatest defense ever.) Also, I'd like to point out that the question "Are you sure you can run a whole marathon?" or any variation thereupon is one of the more belittling questions a person can ask, so maybe just don't do that.

The first 14 miles actually went pretty easily; the scenery was beautiful, I was keeping a good even pace, the terrain was easy but hilly enough to keep it interesting.

And then I hit the trails.

I'm an alright trail runner but I run in minimalist shoes, so I tend to do trails that are mostly dirt. These were gravel covered trails, with very large rocks. I managed to hit every single sharp rock I could over the next 10 miles. Add to this the fact that I bonked around mile 16 and you have a poor first showing for a marathon.

When I finally crossed the finish line I didn't feel the sense of accomplishment that I had envisioned. Mostly I felt sore and tired. And one thought kept occurring to me: I could have done better. And I will, next time.

One final note: the sense of accomplishment did come, but it was a bit later. In one day I doubled my most recent best distance. It wasn't pretty and I wasn't particularly fast, but I finished a goddamn marathon and not everyone can say that.

The very last bit of energy I had

Appropriate for the month

The blog lives, I've just continued being lazy. A real update tomorrow, just wanted to post this because I love this movie.

Item 16 - Finish 30 3 books - "The Sisters Brothers" by Patrick deWitt

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So apparently I took a bit of an unplanned hiatus. In my little vacation from blogging I have still been working on my list. That's included finishing this little gem. I've always loved westerns and this one is a nice quick read and fills the void that "Deadwood" never coming back left. The comparison to "Deadwood" is deliberate, though, as this book uses the same sort of lofty language as that show to create a sense of disconnect between the characters surroundings/actions and their words. In places it felt a little forced, but overall it was enjoyable.

One thing that did stick out for me was the episodic nature of the book. Maybe it's just because I spent the last month playing "Fallout 3" (which of course has nothing to do with my lack of updates), but the whole story almost seemed like an RPG campaign: the characters would drift from place to place, be given a quest, get a reward and move on towards their final goal. This isn't necessarily a bad thing (I'd actually kind of like to try a western themed RPG now that I think of it) it just sort of made it a little strange.

Housekeeping Item 27 - See a live comedy show Item 28 - Go to a concert

I didn't do entries on them but I went to a concert and two live comedy shows (one of them way back in March). The concert was Sallie Ford & The Sound outside, they were spectacular with an awesome energy that was really infectious. I made the mistake of going to the show by myself, however. Awkward guy standing by himself is never a good thing to be at a concert. Even so, it was fun.

More recently I went to see Howard Kremer's "Have a Summah" tour. It was a blast and I even got to meet Howard, which was a real thrill for me. It's hard to explain, but I really connect with his comedy style (which when I write it out kind of sounds creepy). Kyle Kinane did a set also and it killed; my only previous experience with Kyle was his bit he did on "Drunk History" but I've been watching clips on Youtube ever since the show and have really been liking him.

Item 16 - Finish 30 4 books - "Packng for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void" by Mary Roach

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This is the second book by Mary Roach that I've read, the first being "Stiff". I felt that book was the stronger of the two, but this one was still engaging. Mary Roach is a funny, clever writer who always manages to talk about science-ish subjects in a fun way. I say "science-ish" because you don't really come away from these sorts of books any smarter, but you are primed for any cocktail party you might find yourself at with little factoids to drop into lulls in the conversation (this could be called the "Gladwellian school of science" if  you wanted to put a name on it.)

That may sound derisive, but I assure you it's not meant to be. I enjoyed this book and loved the little stories from her various interviews and resources. My only real problem with this particular book was the title: it makes it seem like it's going to actually be about the science of humans reaching Mars, or at least the plans to visit our second closest neighbor. That takes up a very small part of the book, mostly at the end of chapters where she will take on a couple of sentences about the subject she has just discussed and saying something to the effect of "and just imagine doing that for two years, which is how long it will take to get to Mars." This is largely due to the very nature of getting humans to Mars. It's such a theoretical proposition at this point that there is very little that can be written about it. To that end, I think that the very subject of Mars or theoretical space exploration could have been it's own chapter and the book could have just used "space" as the uniting theme.

