Random Thoughts

  I haven't run in well over a month. The first couple of weeks of that time period were taken up with healing a strained back. The rest of the time I have not run for no reason whatsoever, I just haven't.
   I've had plenty of opportunities to get out there but I've managed to rationalize my way out of all of them. Occasionally the weather's been iffy but even when it's been perfect I still don't run.
   Because I'm not running, the pounds are slowly creeping on, as well. I think I was up to 232 the other night.....
   Okay, no real running to blog about so I think I'm going to toss a few random thoughts out there!

1. Watching skinny people run by

   We've all seen them, their lithe bodies effortlessly gliding along the road or sidewalk, breathing easily, looking like they weigh about as much as your leg. What I would really like to do sometime is run up alongside one of them and give them a fifty pound back of cement to carry, just to even out the weight differential!

2. Being able to lose weight easily

   Knowing you can lose weight reasonably quickly and easily is a dangerous thing sometimes! Pretty well anything you want to will go in your mouth if you know that you're not going to have a problem shrinking it away later on. I actually got giddy once when I stepped on the scale and had maxed out at 235 (the heaviest I've been in years) because of the fun I was going to have losing it all again. Which is okay if that's what you actually do...

3. Falling off the vegetarian wagon

   I managed to maintain a vegetarian diet for about four months late last summer and early autumn. I was eating lots of vegetables and running consistently and actually feeling pretty good. But I was sad! It wasn't that I was craving the meat so much it was that I had somehow abandoned an important and enjoyable part of my life for what a lot of people likely thought was no good reason. It affected me in social situations where I had to be the one different guy, the guy other people had to out of their way to accommodate. When Thanksgiving and Christmas rolled around I desperately needed to be a part of what my family was doing and that's when I fell off the wagon, huge. And when that happened, I wanted every kind of meat there was, seemingly! This does disturb me, I hate the fact that animals suffer so that I can be fed food I don't need to be fed. Grrr

4. I think I'm supposed to be a sprinter instead

   Intellectually, I like to think of myself as a distance runner. My gut feeling, though, is that I just want to run fast, for about a hundred meters at a time. Any sport I've ever played has always involved short bursts of speed with an accompanying recovery time before the next burst. I have always kind of lived for this. In my twenties, on the football field, I was the guy you were going to need to make allowances for if you were going to cover me. In my sixties, on the ball hockey floor, I'm the guy who you're going to need to work a lot harder at running past than you thought, if, indeed, you can run past me...

5. I need to run in the mountains 

   I follow a lot of bloggers from out in western Canada and get to see a lot of pics of people running through forests, on mountains. I was born out west and it kind of eats me up watching runners do this. There is something about forest trails!

6. I am kind of a beast (for short periods)

   Yes, I'm a slow distance runner, at least right at the moment. I'm big and heavy but I have legs that get me where I want to go and, occasionally, they get me there quickly. This is no mean feat and sometimes they amaze me!

*******************************************************

   So there you have it, a short post of mainly random thoughts, a couple of which might have something to do with running!

Why "Ragged Cap Runner"?

   Why the name "Ragged Cap Runner", you ask?
    It  does seem like an oddly inappropriate moniker for a running blog, I'd be the first to admit.
   The name came to me perhaps over a year ago as I was writing a blog post and I wanted to end the post off with a fairly flippant, toss-away line to describe myself. I happened to be looking at a picture of me wearing the cap I almost exclusively wore at the beginning of my running career. I saw a runner who was wearing a ragged cap and, all of the sudden, "ragged cap runner" popped into my head. And I kinda liked it!

The cap, before it became "ragged"!

   I never thought about it much after that, but as I became more and more dissatisfied with calling my blog "Strides", the more and more "Ragged Cap Runner" seemed to appeal. Hence the switch.
   Here's why it's actually an appropriate title.
   I identify with that old, sweat-stained, torn-up cap. It is rough around the edges in much the same way that I am, at this stage of my life. I'm in my sixties now and and have lost some of the lustre we all lose as we age. I've got aches and pains I never used to have, loose skin has appeared, wrinkles abound and the skin is marked. The legs are generally willing but they sometimes struggle with a mind that is not. And vice-versa.
   It's a body which has seen much and done much, though, and the ragged cap symbolizes all of that. It has seen a lot of golf, it has seen a lot of sand and it has seen a lot of blistered and nicked fingers. It has traveled most of the way across Canada. Like me, it is old and tattered. But you know what? It still works fine and so do I!

