Tag Archives: Sunday

Fall Sunday Stats #6: Enough About the Election. Let’s Talk About Me.

Posted on November 16, 2008 | 2 comments

I’ve been jammed at work the last couple of weeks, and haven’t had the time or inclination to post.  Finally, Mrs. Unfocused suggested that maybe I wouldn’t be so darn grouchy if I got back to writing.  A few days ago I started working again on the short story I began in late October and my mood improved, so last night she told me it was time to post on the blog.

Yes, dear.  Nothing like being insufferable to motivate your loved ones to remind you about your hobbies.

Thank God, the election is over.  The right guy won — hell, we all won, didn’t we? — and now I can stop biting my nails and thinking about big issues and go back to being completely self-involved.  With that in mind, let’s get to the stats.  I’ll try to cover the last two weeks, since I know you’re curious.

How’s the running going? Not badly.  Today was a little slow:  10.19 miles in 1:31:55, a 9:01 pace, although that includes 2-3 minutes spent for a bathroom break at a Starbucks along the way (yeah, I know, TMI; the runners understand).  Last Sunday was better:  10.07 miles in 1:24:22, an 8:22 pace.  Both days were cold — it had just climbed above freezing when I started my run this morning, and it wasn’t much warmer last week — and I’ve been running into a headwind during the second half of these runs, which isn’t any fun.  I have good winter gear, but there are going to be plenty of days from now until spring when it’s going to be too cold or snowy or icy to run outside, which is why I’m so glad that we finally bought ourselves a treadmill.  We moved into this house six years ago, and I finally wore Mrs. Unfocused down to the point that she thinks it was her idea, so she did the work of finding a used NordicTrack Apex 8000 on Craigslist last Sunday.  I checked it out on Monday, bought it and got it moved that night (before she could change her mind), and used it for the first time on Tuesday morning.  It’s not super-fancy, but it has all the basics and a few frills, and most importantly, a 3.0 continuous horsepower motor, which keeps it moving smoothly.  So far, it’s been great.

What’s been playing on the iPod? During today’s run, I listened to:  Phedippidations #161 (Gifts for the Holiday Runner, hint hint honey); Accident Hash #278 (Blame Chance); Escapepod #183 (Beans and Marbles).  I didn’t finish the Escapepod episode — the cold weather kills the battery on my iPod even when I wear it under my jacket, and it died about 10 minutes before I finished my run.  Since my last post, I’ve also listened to:  Adventures in SciFi Publishing #66 (Elizabeth Bear and Tobias Buckell) and #67 (Tobias Buckell — I’m going to have to read something by Tobias Buckell soon, it seems like the guy is everywhere); Metatropolis (edited by John Scalzi, with stories by Scalzi, Jay Lake, Elizabeth Bear, Karl Schroeder, and — believe it or not — Tobias Buckell; I’ve only heard the Jay Lake story, which is pretty damn good, so I’m looking forward to the rest of it); I Should Be Writing #104 (Interview with Benjamin Rosenbaum); and The Takeover #7 (The Office Romance, Part 2).

I have two favors to ask in connection with the iPod; please leave any suggestions in the comments.  First, let me know what you use to listen to your iPod when you’re running or exercising — the standard issue earbuds, or something else?  I have a pair of nice noise-cancelling headphones I use for airplanes, but for running this year I’ve been using Sony MDR-A35 phones, which insert into the ear like earbuds but go over the head like headphones. They’ve been fine but they’re unusable during a Chicago winter — if I put them over my hat, I have to leave my ears exposed to the cold in order to hear anything, but if I put them under my hat, the hat pushes them into my ears hard enough to hurt.  The last two weeks I’ve been wearing the earbuds that come with the iPod, and they just don’t fit; I had to take off my gloves half a dozen times during my run this morning just to put the left piece back into my ear (the right one didn’t fall out at all).  If you wear an iPod while you run or exercise and you have a solution for this, PLEASE let me know.  Don’t force me to run with nothing but the voices in my head to keep me company.

And speaking of company, if you listen to any interesting podcasts that you want to recommend, please feel free.  I’m particularly interested in podcasts about running, writing, indie music that doesn’t sound like bad imitations of the heavy metal bands I listened to in 1985, and podcast fiction.  I don’t have vast amounts of time to listen to podcasts, but I’d like a little more variety.  If you’ve got a suggestion, please let me know.