The whole book does have a sort of unfortunate sadness about it. Now that our government has decided that manned spaceflight is far less important than invading other countries (as if there was ever any doubt about their priorities) it looks as though our role in flinging humans towards the red planet will be greatly diminished. Why should it be the United States' responsibility to stand at the forefront of science and exploration? I mean who wants to do that, right? Regardless, I sincerely hope that someone from this planet does continue funding space exploration. As Mary Roach quotes Ben Franklin in her book when he was asked what use a hot air balloon (the first human flying machine) was "What is the good of a newborn infant?" There is near limitless potential in the human animal, we just have to strive for it.

Review of "Pacific Rim" Item 2 - Watch 6 3 movies at the theater

Pacific Rim/Jaws by Matthew Ferguson, this mash up is much better than the movie

I am on a roll recently for consuming bad media. I actually had highish hopes for this movie, I didn't expect it to reinvent the wheel or anything, but I respect Guillermo del Toro and figured he had something in mind. That something ended up being every summer action movie ever. He hit every single cliche that you can think of. Impassioned eleventh hour speech by the elder statesman? Heroic sacrifice? Protagonist's rival comes to begrudgingly respect him? Generically handsome lead ends up with the only female character given more than two lines? Yup, "Pacific Rim" ticks all the boxes essential to make a boring actioner.

And it's not just the writing that puts you to sleep; Idris Elba, who is usually such a powerful actor, sleepwalks through the entire film. Charlie Day and Ron Perlman do their best to inject some sense of life into this film, but they aren't enough. It was beautifully shot and there were some great props, which is no less than should be expected of Del Toro, but it lacked the practical special effects that made "Pan's Labyrinth" so amazing and "Hellboy" so detailed. I will rescind my previous assertion that it was a bad movie, it was just a rehash of something that we should all be tired of by now.

Item 16 - Finish 30 5 books - "Old Man's War" by John Scalzi

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I bought this book because of a thread on Reddit about great first lines in books or something like that. The quotation used was interesting enough that I decided to give it a shot:


Which also makes this another instance of me buying and reading a book because of a good high-concept. Thankfully, this one worked out much better than last time.

I'm not about to heap praises on this book though. We're offered glimpses of some great premises that I'm sure will be fleshed out in the further books in the series, but I just don't feel a desire to seek those books out. There's a scene in the book where the protagonist suddenly has a breakdown on the battlefield, realizing he's been killing dozens or hundreds of alien combatants since joining the army. It's actually a moment I waited for, since the rest of the book he deals with mowing down aliens as if he were talking about his laundry. But then the scene fizzles without any real resolution, he just kind of gets over it. That kind of sums up how I felt at the end; I'll never really know much more about this series, or if the hero ever truly feels anything about his actions, but I can live with that.

Review of "Monsters University" Item 2 - Watch 6 4 movies at the theater

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At the current rate I've been seeing movies in the theater I should reach my goal by the time I'm 31, I'm definitely going to have to step up my game. I went to this one with my niece, who recently moved to town. She loved it, but she's three and not terribly picky. I liked it, but felt like it didn't have the same earnestness or heart that the original "Monsters Inc." had. I'm not really sure that there needed to be second film in the series, honestly. With this prequel we just take several giant steps back for the characters and their world without much payoff. It's a cute movie, but I'm obviously not the target here.

Item 16 - Finish 30 6 books - "Extinction Point" by Paul Antony Jones

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Oh boy. I'll just get this over with quickly; I didn't like this book. I had a lot of reasons but one of the primary ones is the protagonist, Emily. Emily is your typical reader stand-in character in that she is essentially a blank slate personality. This is even more unfortunate than you might expect since she is essentially the only "character" (and I use that word loosely here) that we are exposed to for most of the book. The one part of her personality that does make it into the plot is that she is incredibly genre blind.