Time For A Change, I Think!

   Okay, after much consideration, I think "Strides" is going to disappear!
   Sometime soon, my running adventures (as infrequent as they sometimes seem to be) will hopefully re-appear as a blog entitled "Ragged Cap Runner". And you may end up seeing something like this as the title page.

   Firstly, though, I need to figure out the best way to do it. 
   Is it just as simple as going back into Blogger to the layout section and changing the title and the pic? Or would I be better off starting a new blog and just importing the old posts?
   I have no great desire to switch to WordPress or anything like that, not a real "techie" here, for sure. Tips or suggestions?

   "Strides" seemed to make wonderful sense at the time but in the intervening years it has become to feel more and more generic and less "Brian-specific". On top of all that, if I'd known at the time that there was a running store called "Strides" as well, I wouldn't have named my blog that!
   And I was being quite honest when I asked for suggestions up above! I'm pretty sure that a few bloggers out there have made similar changes and I would welcome any input!
   Until the next time, happy and safe running! 

Catching Up and A Bit Of A Photo Dump

   When I take a look at my Blogger stats and discover that there were zero pageviews today and zero pageviews yesterday, I take that as a bit of an indicator I need to get off my butt and get blogging again! (the irony, of course, is that I blog on my butt...)
   So, winter has finally arrived here in London, Ontario. While many other parts of Canada have been enveloped with snow and sub-zero temps, we have been blessed with unseasonably (and mildly disconcerting) high temperatures. Christmas Eve, it was actually hovering in the mid teens (high fifties, for those of you who do Fahrenheit!)
   Because of this, the late fall-early winter running has been awesome!
   Lately, however, I find that most of my running has been relegated to the weekends---it seems that by the time I get home from work, there are either too many other things to do or I am simply too tired. The change back to standard time also would have me running in the dark, not my fave thing to do anymore. This, of course, will not do and I hereby resolve to force myself to get out there on the occasional (and regular) weeknight.
   The scales tell me that the holiday season was not as bad as it has been in years past but they have also gently reminded me that all is not as it should be and that it's time to get back to work. Sound familiar, anyone??
   I suppose a significant thing to report is that I seem to have fallen off the vegetarian wagon. Well, I didn't actually fall off, it more or less exploded from underneath me, bits and pieces of the wagon flying all over the place. I, of course, am struggling with this, but that's probably a whole other blog post...
   I have also decided to take a slightly different approach to my running. There was a time back in the fall when I was running pretty regularly and my times for the 5K (my distance of preference) were dramatically falling. This, of course, took much effort and it got to the point where I was totally exhausted at the end of a run and if I hadn't bettered my time by at least a few seconds then it was also a wasted run. It got to the point where I was dreading going out, knowing the stress I was about to put my body under. This was probably foolishness.
   My new approach now has me going out for a run with no expectations whatsoever as to what my time might be. I also try and run slowly enough that I can do the whole thing without need of a walk break. This has meant really slow runs! My hope, though, is that by not scaring myself into not running, that I will actually get more running in. Then, gradually (and hopefully), the times will come down all on their own. This sounds do-able!
   Okay, so now for a bit of a photo dump~random pics from the last few weeks, some of which have nothing to do with running!
  

First run in the snow this winter!

The incredible "Penis Potato"---further proof of the ravages of GMOs....

Two of my stepsons now have vehicles. This is what our
2-car driveway looks like, every other week!

The amazing "Upside-Down Backwards Book" You can read about it here

Puffer decided to come to rest on top of our pile of Santa hats---so we took advantage of the opportunity!

Cat and Buddha(s)! Woke up from a nap, looked down and this is what I saw!