What about the writing? Of course, the writing.  Since Fall Sunday Stats #5 two weeks ago, I put another 2,500 words into the short story I was working on (almost all of it in the last four days) and finished the first draft.  The Mrs. liked it, which soothes my ego and means it gets an immediate first pass edit.  I want it in shape to send out by the end of the month.  One of the short stories I sent out came back with a form rejection on October 30, and I’m going to send it out to another market sometime this week; I have only one story out on submission until I do, which strikes me as inadequate.  I have another short story sketched out, and I’d like to get a draft of that done by the end of the month; if it isn’t done by November 30, it will have to get back-burnered, because I’m going to start the revision of Meet the Larssons by December 1 (if not over the Thanksgiving weekend).  I’ve left MTL alone long enough; I’ve got some distance, and it’s time to get back to work on the novel.

I’ll try to be a little more regular about posting, especially since my one year anniversary is coming up on December 17.  In future posts, I’ll share my suggestion for the Obamas’ puppy, host (maybe) a contest, and (of course) kvetch about not getting enough writing or running done.

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Fall Sunday Stats #5: Ronald Reagan, Commie Scum; John McCain, Terrorist Fundraiser.

Posted on November 2, 2008 | 3 comments

The Republicans have pushed me over the edge with their latest lunatic ranting.  The most impressive thing about McCain’s — very funny — appearance on Saturday Night Live last night is that he managed it without visibly looking under the Weekend Update desk for commies hiding under it.

I’m not going to link to all of the videos of Republican candidates and talking-point spewing mouth breathers slandering Obama by calling him a socialist, Marxist, or communist; they’re available on in the ‘tubes.  Google “Obama socialist” and you’ll find plenty.  Let me get through the stats for the week and I’ll give you my rebuttal.

Miles run today:  None.  The Mrs. is singing excerpts from the Faure Requiem at church this morning, and I don’t miss her performances except for emergencies.  She’s got a wonderful voice.

Words written:  590 words of the short story I’m working on.  Between a tough week at work and election coverage at night, I haven’t been getting much writing done.  Back on track after Tuesday!

And now, my Keith Olbermann-style special comment:

REAGAN WAS A SOCIALIST!

Okay, Republican neo-McCarthyites, what in your mind makes Obama a socialist? Is it his support for the progressive income tax structure (increasing marginal rates as income goes up)? McCain/Palin support the same structure, they just differ over the rates. Let’s assume that you don’t believe we’re living in a socialist state today.  The top marginal income tax rate is currently 35%.  Obama has proposed raising the top rate to 39.6%, which is where it was during the boom years of the 1990s. Are you saying that the line between a capitalist society and a socialist society is crossed somewhere between 35% and 39.6%? Where is that line, exactly? Is it 36%? 37? 38.2%?  Were we socialists during the tech boom?

I also think that it’s unfortunate that you’re defaming Ronald Reagan by calling him a socialist. If Obama’s a socialist for proposing a 39.6% top marginal rate, Reagan must have been positively Stalinesque in his support for the communist system, because under his self-proclaimed “tax reform” the top marginal rate from 1982 through 1986 was 50%. What a pinko! Now, to give credit where credit is due, maybe the Gipper saw the light, because in 1986 he signed another tax bill that lowered the top marginal rate to 38.5%. Perhaps that’s the line we should never cross – 38.5%=capitalist market economy, freedom, and the shining city on the hill, while 38.51% = socialism, tyranny, oppressed masses, and another Evil Empire.  Who knew the red revolution would be so subtle, and yet so well defined?

All tax systems are redistributionist, even a flat tax.  Back in 2000, McCain called the Bush tax cuts “irresponsible.”  So is going back to the pre-2001 top rate “socialistic” or simple fiscal responsibility?

MCCAIN FUNDED RADICAL PALESTINIAN TERRORIST!

As for Khalidi, while McCain served on the board of the International Republican Institute, that organization gave Khalidi several hundred thousand dollars in grants in the 1990s. Obama spoke at a dinner where the guy was in attendance, and says that in a couple of conversations Khalidi challenged some of Obama’s biases. Assuming Khalidi is some kind of radical terrorist (a charge for which there doesn’t appear to be any evidence), which association is more offensive?

Let’s get this straight:  Obama, not a socialist, not someone who pals around with terrorists.  He’s just the guy who’s kicking Republican ass.

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Fall Sunday Stats (on Monday!) #4: John McCain, You’re No TR

Posted on October 27, 2008 | 6 comments

Before I get into the usual Sunday Stats, I’d like to say, Happy 150th Birthday, Theodore Roosevelt! I’ve been a fan of TR’s for years, and I’d like to say to John McCain that I’ve read a lot about Theodore Roosevelt,

and I feel qualified to say, Senator McCain, you’re no Theodore Roosevelt.  And if you don’t believe me, ask him yourself.