It's one thing if a story never makes mention of a genre; I'm willing to accept, for instance, in "Friday the 13th" that the teens have never seen a slasher movie in their life, maybe in their universe that particular type of fiction doesn't exist and therefore it's a perfectly reasonable thing to do to split up and go into the basement by themselves. This is not the case with Emily; she explicitly states she's a fan of zombie movies and that a sci-fi movie is playing in the background at one point. And yet she persists in doing everything that you would expect someone with no experience in either subject to do: Hmmm, should I arm myself in case someone/something attacks me? NOPE! Should I find a flashlight before going exploring? Fuck that! What was that strange sound? I'll go investigate!

I think what really gets me is that I think the author is probably a good writer, but it felt like he phoned this in. So much so that nothing actually happens or is resolved by the end of the book. It ends with a non-cliffhanger cliffhanger. It's very obviously designed with  a desire to be a series in mind. You are left with a single character who you don't care about, doing something that doesn't seem to matter and no resolution to any part of it. It could have done so much more, which is it's cardinal sin.

Item 16 - Finish 30 7 books - "How to Be Black" by Baratunde Thurston

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Baratunde Thurston takes a really amazing approach to race in this book, which is appropriate for a book with such a lofty title as "How to Be Black," the amazing thing is that he aims high and he hits his target. The book is part comedy, part autobiography and part instruction manual on race relations in the United States. It is one of the better comedy books that I've read in a long time and he manages to integrate his own experience and life story pretty seamlessly into the different sections of the book. Like the best "Onion" articles, I found myself quoting it in conversation or pulling the book out and reading whole sections to helpless people.

My one complaint is that sometimes the other contributors to the book (his "panel of experts") didn't fit in quite perfectly. I assume this is due to the nature of the way they were collected (I believe they were interviews rather than written essays) or possibly an issue of editing. I want to emphasize that I actually enjoyed all of the contributors thoughts and thought they all were interesting and funny, I just felt that they were sometimes unnecessary or slightly awkward to the rest of the text.

Item 16 - Finish 30 8 books - "The Big Lebowski" by Jenny M. Jones

The Polish poster for "The Big Lebowski" (Source)

I've lost count of how many times I've seen "The Big Lebowski". It's one of my favorite movies of all time. I remember my mom told me about when she introduced a friend to it and the friend's immediate reaction was to say "I want to write an essay about that movie." A couple of years later in college I managed to live that dream not once but twice, milking the movie for two papers in two separate classes. Apparently I was just a little early on that trend; the last few years has seen the publication of a fairly large number of books about this wonderful little film that was barely a blip when it came out (including one by El Duderino himself).

There are worse things to devote your time to

This is the first time I've read one of these books, I bought it when it was on sale on Amazon. I enjoyed the behind the scenes look at it, but the overall feel was a bit too much like reading a lengthened Wikipedia article or the trivia section of IMDb. The author used very few original sources and instead depended primarily on other publications, interviews and documentaries. I would have appreciated a bit more of her own interviews or thoughts, because when she did have them they were interesting. She has a very good voice, I just wish I could have read more of that.

I think I might have too many t-shirts

Item 16 - Finish 30 9 books - "Ulysses" by James Joyceand"The New Bloomsday Book" by Harry Blamires

From "Ulysses 'Seen'", something that everybody should check out, not just Joyce fans

This one was a little bit of a cheat as it's the third time that I've read "Ulysses." It's become a somewhat semi-annual tradition for me to start reading it as late in the year as I can and still finish it by Bloomsday. Each year I try to expand on the tradition and make that Bloomsday a little bit extra special. This year I added "The New Bloomsday Book" to the mix. I've read annotations for "Ulysses" before, but never quite so comprehensive."Ulysses" is one of those books that the more you read about it and what it means the better it becomes.

But this entry wasn't going to be about either of these books, I feel the very fact that I read a book about a book while I was reading the first book says enough about the amount that has already been said by other far more intelligent people. Instead, I was going to write about what I did with my Bloomsday to make it remarkable this year. I had a plan to get lamb kidneys and have a whole meal based around that. Unfortunately, I missed my chance to order them as I was distracted by a number of other things going on in my life.