My regular 5K run happens to take me past this house every time
out. This also happens to be the house my wife grew up in and is just
a bit of a reminder while I'm out running as to how lucky I am!

Back in the summer, we decided to totally -re-do our front garden.
There used to be all these big bushes we could string our Christmas
lights on but now, with all the bushes gone, we needed to improvise.
So I took some dead evergreen branches from our backyard and
"planted" them in our front garden. Then I hung Xmas lights from them!
Kind of a Charlie Brown sort of theme!


  So there you have it, a bit of an update and a handful of pics I might have used in blogs past, if I'd ever gotten around to it! And while I'm at it, would like to take the opportunity to wish you all a Happy New Year and hoping that 2016 brings only wonderful things!

Hellacious Hills

   In my last post, I sort of described why I hadn't been either doing much running or blogging about it. Due to the sudden insertion of ball hockey into my life, the legs lately just haven't had the oomph required to get me out there.

Entrance to Warbler Woods

   This does not mean, though, that I have been at home simply sitting on my butt. A couple of times lately I have headed out for long walks through nearby Warbler Woods, in an effort to keep the legs moving and, perhaps even more importantly, enjoy the arrival of Spring! Yay! We're now at the point where things have actually dried up enough to make a walk through the woods an enjoyable experience. This time of year, as well, the leaves haven't blossomed yet and you can see deep into the forest, which is kind of cool.
   On these trips, I began by following the same path I take when I'm on a run. I leave my house and am at the woods in about a kilometer. There's a two kilometer stretch through the woods, I come out on the other side and then another two kilometers on pavement to get back to my place.
   I changed things up a bit though the last two times by foregoing the the final 2K on pavement and simply darting back into the woods after I popped out of them and taking a different route back through.

SNAKE! (upper right-hand corner...)

 
   Okay, this different route back through is hellacious. Warbler Woods is somewhat bowl-shaped insofar as you go down into them and climb back up out of them. My normal route has me encountering one really nasty hill but then I end up running around the upper rim of the bowl without descending into its depths. Going down into the depths brings you face-to-face with at least six hellacious hills, all of which are even more hellacious than the one hellacious hill I was already (kinda) used to.
   I was exhausted several times and, mind you, I was just walking. I can't imagine running these things. They were all pretty well straight up with bendy curves in them and it wasn't even all that easy going down the backsides of them, due to their steepness.
   

A fine example of a Carolinian forest!!

These woods are quite popular with hikers and casual walkers but I couldn't help but think that there should be some sort of disclaimer posted at the entrance, indicating the degree of difficulty. Or maybe it's just me...
    I remember thinking a couple of times at the summit of the latest hill that I was just as winded as if I'd been running. At the time, I thought of this as a good thing, figured I was at least out there getting exercise if I wasn't actually running.
   Also, the first time I did this new route, I stopped several times to rest. The second time, I vowed I would just plow on through, which is what I did.

Part of the trail

   Toward the end of my second walk, things started to catch up to me. At one point, I snagged my toe on a root as I was descending one of these hills. Nothing major that wouldn't normally have been handled by a bit of a hop and a skip but I discovered my legs would not do that hop and a skip for me. It seemed like the legs would not bend at the knee and all of the sudden it felt like I was walking on stilts instead of legs and I envisioned tumbling head first onto the trail and just rolling and rolling and...but I caught myself, thank goodness. It was then that I started to realize the toll all this ball hockey and walking had taken on my legs! I managed to get out of the forest the second time and was left with about a kilometer on

Bit of a boardwalk through
the boggier portions.

pavement to get me back home. Walking on flat pavement was not an issue, it seemed. Back at home, though, I was faced with the four steps of my wooden porch. Normally, I can spring up them. Not the other day. I pretty well needed to crawl up them and afterwards, sitting on the newly-conquered porch, I resolved to give my legs a couple of days off. No running, no ball hockey, no walking. I compromised a little by doing some yardwork the following day but even that was not pretty.
   In the midst of all this, I was ironically invited to do a squat challenge, by Crystal, intrepid leader of the Canuck Running Bloggers. Ha ha ha, I can't even really sit on the toilet or get dressed properly, let alone do a squat challenge!! Did I mention that I think I might have overdone it??
   I am pretty sure that I will return to these Hellacious Hills, however. It occurred to me as I was walking them that they would be perfect for hill repeats. They're evenly spaced enough that recovery time would be accommodated and they're different from each other, so you wouldn't get bored either! If you survived... 