In other news, Mrs. Unfocused has made an herculean effort and gotten all of the kids’ baby and toddler clothes out of the study (and out of the house), and rearranged the furniture remaining so that the study is a place I can work at home, and write, without piles of stuff teetering over my head.  That would have been enough for me to feel like it’s Christmas in October, but on top of all that, she found me the perfect desk chair on Craigslist at a ridiculously cheap price:

Sure, it’s used and a little scratched, but some failed start-up’s loss is my tuchus’s gain, which is about the only good thing anyone can say about the economy these days.  I’m still listening to Planet Money every day; I keep waiting for Adam Davidson or Laura Conoway to annouce the very special “Everything’s Okay!” episode, but instead, we have today’s topic, on how things are even worse in poorer countries.  This does not help my mental state.

Miles run today: 10.16 miles in 1:21:54, an average pace of 8:04 minutes/mile, which is great.  It was a beautiful fall day, and my various joints, tendons, ligaments, and muscles, which have been very aware of the implacable approach of my fortieth birthday, were relatively uncomplaining.  I beat the Mrs. and kids home, which is always a bonus because I don’t have to feel guilty about holding up the day while I stretch.  And I need a lot more stretching than I used to have to do.

What was I listening to on my iPod during my run: Pheddipidations # 158 (“Running the Bay State Marathon”) and Escapepod # 178 (“Unlikely”).  Escapepod, if you’re unfamiliar with it, is a free science fiction podcast, which audio-publishes new and previously published short stories.  In episode 178, the host, Steve Eley, introduced me to the music of Jonathan Coulton.  After listening to a few songs on Coulton’s website, I bought one of his albums (Where Tradition Meets Tomorrow), which I would classify as geek rock (Cory Doctorow used a line from one of the songs as the title of a recent short story, and if that isn’t geek cred, I don’t know what is).  Coulton’s a heck of a songwriter, and he makes plenty of his music available for free on his website so you know what you’re buying.

Words written last week: 2,493 words of a new short story.  I’m maybe 2/3 done with the first draft, and when that one’s done, I’ve got one more teed up in the Idea folder before I go back to Meet the Larssons, refreshed and ready to rewrite.

In another news, TTB was rejected for the fifth time this week.  The rejection was short but personal and somewhat encouraging, which was a nice change, but still a rejection.  At this point, I think I’m going to leave it alone for a few months, then take another look at it with an eye to revise it to make it, y’know, better; if I could cut it down to under ten thousand words, that would open up additional markets as well.  In any event, I’m going to let it age for a while, and hope that it’s more like wine than an overripe cheese.

Final political note: I took Unfocused Girl and Junior out for a walk the other night to look at the Halloween decorations on the next block.  As we got to the corner of our block, Junior looked at the house there and asked his older sister, “Is that where John McCain lives?”

Because, you see, I had told him that John McCain reminded me of the cranky old man who lived on the corner of my block when I was a boy.  Last week, Junior had gotten confused and thought that McCain himself had lived on my block.  Now he’s taken that one step further, and decided McCain lives on the corner of his block.

There goes the neighborhood.

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Fall Sunday Stats #3: Going Through Withdrawal.

Posted on October 19, 2008 | 4 comments

It’s a beautiful fall day in Chicago.  The kids are playing with their friend from up the street, and the Mrs. and I are about to put up some Halloween decorations.

Overheard from the kids:

Junior:  “This is Mommy’s Rubik’s cube.”

Boy from up the street:  “What do you do with a Rubik’s cube?”

Junior:  “You try to get it right.”

Boy from up the street:  “How do you get it right?”

Junior:  “…”

Miles run today: 8.58 miles, in 1:17:10.  That’s a 9:00 minute/mile pace; the first half was at 9:21 and the second half was at 8:39.  Not as slow as my creepy crawly half marathon last weekend, but not fast.  I didn’t run at all during the week, again, in significant part because it took me so long to recover from last Sunday’s half marathon.  I learned my lesson, though, and kept today’s run relatively short, so that I won’t be in so much pain in the next few days.  My running has really gone to shit in the last few weeks, and I’d like to pick it back up before the weather really turns.  There’s maybe another month of crisp fall days, which are perfect for running; then I have to break out the serious winter running gear.  Today was ideal — around 50-55 degrees, sunny, and not too much wind.  I couldn’t ask for any better weather.  In any case, I’m done racing for the year now; I don’t have anything on the calendar until the Shamrock Shuffle next March.

What I had on my iPod during the run: Phedippidations # 157 (“The Third Annual World Wide Festival of Races”), and Seventh Son OBSIDIAN #32 (Final Episode, including “Eusocial Networking,” a short story by Scott Sigler, the founding father of podcast fiction).