I was able to salvage the day though, I bought some Guinness and got to share it with one of the only other people in my life that enjoys Joyce (and Guinness) as much as I do. My mom has had a few health problems recently (in comedy this is what would be called "Understatement"), so being able to share a beer with her and just getting to chat for a little while was special enough.

Besides, next year is the 110th Bloomsday. Shit's gonna get real.

Pioneer 5K Fun RunItem 20 - Run 6 0 5K's

I love doing this race; the money that is raised is donated to the local high school's athletic program. And this is a seriously underfunded school system. The town it takes place in is so pathologically afraid of raising taxes that they purchased a bunch of hideous modular classrooms rather than upgrade the elementary school because it was cheaper in the short run. Always a good idea: shortchange your children. That never backfires.

The other reason I love this run is because the primary sponsor is the best shoe store in eastern Oregon and they usually have a great swag bag. Hey, I don't always have to be altruistic. I wasn't able to get any good photos of the race this year, unfortunately.

I did get some bad ones, though.

See what I mean? Look how disappointed in me that lady on the right edge is.

I have no idea why I took this photo, even less idea why I'm posting it now.

I did get an okay picture of the swag though.

A pen, chap-stick, a polishing cloth for cell phone screens, a foot buffer, a reusable grocery bag, a t-shirt and a... what the hell?

Yes! That thing! What the hell is that?

Tough Rhino Mud Run Item 29 - Run an endurance/obstacle raceItem 20 - Run 6 1 5K Item 14 - Run a race in costume or in theme

As anyone that grew up with a steady diet of Nickelodeon will tell you, doing Double Dare would have been a dream come true as a child. Of course, you put those sorts of dreams away around the time you hit puberty and suddenly being the center of attention sounds like a punishment. In my case, I had completely forgotten about wanting to ever do the obstacle course style race until I found out that they do them for grown-ups too.

You've got to admit, that looks pretty awesome

I figured I'd knock a couple items off the list at once after a discussion with a friend about how much fun it would be to run a mud run in a white shirt and pants. I decided to go a little further and went with a whole suit. The only item I had to pay for was the jacket, which I got for $3 at Goodwill, everything else I had in my closet and was damaged.

That thing about not liking to be the center of attention doesn't just apply to surly teenagers: it also applies to a moderately well-adjusted twenty-nine year old. I figured there'd be a lot of people running in costumes or themes. Not so much. I spotted two girls in tutus, and a couple groups in matching t-shirts and that was about it. I got a lot of stares and a lot of questions. Actually, just two questions: "Are you really running in that suit?" and "Why are you running in that suit?" And a few times on the run I heard my favorite thing "Oh man, the guy in the suit is beating us!"

I took all that attention in stride, especially that last one. What I will say is that if I ever run in a costume or theme again, I'm going to make sure it's lighter. I must have carried an extra 15 pounds of water over the finish line, not to mention how hot that jacket got. I'm a guy that sweats a fair amount and it was about 80 degrees by the time I finished. So, less is definitely better, at least when running in the summer.

I wonder if I can find one of those tutus in my size.

Item 16 - Finish 30 11 books - "Oz Reimagined" Edited by John Joseph Adams and Douglas Cohen

Ooh, it's all edgy and grimdark

I read "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" (check that out, you can get it for free) when I was seven and ill. I had to stay home from school and had nothing to do so my mom gave my a beat up old copy she'd picked up for fifty cents at a bookstore. I read it in one sitting and after I was well I plowed through the other fourteen books in the original series. There is something so lovely about those first few books, they are strange and funny and touching. And always sincere. You always got the feeling that Baum truly loved entertaining children; despite his best efforts to try to the end the series a number of times, he'd always relent to the wishes of the children that would barrage him with letters.