Catching Up

   So have you ever started reading a blog post and the writer of the post starts off by saying something like "I'M BACK!!" because it'd been awhile since he or she had posted anything? And did you ever feel slightly guilty because you never noticed they'd gone anywhere.....?
   Well....I'M BACK!!
   I know, you're thinking to yourself didn't he just post something yesterday?
   And the answer to that is yes I did (thank you again, Lori Benetau) but it was one of those posts that kind of dropped into my lap right out of the blue and thank God it did because I've had zilch to write about for the last two weeks or so. Almost no running whatsoever.
   The last post I wrote in anger was to moan and whine about my leg and pain issues. I believe I also stated I was off to see my chiropractor, Zeinin, in the hopes that she might be able to offer some relief.
   I did manage to get in to see her the day after that post. She did the usual adjustment and then began paying more attention to my right upper hip/groin area.
   She very quickly found the source of the pain and kneaded the area mercilessly. To maintain some balance, she also did the same on the left side but it was her work on the right side which had me squirming just a touch. It was one of those "hurts so good" types of situations.
   Afterwards, I did feel better. Not a hundred per cent but better, which was what I was hoping. Zeinin also showed me a lunge stretch which she recommended for the groin area. This stretch has now become part of the pre-run routine.


Heading off, into the woods.

   I kind of laid low for the rest of that week but by the weekend I was feeling quite a bit better and had the urge to run so I headed out, with no real plan.
   It had been awhile since I had hit the local trails so that's where I headed. It was still pretty damp in Warbler Woods but still quite a bit better than the last time I'd been in there so no need to change my usual course.
   I ended up doing 5K with a combination of trail and street running and walked about a quarter of it. No regrets around walking in the slightest---it just felt good to be out there, propelling myself forward!

Leaves, suspended over the trail.

   It was great running through the woods again! It's always different this early in the spring, the new leaves haven't popped out yet and you can see much deeper into the forest than normal, which is kinda cool. Unless you're being chased by the cops, or somethin'.

Where I had been...

   I did have to dart by two or three people walking in the woods but, for the most part, had them to myself. I did run into a little mud but it was pretty easily side-stepped. I was wearing my older Nikes and was not nearly as worried about the mud as I would have been if I'd been wearing the new Asics!


...and where I was headed.

   After the woods, it was out onto the city sidewalks in my neighbourhood. As always this time of year, it was so refreshing to run past all the homeowners who were out getting their yards prepped for summer. That was SUCH a long winter!
   The rest of the run was pretty uneventful and, afterwards, there was very little of the groin pain I'd been experiencing. That was LAST weekend on the Saturday and the next day was bright and warm and sunny here in London so I decided to get some yard work done.
   We have issues with our backyard. A few years ago we decided to "de-construct" the two lower tiers. Our backyard slopes away from the house in three separate tiers and the two lower tiers were landscaped when we bought the house in '08 but then we decided we wanted to do something different so we took out all the bushes and railway ties. Unfortunately, our plans to "re-construct" it have consistently met with roadblocks, mainly financial ones.
   This summer, however, I am bound and determined to do something about that situation! So I took advantage of the beautiful weather to get out there and clear out some of the underbrush, rake up all the pine needles (a couple of towering pines at the back of our yard), and trim some branches.
  

Back yard on the right...

I ended up with about fifteen bags of yard waste to set out by the curb. Because most of the greenery was still somewhat damp, the bags weighed appreciably more than they might have otherwise. Not only that, they then needed to be carried up the three tiers and out to curb.
   At the time, I knew I was tired but no big deal. The next day, however, the full effects of my three hours of yardwork the previous day hit home! Oh my aching back!