Writing update: I’ve managed to keep my hands off of Meet the Larssons for another week.  I wrote a 599-word flash story and submitted it to an online fiction site (guess what their word count limit is).  I put together a three-page summary of one idea for my next novel (and damn, that feels weird to type:  “my next novel”); call that one “Project Downhill.”  Today, I started a summary of another idea for a completely different novel, a comic urban fantasy; call that one … I can’t think of a cool code name for it right now.  Just call it “Project L,” until I think of something cooler.  There’s one more idea I may try to hash out before I make up my mind, but I think I’m likely to pick one of these two.  Once I make up my mind, I’m going to try the Snowflake Method of outlining the novel; I wrote Meet the Larssons by the seat of my pants, and it needs major restructuring.  As unnatural as it feels to think about preparing increasingly detailed outlines before doing the “real” writing, I would really like to avoid having to do this kind of major work on the second draft next time; I hope to limit the revisions to touching up the paint and banging in a couple of loose nails, instead of building an entire addition and moving a number of load-bearing walls.

I’m starting to see other people blogging about doing NaNoWriMo, which starts in a couple of weeks.  If you’re doing NaNo, then best of luck to you, and have fun.  I know I made the right decision not to do it this year; I want to get back to MTL before December, and I want to have an idea of what the next novel will be as well.  I’d also like to finish one or two more short stories by the end of the year.  All of that means that NaNo would be a bad idea, and an unnecessary one; I don’t need the kick in the pants to write, I just need to keep doing it.  Still, though, it looks like fun, and I like the community (and competitive) spirit that imbues the venture.  It does feel weird not to be in the middle of a major writing project. I know I’m going back to MTL soon, but until I do I feel a little at loose ends.  I’ve been reading on the train instead of writing, and it just feels wrong, like I’m slacking.

I’m enjoying telling callers and doorbell ringers that I’ve already voted — there’s nothing more I can do for them.  I encourage you to vote early if that’s an option for you; here in Chicago, at least, the lines are much shorter than they are on election day, and it means you don’t have to worry about something unexpected preventing you from voting on November 4.

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Fall (?) Sunday Stats #2: Training Matters, and Did I Mention I Finished the First Draft of My Novel?

Posted on October 12, 2008 | 6 comments

It’s 80 degrees at 4pm.  How is it fall?  In a few minutes, I’m going to go out and mow our front lawn, which is still green and growing in October for the first time in the six years we’ve lived in this house.  Thank the rain we had in August and September, I guess, because it sure wasn’t anything I did to keep the grass growing.

The lawn appears to be the only damn thing that is growing, of course.  I managed to stay fairly calm about the economy until Monday, when the excrement really started to hit the artificial wind machine, and when I listened to This American Life’s Another Frightening Show About the Economy.  This podcast provides a really good explanation of credit default swaps and the freezing of the debt markets.  The explanation is a little too clear, if you ask me; it left me in a state of near-paralytic dread.  I’ve managed to remain rational, at least so far.  I haven’t been able to convince myself to rebalance our retirement accounts to buy into the declining markets, however, even though I think that’s what we ought to be doing.

Miles run today:  13.1, for the third annual World Wide Half Marathon, part of the World Wide Festival of Races.  It was a beautiful day, sunny but too hot for a long run (and if I thought it was bad, pity the poor folks running the Chicago Marathon).  Still, I’m not going to complain about the weather on what could be the last really nice weekend until spring.

The World Wide Festival of Races is a virtual race series — the third running of the World Wide Half Marathon, the second running of the Kick the Couch 5K, and the first Zen Run 10K.  It’s led by Steve Runner of the Phedippidations podcast, and his co-race directors (whose names are impossible to find on the website).  It’s the easiest race you’ll ever run, logistically.  You sign up in advance.  You commit to run one of the distances on or about the assigned weekend.  Maybe you join a virtual race team.  You decide on your own route — maybe as part of an organized race, maybe not — and then you run it, and upload your results.

My race route itself was nothing special — my ordinary out-and-back to the lake front path, plus a couple of miles on the path itself.  There was a little extra poignancy to the run because yesterday was the 10th anniversary of my first marathon, and the marathon itself was in progress just a few blocks south of my own route.

As a race, my World Wide Half was, to put it mildly, a disaster.  I haven’t been for a run since my close encounter with a car wheel more than two weeks ago, and I’ve been even more sedentary than that would ordinarily mean because of the 1630-mile road trip to the Catskills we took last weekend to go to a wedding, and the push to finish Meet the Larssons.

Oh, by the way, in case you missed it, I finished the first draft of MTL.  More on that in a bit.

Back to the race.  Two weeks off, eating more junk than usual, sitting on my tucus for hours on end, left my legs and back muscles flabby and my tendons and ligaments tight.  I ached all the way through the run, and developed a massive blister on my right foot.  My finishing time was 2:09:48, which is 24 minutes slower than my time for the tempest-tossed Chicago Half Marathon.  I still hurt, six hours (and two Aleve) after I finished.  By comparison, I was well-trained for the Chicago Half and in pretty good shape, so the downpour barely affected my time.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m glad I didn’t skip the race today.  I run alone all year, and one of the things I like best about the World Wide Festival of Races is knowing that there are hundreds of other people running alone, and we’re all running together.