There doesn't appear to be a lot of that same sincerity in this volume. Most of the stories skew toward the gritty re-imaginings that have become the norm in recent years. I should mention here that I'm not a purist when it comes to new interpretations of other works, I don't think that they must follow the tone of the original to the letter. I enjoyed Gregory Maguire's "Wicked" enough to read the sequel "Son of a Witch" and will probably get around to the other two books in the series at some point as well. I just think that going straight to the gritty is a bit cliche; if you want to see what I mean go to deviantART and search for "Oz re-imagined" or "Oz reimagined." There are some clever ideas on there, but it's largely the same sort of material that would be right at home in this book.

I don't want to seem like there weren't any good stories in this book, there were a few that I really liked. One of my favorites was "The Boy Detective of Oz" by Tad Williams. It served as a great commentary on the very thing that I'm talking about, the habit of authors to distort Oz into a nightmare without much reason. Williams is actually able to have his cake and eat it too, in this way; he gets to do a little of the dreary stuff within a framework where it works, while still telling a somewhat more classical Oz story and gets in a jab at writers whose first impulse is to turn the Tin Woodman into a murderous mechanical tyrant.

There were a some other stories in here that I really enjoyed, one or two that fall into that category I've so scorned in the last three paragraphs. The thing they had in common was some sort of joy lurking in the text. As I said before, sincerity is essential to Oz.

Item 16 - Finish 30 12 books - "The Lottery and Other Stories" by Shirley Jackson

I think I am in the minority of American college graduates in that I never read "The Lottery" when I was in school. Now that I have read it and some of Jackson's other work I wish I had been exposed to it earlier. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the short stories in this book and I always love reading an author who is obviously influential on other writers that I admire but I feel like she would have hit me a lot harder if I had read her when I was younger. I think she is one of those writers who you have to read at a certain stage in your life to fully appreciate; someone that expresses something with their words that you felt in that time that you hadn't been able to properly emote or something that you had never seen before. These are the best authors in the world, on an individual level, because you carry that love and appreciation for them with you for the rest of your life.

Item 16 - Finish 30 13 books - "The Will to Whatevs" by Eugene Mirman

I'm a fan of Eugene Mirman. He is one of the best parts of "Bob's Burgers" and his riffs can be some of the funniest moments on the show. His stand-up is smart, funny and original. Rather than write a review of the book I've decided that I'd post a clip of him talking about doing a reading of his book (skip to 2:59 for the relevant part, or watch the whole thing, it's pretty funny).

Item 16 - Finish 30 14 books - "Bad Juju & Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem" by Jonathan Woods

Bad Juju, good cover

I read this book primarily in a bar while waiting for friends. Not in a single trip, hopefully I would give up on waiting after an hour; but it happened to be a book that I had on my phone and that I didn't mind putting down when people would show up unexpectedly. I mention this because there is something deceptive that happens when reading noir fiction in a bar. The atmosphere of a bar can make the worst noir seem good; it can make it more real, more gritty, more sexy. This book was far from the worst but even the bar couldn't put it into great reading territory.

"Bad Juju" committed a few of the ancient sins of noir fiction, things that I hope we can all learn from and work past to make better books. Woods didn't commit all of them, very rarely do you get authors that do that aren't self-published. But in an effort to spread the gospel here are some of the cardinal sins of neo-noir:

• You shall not make your protagonist an invincible badass white guy, Bruce Willis already exists and we're all kind of tired of him anyway.

Seriously, smirking...

...is not...

...acting. Knock it off.

• You shall not make two dimensional female characters that are just sex in high heels, even if you believe that making her the protagonist is "forward thinking." Remember the Bechdel Test and keep it handy.

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• Smoking and drinking are not all that is required to give fiction a hardboiled edge; reaching for a cigarette or a whiskey is not a character trait, it is just filler.

I'm cutting you off for your own good, trust me (Source)

• Honor your forefathers and foremothers: Hammett, Chandler, Highsmith, Ellroy and Mosley (among others) blessed are their names. Learn from their teachings but do your own thing (i.e. you shall not steal).

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I'm sure there are many more, but these are the ones I've come up with off the top of my head. I want to reiterate that "Bad Juju" didn't commit all of these sins; its chief problem was that it flogged number two to death. There wasn't a single female character in any of the stories that was more than a sex object or a venomous snake. Not that the male characters were likable nor that characters necessarily need to be likable, but all of the women were little more than prizes to be won or monsters to be defeated.