...and back yard on the left.

   That was the Sunday and I have Mondays off so it had been my plan to do a combination of maybe running, yardwork and golf. Nix to that! I ended up spending my afternoon filing, of all things!
   So, once again, no running for the rest of that week. I am able to say, though, that this weekend I was able to get out on the Saturday for a 5K run. I ran it as my version of an SSD (short slow distance) run but this was fine with me. Doing it this way enabled me to run the whole way without stopping and it had been ages since I'd been able to say that about a run!
   So that's what I've been up to the last couple of weeks and pretty well why I haven't been blogging much. Just not much to blog about as this aging body has, once again, played some nasty little tricks on me! Gonna fire it!

   
  
  

The Liebster Award!

   Many thanks to Lori at Journey to Fit & Healthy who recently nominated me for a Liebster Award! I've seen the Liebster Award pop up on the odd page I follow and I always thought it'd be kinda cool to receive one of my own so...many thanks again to Lori! She's also a blogger I consider to be a homey of mine so drop by her blog and take a boo!
    The general idea behind the Liebster Award is to recognize other blogs and bloggers of note and possibly introduce them to new readers. Kind of a fun way of "spreading the love"!
   So here are the rules:

1. You need to link back to the person who nominated you
2. You need to answer the questions they gave you
3. You then get to pick 10 of your favourite bloggers
4. And nominate them for a Liebster! Plus notify them and have them answer ten questions YOU made up!

   Easy enough?? Here are my answers to the ten questions Lori gave us.

1. Why did you start blogging?
     I've pretty well always had this desire to write. A friend of mine started up a very shortlived blog three or four years ago and I thought, "Well...if he can do it..." At that point, I started a blog called "Neanderings", which was and is simply a hodge-podge of random topics. I was in the middle of all that when I got interested in running. Running then became one of the things I found myself blogging about. At that point, I wondered if maybe I could devote a whole blog of its own to running and "Strides" was born!

2. Do you have any "furbabies"? If you do, tell us a little about them.
   Furbabies? Do we EVER! We have four cats--Squeaker, Puffer, Luna and Yoda. We are pretty well constantly surrounded by them and can't imagine life without them. They're constantly underfoot, they tell us when to go to bed and they seem to want to assist with the blogging process, as well. Yoda and Luna are the two "babies" and are still constantly wrestling, chasing, hugging and snuggling with each other. Puffer's the one the other cats don't fool with and Squeaker's my main squeeze (after Doralyn!)

3. Who do you admire the most, and why?
   Tough one! Out of all the people I admire the most, I'd pretty well have to pick Leonard Cohen. He writes, he's musical, he's eclectic, he has a Bohemian air about him, he's both ageless and timeless AND he gets women!

4. What is a habit that you had that you are most proud of breaking?
   Another hard one! I seem to wrestle with a lot of little bad habits that some days I conquer and, other days, I don't. I suspect this is the same for a lot of us. I've never smoked or done drugs or gambled or any of the biggies but I do procrastinate like hell! In retrospect, the closest thing to a bad habit I'm proud of breaking was my habit of not running!

5. What is your favourite holiday?
   Probably Thanksgiving. Still about the family but not so much about the presents.

6. What would be your dream job?
   Living in a little log cabin, writing novels.

7. What is the first website you check when you turn on your phone/computer?
   Usually right straight to Hotmail, then Facebook. Then I check blog stats. Lately have been spending a lot more time on Twitter.

8. What did you study in university/college? Would you do something different if you could go back?
   Right out of high school, I wasted a whole year's worth of tuition attending Western University. I really had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and was just taking general arts courses. I was not only directionless but my mother passed away in the Spring of that school year and I never even bothered to write exams. As an adult, I attended college and took Developmental Service Worker courses and that's the field I've been in for over thirty years. If I had a "do-over", I might have concentrated on literature and writing. To go along with the log cabin...

9. Who is your biggest celebrity crush?
   lol The last time I had an all-consuming celebrity crush was back in the sixties and the object of my affection was Diana Rigg (Emma Peel on "The Avengers"). The closest you get to that these days might be Jennifer Aniston, she just seems to be the epitome of looking better the older you get!