What I listened to during the run:  Phedippidations #156 (“Cheers from a Little Blue Bubble,” the annual episode of cheers and shouts of encouragement to World Wide Half participants); I Should Be Writing #102, and Adventures in SciFi Publishing #53.

Writing this week since my last Sunday Stats:  6,531 words (net) of Meet the Larssons, including “THE END” on Wednesday night.  I actually wrote 8,737 words, but I cut a 2,206 word scene as I went.   To finish the draft, I did my usual writing on the train to and from work, plus several binges at home and even in the car on the drive back from the wedding.  Despite my intent to leave the draft alone for at least a month, I’ve been reading Hooked, by Les Edgerton, which has given me a good idea for a new opening scene for the second draft, and a couple of other ideas as well.  I have made notes, but so far have refrained from going back to it.  A commenter here recommended this book to me several months ago; I’m too lazy to search out that post so I can give you proper credit, but thanks.

I took Unfocused Girl to a birthday party out in the ‘burbs yesterday afternoon, and spent the time up the street at Starbucks working on “Secretary-General,” the short story I started a little over a month ago then put aside to finish MTL.  I cut 500 words out of it as I re-read what I’d done, then wrote around 350 words.  I want to finish this story, polish it up, and submit it before I get back to MTL.

I’d also like to hash out one or two-page treatments of three different ideas I have for my next novel.  They’re very different, and I’m not sure what I want to work on next.  I figure that writing them out in a more extended form than the one-sentence summaries I have now will help me decide.

Right before we left for the wedding, TTB was rejected by the most recent outlet I’d submitted it to.  The night I finished MTL, I submitted TTB to another e-zine, one I had only recently come across and which seems to be looking for this kind of fiction.  We’ll see.

In other writing news, Unfocused Girl would like to announce that she has also just finished her book, The Adventure Friends and the Sword of Destiny.  It’s contemporary urban fantasy about four friends who go on a quest, find a magical object, meet a guiding spirit, discover special powers within themselves, rescue a friend, and fight their evil nemesis, all with the goal of bringing peace to their elementary school.  Yay, Unfocused us!

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Fall Sunday Stats #1: How To Get Run Over By a Car and Walk Away.

Posted on September 28, 2008 | 7 comments

Yes, I was run over by a car this week, but it was the good kind of getting run over by a car.  Yes, I walked away.  I still don’t recommend it.

It’s autumn in Chicago, and we’re going apple-picking today if the weather holds.  We usually go in October, but as we looked at the calendar we realized that our weekends are pretty well booked until November; we’ll probably end up with a different variety of apples, which will be a nice change.  We’ll try to keep the haul down to about 50 pounds of apples this year.

Miles run today:  None.  Because, you know, I got run over by a car.  Here’s the story:  on Thursday, I was in California for a hearing, and the Senior Partner, our clients, the husband of one client, and I went out to lunch before the afternoon court appearance.  After lunch, the client’s husband (a very nice guy) pulled their car around to drive most of us to court (a couple of members of the group got into another client’s car).  The curb was too high to allow the passenger-side doors to open, so the client’s husband was asked to pull up a little, to where the curb was lower.  Unfortunately, at just that moment, I was on the driver’s side, with the back door open; my right foot was in the car and my left foot was on the street.  As he pulled up, the tire started riding up my heel and the back of my leg.  I let out a yell, he stopped the car, and after a moment’s confusion, backed it up and I hopped onto the sidewalk.

If he had gone another couple of inches, my achilles tendon probably would have snapped.  As it is, my ankle and heel hurt a LOT, but after a few minutes of icing the foot and a handful of Advil, I was queasy and shaken, but decided I would live and off we went to court.  When the hearing started, I was nauseated and light-headed, and I think I was in a little bit of shock, but by the end of it (three hours later), I was mostly back to normal, except that my foot hurt.  A lot.  The poor guy who had been driving the car felt so bad about it that he was in worse shape than I was.

Back in Chicago on Friday, I did see a doctor.  I don’t have the results of the x-rays yet, but based on how I’m feeling, I think it’s just bruised.  So no run today, but maybe as soon as Wednesday.

So, to sum up how to get run over and walk away:  as the car starts to roll over you, scream like Agnes Moorehead.  The person driving will probably stop.  Hope that helps.

Weather:  cool and overcast.  It’s supposed to be a sunny day, but it doesn’t look good.  We’ll have to give it a little more time before we decide whether to go to the orchard.