There was one instance where this wasn't the case. The story in which the POV was a female character by it nature necessitated it. Unfortunately being a woman is her only defining characteristic and her sex is her primary weapon. It all just came off as sloppy and a bit lazy.

YMCA Corporate Cup 5K Item 20 - Run 6 2 5K's

Think I've found my new profile pic

I started running races last year, before that I'd always just run against myself. The YMCA Corporate Cup was the first 5K that I'd ever run in, so it has a special place in my heart. I also was in charge of organizing my companies involvement in the Corporate Cup this year, helping to organize it with the YMCA and getting people involved. So it felt a little extra special this year.

As last year, it was well organized and well attended. The race runs a course that's fairly flat and has nice scenery, so it's good for all skill levels. I paced with a co-worker for the most part, but when we were getting close to the end I told him to try to take second if he thought he could. He gave it his all and ended in third, I was in fourth. I'm going to blame my poorer performance on the fact that he's eight years younger than me, but I'm also going to be stepping up my training a bit more. Can't let these whippersnappers get the best of us old fogies.

I promise, that's not a heel-strike. It just kind of looks like it is

Item 16 - Finish 30 15 books - "Swann's Way" by Marcel Proust

Swann's Way by Vanessa Fermino Card

I said before that there was very little I could say about "Swann's Way" that hasn't been said already and said better. It's the world in a teacup. It's the persistence and imperfection of memory. It's idealized love.

That, or it's a really good marketing strategy for sponge cookies.

Donation to the Human Rights Campaign Item 19 - Donate to 30 25 charities/non-profits

As a straight white male under the age of 50 in the United States I have it pretty easy. I'm disproportionately represented in the media, there is very little likelihood of my being assaulted and pretty much nobody hassles me about who I want to love.

I am a big believer in the idea that all humans should grant one another equal respect and rights. I'm lucky enough to live in a state that recognized last fall that denying an entire group of people the right to marry "just because" was actually unconscionable. Unfortunately we still have a long way to go in this country, which is why I donated to the HRC. When our children and grandchildren look back at this time in our history they're not going to be proud of our actions in granting entire groups of people basic rights, they're going to ask why it took us so long.

Item 16 - Finish 30 16 books - "The Hole" by Aaron Ross Powell

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I'll break my review of "The Hole" by Aaron Ross Powell down, in the interest of keeping it short.

Il buono: Great premise; a zombie book that's not actually a zombie book. Plus the elder gods in the shape of Mormon mythology angle is a fantastic idea that I wish had been explored more fully instead of in just the last bit of the book. As I've said before, I'm a sucker for a good premise.

Il brutto: There are only two characters in the book and they are never really fleshed out. Every once in a while another character is introduced just to be killed a few pages later, but they are never defined enough to make you care. Unfortunately the same is essentially true of the protagonists.

Il cattivo: That last part of the book where the most interesting part happens? It's also where the anti-climactic finish comes up. We trade any sort of action that happened in the rest of the book for what I can only describe as deus exposition machina, it's pretty unsatisfying. I think Powell is a decent writer and had a good concept, unfortunately it just didn't work.

Item 16 - Finish 30 17 books - "Masters of Atlantis" by Charles Portis

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The first time I read a Charles Portis book ("True Grit", if you're curious) I had the feeling that I've had with a few authors in my life; a feeling of joy and sadness. Joy that I had just read something great that I would hold dear for the rest of my life. Sadness because I would never be able to read it for the first time again and that I would one day run out of books that that author had written.

With "Masters of Atlantis" I've run out of Charles Portis' books. As I mentioned once before, I'm trying to keep these reviews short and to the point, but I didn't feel it was right to pass by this book without eulogizing it in some way. So there it is. It's not his finest book (that would be "The Dog of the South" without question) but it's a fine meditation on getting old and the expectations that an artist has placed on them and places on themselves.