10. If you could do a workout/run with anyone, who would you choose?
   There are a handful of running bloggers I would LOVE to sit down and have coffee with! As far as sharing a run or a workout, I would have to pick Solana Klassen and Nikki Scott (who quite often run together, so that would kill two birds with one stone) as the people I'd likely have the most fun running with. They are a couple of west coast bloggers who were featured in a video a friend of theirs produced not long ago of a group running through the mountain trails in North Vancouver. Everyone on the run just seemed to be having so much sheer joy that it was infectious and hard not to want to be a part of that sometime! That and I have a bit of a "west coast" thing.

   Okay, THAT was fun!
   Now, here are the ten bloggers and their blogs I would like to nominate. I think the idea was to nominate a "small" blog but I have absolutely no idea what a "small" blog is so I am simply going with my faves! So if I nominated you and you thought you were a "big" blog, please don't be offended, I nominated you because I LIKE you! Here we go! (these are in no particular order, believe me and there's WAY more than ten blogs I really like---I suspect somewhere down the road you'll ALL get a turn---whether you want it or not!)

1. Erin @ Running Tall
2. Suzan @ Welcome To The Nuthouse
3. Nikki @ Slow is the New Fast
4. Solana @ Beast Mode On The Run
5. Mike, Michelle and Rhoda @ 3 Cheap Runners
6. Flower @ Up and Humming
7. Stephani @ Running Away From Trouble
8. Krysten @ The Misadventures of a Darwinian Fail
9. Tina @ Fabulosi-T
10. Crystal @ Running With Rhyno

   Oh crap...there ARE way more but apparently I am limited to ten, so there you go!
   Okay, running bloggers, here are your ten questions:

1. Tim's or Starbucks?
2. What's your favourite distance, and why?
3. How many hours a week do you blog?
4. How supportive of your running is your significant other?
5. Run in the rain? Or the treadmill instead?
6. Does your job provide "training" benefits or incentives?
7. Any notable difference between male bloggers and female ones? It just occurred to me I only nominated females....
8. Love numbers or hate numbers? (I hate 'em!)
9. Consider your OWN celebrity crush. Go for drinks with them or go for a run with them?
10. If you had to give up one or the other, would it be blogging or running?

   Well, there you go! Congratulations and I hope you have fun and that you have the time and energy to take part! In any case, thank you all for the enjoyment you've given me in following your running (and "life") adventures. Cheers!   
  

Kicks Pics!

   As requested (and just to wrap up my Running Room misadventure story), I wanted to post a pic of the new kicks. As you might remember, I'd been having uploading issues with Blogger and had been unable to post any pics, let alone pics of the new shoes. Well, it seems the issue was my Compatibility View settings---I'd adjusted them a few days ago and hadn't made the connection til last night. Went back in and changed them to what they were and voila, I can post pics again! Such a relief!
   The RR return policy was sixty days provided I hadn't scuffed them or used them outside. In light of this, I headed off right away to the Goodlife treadmill.
   Of course, I was pretty excited and hopped on the 'mill and started to run and all of the sudden realized I hadn't stretched! Not even a touch!



Asics Gel-Nimbus 15 LS! Here they are! (I can almost here my mum
now--"Get your shoes off the diningroom table
right this minute!")

   Now, I'm not sure what everyone else's pre-run routine is but after my bout with PF last year, stretching before and after a run has become a ritual. The idea that I was running with brand new shoes without even stretching beforehand got me all panicky and I shut the run down almost as soon as I had started.
   The next day (after the appropriate stretching), I hit the treadmill again. Ran three miles and no problems! At this point, I thought I could probably hit the streets so, the next day, I headed to Springbank Park and ran 5K. Once again, no probs. Of course, if you've ever suffered from PF, you know that no run is ever successful until the next morning and you're pain-free. It was with a little trepidation, that I rolled out of bed the following day after that 5K run outside. But, once again, no probs!
   In a running world where people seem to have anywhere up to five or six different pairs of shoes for different conditions or types of races, I now have two reliable pairs. I'm thinking this will probably do me, for the amount and kinds of running I do.
   There is, however, kind of a cool feeling around new kicks...
  