Words of Meet the Larssons written this week:  1,633, to a total of 97,727.  A definite decline in productivity, generally because of the travel.  I was gone from Tuesday to late Thursday night, the only time I wasn’t actively working was the flight home, and my foot hurt enough that I didn’t really feel as though I could concentrate.  No travel this week and no overwhelming deadlines, so I hope to get more done.  Instead, on the plane back to Chicago I read Tim Ferriss’s The Four-Hour Work Week, which has gotten a lot of press, good and bad.  Much of it is completely useless to me (as long as I’m working as a lawyer, I essentially get paid by the hour; a four-hour work week doesn’t really cut it), but I thought he had an interesting perspective.  The book made me think about some of the ways in which I do spend my time that is neither productive nor interesting, and reminded me that one of the benefits of my job is that the office schedule is somewhat flexible; I should take more advantage of that.  I blew off the chapters on internet-based reselling as creating an effortless income stream; what I did read of that section had the faint odor of the “easy money from real estate” books that were so popular not very long ago.  Maybe that works for some people, and don’t let me discourage you from giving it a try if you’re so inclined — the up front investment is certainly less than for buying homes out of foreclosure and rehabbing them; it’s just not for me.

Speaking of unproductive uses of my time, and of feeling queasy and light-headed, I made the mistake of checking the balance of my retirement account yesterday.  Good God.  It looks like Congress is going to work out the bailout, which I suppose is necessary.  Peter Bernstein has a good piece in today’s Times about the moral hazard inherent in any broad bailout scheme; rescuing an entire industry from its bad decisions about risk doesn’t exactly discourage people from taking similar risks in the future.  I’m afraid It’s going to take more than a little Advil and ice to recover from the truck that’s hit us this past year.

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Summer Sunday Stats #6B: The Last Summer Sunday.

Posted on September 14, 2008 | 2 comments

This is the second part of a two-part Summer Sunday Stats post.  This post will make more sense if you read Summer Sunday Stats #6A first.

Today’s Chicago Half Marathon was the last meatspace race I’ve registered for this year, but I have one more virtual race to go:  The 3rd annual World Wide Half Marathon, part of the Phedippidations World Wide Festival of Races.  It’s self-timed, and the course isn’t USATF-certified, but the race directors do a great job building the excitement and even put together a e-goody-bag, and Steve prepares a special episode of Phedippidations with people cheering, which is great to listen to.  The race is October 11 and 12; each runner decides when and where to run his or her race, then post results to the website.  It’s a lot of fun, and there’s still time to register for the half marathon, 10K, or 5K races.

Moving off the running:

Words of Meet the Larssons written this week:  3,770 (92,948 total).  That’s more like it.  I managed — for the week, anyway — to stick to my pledge not to work on any other writing projects until the first draft of MTL is finished.  The draft will need a lot of work, but I think I’m on track to make my self-imposed Halloween deadline.

Other news:  We introduced the kids to Go Fish! yesterday, and Unfocused Girl to Clue, both of which went over big.  We were looking for something to do together on a rainy afternoon other than watch a movie; we’ve tried card games and board games before (Candyland, Hi-Ho-Cherry-O, a couple of others) without success, but it looks like the kids have finally gotten old enough to handle games with rules, which is great.

What a disaster of a weekend, weather-wise.  Even here in the city, not far from our house, the Chicago River has flooded hundreds of homes and streets with waist-high water.  Unfocused Girl’s school is closed tomorrow, thankfully just because of flooding in the streets and not in the school itself.  We’ve been lucky to have had only a trickle of water in the basement, back by the mechanicals.  Anything I can clean up with a few towels qualifies as a minor problem.

Finally, I came across a couple of interesting writing blogs this week, which I’ve added to the “On Writing” section of my blogroll on the sidebar.  Chicago-area mystery writer J.A. Konrath writes A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing, which focuses on marketing yourself (and your book) and the business side of being a writer.  Scott William Carter, whose own first novel is coming out soon, writes The First Book, with interviews of authors whose first novels are about to be or have recently been published.  If you’re a wannabe novelist looking for inspiration, you might want to check these out.

There’s more I meant to put into this post, but I’m exhausted and I’ve forgotten what it was.  If I remember it and I have the energy, I’ll post an epilogue.

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Summer Sunday Stats #6A: Lessons From My 14+ Mile Half Marathon.

Posted on September 14, 2008 | 4 comments

The final Sunday of summer deserves special treatment, so today’s post will be divided into two parts.

Miles run:  13.1 in just a few seconds over my goal time of 1:45:00 for today’s Chicago Half Marathon, plus well over a mile from where I parked my car to the starting line.  First lesson for the day:  don’t leave late for races.  Especially when it’s raining.  Especially when the race starts in a neighborhood with absolutely no decent parking. The gun was scheduled to go off at 7:30am; I parked my car at 7:25am at University Avenue and 61st Street (and the only reason the space was open was because it was zoned parking; I want to thank the Chicago PD for not being aggressive about ticketing during the race).  According to Google Maps, that’s a mile and a half from the starting line.