Walla Walla Dirty Duathlon and Trilogy Run for Recovery Item 20 - Run 6 3 5K's

I'm counting these two races as two 5K's because the duathlon was more than 5 kilometers (5.4 miles, to be exact) and the R4R was only 4 kilometers. But I'll get to all of that in a moment.

This was the first year for the duathlon and I was drafted into it by my boss. Her son wanted to do the nike ride portion but couldn't run because of a leg injury, so he needed a substitute. My boss knows that I love to run and that I'm a soft touch. It seemed like a good idea.

It was not.

The race was set up so that the first lap was a trail run of 2.7 miles followed by 14.8 miles of biking and then finished with another 2.7 miles of running. Next to a lake. On a windy day with temperatures just above freezing. If you can see the problem with this you are more in tune than the organizers.

The problem of course isn't for anybody that does the whole thing themselves, the problem is for anybody that only does the running portion. 5.4 miles isn't a big run at all, but when you break it up and have an hour between halves and nothing to do, it causes problems. Your body doesn't like to do things like that.

Must keep moving, pretending like having fun, ignoring pronouns

The elation that I felt when I crossed the finish line wasn't the usual type I felt when running races: not the joy of having accomplished something, of pushing myself in a sport that I love. No, this was the happiness you feel when you are at a party that you hate and you realize that you get to go home.

Yes, that's horse shit, it's eastern Washington, of course there's horse shit

There's my car! See you later!

I'm sorry if I sound negative about this, but hopefully if the organizers do this again next year they will consider the participants that split out the duties when they break it up.

Ok, now that I got the bitching out of the way I'll talk about a race that I love. The Run for Recovery benefits a local addiction counselling center and is one of my favorite races in the Walla Walla valley. Not just because the race is in a beautiful area and along a lovely route, nor because it's for a good cause. I also love it because I adore irony.


Both from the swag bag

 Usually, this race is a four miler, but apparently this year someone forgot to switch the measuring device from kilometers to miles. You've never seen so many smiling faces as when a bunch of runners finish four miles in less than 20 minutes.

Yes, I basically always wear the same thing when running

In spite of that small hiccup it was still a really fantastic run. The organizers always make it fun and obviously enjoy doing it as much as those of us running it like participating.

Item 24 - Get Eye Surgery Part 2

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(For part 1 go here. Yes, I realize I used a similar comic for that entry, sue me.)

I mentioned before that my natural eyesight is pretty terrible. This is due in part to my thin cornea. Because of that defect I was not a candidate for LASIK, instead I had to have a procedure called "photorefractive keratectomy" or more commonly "PRK." PRK is actually the original laser eye surgery, conceived and first used by a researcher at IBM and a German ophthalmologist in 1987;  because IBM and Germans is a pairing that has never scared the hell out of everybody.

The specific differences in LASIK and PRK are subtle, but not without their squick factor, so be warned before reading further. The same cool beam laser is used in both surgeries, but in LASIK a corneal flap is cut in the eye and folded back whereas with PRK the surgeon brushes aside a protective layer of cells (the educational material I received makes a point of using the word "gently" when describing this), so that no incision is made. I promise, that's the last time I talk about cutting eyeballs in this entry.

I arrived at the clinic at 8 a.m. on March 13th. The pre-surgery process is similar to a standard eye exam, but with what appears to be more expensive equipment. After the exam an eye doctor talked to me about the surgery and counseled me on possible side effects, most of which I knew about already but was a bit curious when he blew past the possibility of "haloes" which I hadn't heard about and kind of wanted to talk about more but in all the nervousness and paperwork kind of slipped my mind. The eye doctor also took this time to tell me that the surgeon likes to say a prayer before operating and would it bother me if he did so. I told him that he could sacrifice a chicken and bathe in it's blood if he thought it would help. I was the only one that thought that was funny.