  



My Running Room Experience and My Superpower: Part One

   Last week was my birthday and I got a bunch of Running Room gift cards so I thought I would head downtown to our local RR and get me some new kicks.
   I had already been on their website and had an idea of what shoes I wanted to try on but I really had my heart set on trying a pair of Asics Gel-Nimbus 15 LS. The last pair of Asics I had were pretty comfy, I think this is why I was gravitating to another pair. I also liked the colour scheme presented.
   When I got there, just shortly after 11:30 a.m., the store...was closed! There was just a sign on the door, one of those "Sorry, be right back" affairs. There was another gentleman already there waiting and the two of us ended up having quite a nice little chat (when you're both runners, there's that instantaneous connection!)


The shoe I was after...

  


   We were out there in the cold for about ten minutes when someone finally came and opened the door for us, from inside the store.
   I immediately headed over to the wall of shoes and found the Gel-Nimbus 15 LS shoes. Here is where things started to break down for me. They sort of looked like the shoes I remembered from the website but not quite. They were, however, clearly marked on the wall as the Gel-nimbus 15 LS. I also knew I wanted to try on the Gel-Nimbus 15's (minus the LS, which is only a reflective colouring difference). These were clearly marked on the wall as well so I tried them on. I also tried on some Brooks, Mizuno, Saucony and New Balance, as was my plan. Still, I gravitated back to the Gel-Nimbus 15 LS. And still I was bothered by the fact that they just didn't look quite like what I remembered from the website. I asked the young man who was helping me if they came in any other colour or pattern and he assured me that, no, they didn't.
   So I ended up buying them anyway, after I got the word on what the return policy was.
   I drove them home and immediately got back on the website. This is when I found out what had happened. My trip back to the store then confirmed it for me.
   The staff from the store had erroneously stocked the Gel-Nimbus 15 shoe on the wall where the Gel-Nimbus 15 LS was supposed to be. A completely different Asics shoe was in the spot where the Gel-Nimbus 15 was supposed to be. The Gel-Nimbus 15 LS wasn't even on display! The young man very sheepishly corrected things and went into the back room and came out with a Gel-Nimbus 15 LS, the shoe I had originally been looking for but that hadn't even been on display!
   This was not a confidence booster but at least I finally had my eyes on the shoe I really wanted. Next catch? Nothing in my size! (I would tell you what my size is but you know what they say about a man with small feet...) The young lady

...and its impostor!