The northern edge of what’s left of Hurricane Ike reached Chicago today, although it’s impossible to tell the difference between yesterday’s unending rain (not from Ike) and today’s unending rain (all about Ike).  The Chicago Half Marathon website made it clear that the race would be on rain or shine, although they would almost certainly have canceled it if there were a lightning storm.  I went down to the race Expo yesterday and picked up my race packet; it wasn’t a big Expo as these things go — I didn’t see any of the local running stores represented, which was odd — so I didn’t stay long. I threw the running clothes I wanted to wear for the race into the laundry before bed, and didn’t give it much more thought than that.

I got up at 5:30, but dawdled over breakfast and didn’t get out of the house until 6:45.  Still raining.  I did two things right:  I grabbed towels to put on the seat of my car after the race, to keep it from getting soaked (and smelly), and I grabbed a sweatshirt to put on after the race so I wouldn’t freeze.  I didn’t forget anything I would bring to an ordinary race — watch, Cliff Shots, hat — but I didn’t make any other preparations for the weather.

Here are all of the things I did wrong, in the order that they mattered:

  1. I left half an hour too late (6:45 departure for a 7:30 start).  The race start is around 17 miles from my house, and parking in Hyde Park on the morning of the race is very, very, very difficult.
  2. I took I-55 from the Kennedy Expressway to Lake Shore Drive, since that’s the most direct route to Hyde Park.  If I had thought it through, I would have remembered that in previous years, the traffic was pretty bad on LSD going into Hyde Park, but I didn’t.  Luckily, I realized in time that it was all of the southbound Drive, not just the ramp, that was backed up, and was able to get off and take the Drive the other way and get back onto the Kennedy, to the Ryan, and then took 55th Street into Hyde Park.
  3. I ran to the lakefront and realized that the starting line had moved; after years of starting by the Museum of Science and Industry at 57th Street, the race started this year at 63rd Street.  Had I read the materials I received at the Expo, or checked the course map on the website, or read the big “New Start Location” paragraph on the “Half-Marathon Information” page, I would have realized it.  Lucky for me, the confusion caused by the rain and the new start affected a lot of people and the race gun went off around 12 minutes late.  Even so, I didn’t have time to wait in line for the port-o-potty; I had to insult a bush.
  4. Because I was so late, I joined the pack approaching the starting line towards the back.  It took more than four miles for the pack to thin out, and it slowed me down considerably.
  5. I forgot to pack dry shoes and socks, so the drive home was kind of unpleasant.

But eventually, it did open up, and I came within a few seconds of my goal time.  I’m pretty happy with that, considering I was soaking wet before the race ever started, and my shoes were completely waterlogged.  The only real problem was one that those of you who are male and who run for long distances have undoubtedly faced.  Just a moment:

NOTE TO FEMALE READERS:  You can skip the rest of this entry.  Really.  You’re not missing anything.

Okay, so here it is: bloody nipples.

Normally, this isn’t a problem for me on runs of less than 15 or 16 miles, but it starts much faster in the rain when my shirt gets wet; if I’d been thinking, I would have put on band-aids before the run, so that I wouldn’t need to be wearing them now.  Which I am.

The rest of this week’s Summer Sunday Stats later.

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Summer Sunday Stats #4: A Day Late and a Dollar Short

Posted on September 1, 2008 | 6 comments

Hope you’re having a good long weekend.  We’ve been pretty laid back here at Stately Unfocused Manor; we had some friends over for dinner on Saturday, and mostly just hung out yesterday.  School started for Junior on Wednesday; Unfocused Girl starts at her new school (now with extra distance from home!) tomorrow.  I can’t believe she’s going into second grade.  I hope the new school works out — it’s a new building with great facilities, but a school isn’t just a building, and it’s going to be a big change from the Montessori program we’re used to.

Miles run:  11.75 miles, in 1:51:08.  I took it slowly, because I’ve added a lot of weekday miles lately and was kind of wiped, and because it was really hot — I finished my entire water bottle at the turnaround point.  The important thing was to get my long run mileage up from 10 — the Chicago Half Marathon is in two weeks, and while I’m not looking to set a PR, I don’t want to feel as unprepared as I did last year.

Weather:  Sunny and hot. ‘Nuff said.

What was on my iPod:  J.C. Hutchins’s Ultracreatives Interview #4, C.C Chapman’s Accident Hash #273, and Black Lab’s album See the Sun.