After the exam I was shuffled into a waiting room with a bunch of other patients. This is the part that feels the most like an assembly line. Everyone is given a robe and shower cap, placed in comfy chairs and given more paperwork. Also, drugs. Lots of drugs. Nurses walk in a circle through the room, going  from patient to patient giving the exact same directions and the exact same drugs. After getting my allotment of pills, liquids and paper-cuts one of the nurses told me that the surgeon liked to say a prayer before he started, I decided to abstain from voodoo jokes this time and told her it was copacetic.

Finally I was brought to the operating room. The surgeon introduced himself and explained that he liked to pray before operating and would it bother me if he did? It was at this point that I decided I would have much rather heard the warning about the whole haloes thing three times rather than the prayer, but told him to go nuts. After the surgeon's chat with Jesus I was leaned back and given the Clockwork Orange treatment.

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After the anesthetic eyedrops were applied and the protective layer of cells was "gently brushed aside" the entire world went white. This was the most nerve wracking part, but thanks to the kind nurses and their generous medication regimen my thought process was little more than "huh, that's weird, I wonder if I should be freaked out about this. Also, what did they mean about haloes earlier?" At this point the actual surgery commenced and lasted less than a minute per eye. The thing to know about the surgery itself, aside from it is really fast, is that you know it's taking place because you hear the laser and, more importantly, smell your eyeball burning. It smells like burnt hair. People that don't cringe when you talk about "corneal folds" (I guess I lied earlier) almost invariably go into convulsions of disgust when I tell them it smells like burnt hair.

After they finished shooting me in the face with lasers (which is one of my favorite sentences that I've ever gotten to write) they put on a bandage contact lens. And that was it.The whole process, including the collect call to God, took all of five minutes. And I could see immediately. Granted, everything was a bit fuzzy, but I could see without my glasses for the first time since the eighties. As I left I was given instructions and a bag full of equipment and eyedrops. The equipment consisted of sunglasses, which were, and continue to be, an absolute necessity. I was immediately sensitive to light and continue to be to some extent (I'm told this will go away after a while). I was somewhat worried that the sunglasses would be the type you see cataract patients wearing, but they actually weren't too bad.

They couldn't laser off the coffee stains on my teeth, unfortunately.

That picture, incidentally, was the last time that I would smile for the next few days. Even with the sunglasses the world was entirely too bright. I had to close my eyes nearly the whole way home. I told my dad, who graciously gave up his morning to drive me to and from my appointment, that I wanted to keep my eyes closed and he was very understanding. By understanding I of course mean that every five minutes or so he would say something along the lines of "hey, look at that!" and then point at some innocuous out of focus spot on the horizon that seemed to be made out of pain. I would then explain again that I couldn't see too well yet and that the light was pretty uncomfortable for me, he would apologize and then five minutes later repeat the whole process.

Also included was a pair of goggles and some tape.

I was instructed to wear the goggles while sleeping so that I wouldn't rub my eyes and to use the tape to secure it to my head. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to make this work since the tape didn't stick to my hair.

Probably a good thing that tape was so crappy, or that joke would have been painful

I look like a really shitty superhero

In the end I tied a knot in the strap and still managed to pull the goggles off in my sleep almost every night. The only other thing in the bag (aside from the medicated drops) was a fleece vest.

Guys, I'm not gonna lie: this confused the hell out of me. They never warned me that one of the after effects would be a sensation of warm arms and a cold torso and I never experienced anything like that.

All in all, if you asked me even three weeks ago if I was happy with the results (and believe me, a lot of people did) I would have told you no. One of the things about PRK is that it is more painful and takes longer to heal from than LASIK. They tell you that right up front, it's a hell of sales pitch. For the first few weeks everything is blurry and guess what: there are haloes around everything. I had to put in eyedrops constantly; my eye doctor told me to do it every fifteen minutes. I could hardly work because I couldn't see my screen unless I was about a foot away from it.

But it gets better after that. One morning at the end of March I woke up and it was like a switch had been thrown. I can see at 20/20 or better and I only need to put eyedrops in occasionally. I still get haloes (of course) every once in a while, but I've been told that will dissipate. And best of all I don't need to wear glasses anymore. Overall I am very happy with my choice.

Plus, I got a snazzy vest.