How’s the writing going?  I’m so glad you asked.  I wrote 899 words of Meet the Larssons (87,776 and counting).  I was distracted by the Democratic National Convention (anyone remember that?  Denver?  Speeches?  Anyone?  Bueller?) and by a short story that wanted to be written.  I’m trying to keep the short story — I don’t have a good working title for it yet, so let’s just call it “Secretary-General” for now — to under 5,000 words, which would fit within the guidelines of most s.f. markets, and is about right for the story anyway.  So far, it’s at 3,656 words, all written this week.  I probably wrote the last 2,000 words on Friday; the Mrs. went to bed early, and I stayed up late.  I know that I shouldn’t let myself get distracted by other ideas while I’m working on the novel, that I should just write them down and get back to work on MTL until the first draft is done.  I try, I really do, although that kind of mental discipline doesn’t come easily to me.  When an idea is just an idea, I can put it aside; I email myself a note about it, with “Idea” in the subject line, and I can forget about it.  Sometimes, though, like TTB and now SG, I get more than just an idea, I get the whole story in my head, and in order to get it down so I don’t lose it, I essentially have to just write the damn thing.  It doesn’t mean the story’s good, or really complete, but it does mean that I have trouble focusing on anything else until I get it down.

Rather than comment on the selection of Gov. Palin as McCain’s running mate (is he pandering to the religious right or to Hillary voters?  It’s a mystery!) or Hurricane Gustav’s advance on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, since those topics are being more thoroughly hashed out elsewhere, I’ll leave you with the hysterical Large Hadron Rap:

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Summer Sunday Stats #3

Posted on August 24, 2008 | 4 comments

Summer Sunday Stats for today:

Miles run today: 10.05, in 1:30:45. I could feel the exhaustion in my legs before I’d gone half a mile, and it never really got better. I think it was from the TKD test yesterday — we had class first, cut a little short but still 45 minutes, and then the test was surprisingly intense (I have a couple of nice bruises on my shin from the sparring). Still, it was the longest run I’ve had in four weeks, and with the Chicago Half Marathon in three weeks and the World Wide Half Marathon a few weeks after that (not to mention the marathon at the beach in late November, not that I’ve decided anything, but still…), I need to get the long runs in more consistently.

Weather: Sunny and warm, but not too hot, even though I didn’t leave the house until after 9am. As perfect a day for a long run as you could ask for in August in Chicago. It would have been even better if I’d worn sunscreen.

What was playing on my iPod: I Should Be Writing #96, followed by Phedippidations #147. Mur Lafferty (ISBW’s host) is promoting her very cool superhero novel, Playing for Keeps, which is being published by Swarm Press. It’s already available on Amazon.com, but the official launch date is tomorrow (Aug. 25), and she’s asking anyone interesting in buying it to order it tomorrow on Amazon to move it up the Amazon charts. Other podcasting novelists, such as Scott Sigler and Matthew Wayne Selznick, have done this kind of Amazon run with some success, so first thing tomorrow, you know I’ll be on Amazon ordering my copy of PFK. Mur podcast Playing for Keeps earlier this year, and also released it as a series of PDFs; if you want to see what you’ll be getting, Mur has re-released the PDF (along with a new bonus short story in the same universe) in time for the launch of the print edition, and you can get it here. I originally read PFK in the PDF version, and I’m looking forward to re-reading it as a bound book; I’m mentioning it here because I’ve gotten a lot of inspiration from I Should Be Writing, and want to pay it back.

Words of Meet the Larssons written this week: 2,941 (up to today). That number surprised me when I added it up, but I think it’s correct. It’s been a decent week for writing, and I expect to get more done once school starts — on Wednesday for Unfocused Junior, and on Sept. 2 for Unfocused Girl (at The New School) — and they start going to bed at a reasonable hour again.

Other news: Junior’s cast came off on Friday! He’s a little nervous about the arm, but he has started wearing his Superman costume again, which is a terrific sign of normalcy (he wouldn’t wear it with the cast, because Superman would never have a broken arm, of course).

Finally, while I’m talking about new books, I should mention that John Scalzi’s latest sf novel, Zoe’s Tale, was released on Tuesday. I bought it that day and finished it Wednesday night, because Unfocused Girl was breathing down my neck to get her hands on it (those of you who know her will understand). It retells the events in his previous novel, The Last Colony, from the point of view of a 17-year-old girl, and is can be read as part of the Old Man’s War series or as a stand-alone novel. Not that Scalzi really needs my help promoting it, but I really enjoyed it. I think Unfocused Girl will, too, although now that she actually has it, she wants to finish the books she’s already working on first, including one of the Warriors novels and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban; my guess is that she’ll finish the Warriors book and then start Zoe’s Tale, without worrying about finishing anything else, but we’ll see.

Unfocused Girl is working on her novel, The Adventure Friends and the Sword of Destiny, and just asked me if I was working on my novel, too.  That’s a reminder that instead of dragging out this post all afternoon, I should be writing.

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