working there said she would call around and see if any other RR's in the area had a pair. Fortunately, there were a bunch of them in Waterloo and they are currently being shipped to London.
   The girl then mentioned that when they came in all I would then have to do is pay the difference in cost between the regular Gel-Nimbus 15s and the LS model, about ten bucks.
   I looked at her and said "Really? You would charge me the extra ten dollars after your mistake here in the store really screwed me up and made me have to come all the way back??"
   She did look kind of sheepish and mumbled something about how it would screw up the inventory if they didn't charge the extra.
   Now, here is the real reason for me writing this blog post.
   What I really wanted to say to this young woman was "DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM, YOUNG LADY? I AM A CANUCK RUNNING BLOGGER AND WHEN I GET HOME I'M GOING TO WRITE A BLOG POST ABOUT ALL THIS AND RUNNERS FROM ACROSS CANADA AND THE U.S. ARE GOING TO READ IT AND SOME OF THOSE PEOPLE HOBNOB WITH GUYS LIKE JOHN STANTON AND BART YASSO AND THEN YOU'LL BE SORRY!!"
   But I didn't say that because, well, that just ain't Brian Baker, folks. But it does occur to me that running bloggers aren't just your ordinary customer, are they? It's more than likely that they already know what they're doing when they walk into a running store, could probably be working there themselves as a matter of fact, and could probably even label the shoes correctly. But, more than that, we have an audience!
   Word of mouth is valued by retailers and who has more word of mouth potential than a runner who also blogs about it? We certainly talk about our shopping experiences among our friends and acquaintances but then we also sit down and share that with North America! We blog and we tweet and we share and re-tweet and re-share and some of it ends up on Pinterest and some of it ends up on Instagram and tons of it ends up on Facebook. And I know I just said North America but we get pageviews from all over the world, don't we?
   I would almost liken us to a food critic walking into a restaurant. Whether the experience is bad or the experience is good, the world will find out. You don't get that with the average customer.
   So I really toyed with the idea of at least casually mentioning that my experience there could likely end up in print sometime soon, just to see if they might re-consider charging me the extra ten dollars when the shoes come in. In reality, given that I live about 12 kilometers away from the store and that I've already made two round trips and am looking at another one when the shoes come in, I'm looking at travelling 72 kilometers for a pair of shoes I should really have only made one trip for.
   Of course, I could also do a better job of making sure of what I'm after when I shop and that I simply don't leave with something I'm having reservations about. I've also never had anything like this happen any other time I've shopped at that RR, so I'm also (in spite of my heavy-handed posturing above) not keen on making waves, I have no great desire to be persona non grata the next time I go in there. It's not even really about the piddly ten bucks either.
   No, more than anything, I find myself trying to come to grips with this whole writing thing, like somehow or other it feels like a superpower or something or at least, given that we have this audience, a facet of ourselves which sets us somewhat aside (certainly not above) from other people we might run into.
   Where I work, occasionally something needs to be written and written well. Generally I am the person who gets asked to do that. I take that as a compliment (and as a bit of a chain around my neck sometimes) that people have recognized this ability in me. What comic books have taught me is that with great power comes great responsibility. I must use my superpower wisely. Stay tuned to see if I do!  

Just Another 8K Photo Essay

   I ran 8K today. This is the second farthest I have ever run and only the second time I have ever done it. I ran 8K about this time last year as part of my gradual climb up to 10K. The following week I did 9K and that's about where the PF hit. Next weekend, I'll tack on an extra kilometer, body willing.
   Today, I used the Flower Jovia method of distance running! I ran for a bit, took a pic, ran for a bit, took a pic, ran for another bit and so on and so on. Flower is a running blogger from Florida who does these amazing photo essays while out on her runs. All sorts of wonderful scenery and a whole whack of wildlife to boot---pelicans, dolphins, turtles, peacocks---pretty well you name it!
   Now, today I had no exotic wildlife (I spared you all a pic of the deer carcass I came across....) to show you but I did stop briefly quite a few times if there was anything of note. My route today was an extension of the river route I've been running the last few weekends and, at this point, it is taking me right downtown or at least pretty close.


Yes, I went toward the light...

   I started the run near the dreaded sewage treatment plant I told you about a couple of posts ago. The smell wasn't too bad today, I guess the wind must have been blowing in the right direction. Eventually, the path took me out of the park where the plant is and onto city streets.
   To exit the park, I had to take a tunnel underneath a set of train tracks. My wife always tells me that if I find myself in a tunnel with a light at the other end, I should try not to go into the light. Today, I ignored her.
   This tunnel was actually named after Greg Curnoe, a well-known London artist. He was tragically killed in a cycling accident back in 1992. In his honour, they have a plaque erected at one entrance to the tunnel. You can read a little about him here.
   From there, I popped out into a little neighbourhood near Wharncliffe Road, a reasonably busy north-south street. Happily, the path along the river runs under it. At this point, I managed to get a pic of both the Wharncliffe bridge I was about to run under along with some reasonably cool graffiti under it. It sort of looked like the commissioned kind of artwork.


Headed for the Wharncliffe bridge

   From there, I totally ignored the sign which informed me I was running on a flood plain and continued on.


Graffiti under the bridge

   This shortly had me arriving at the Forks of the Thames. I drive by the Forks all the time but this was my first opportunity to see it from this angle. Actually, at this point I was seeing London from a whole different perspective than I usually do altogether and it was a little disorienting and yet kind of cool at the same time. I'd see a building from a different angle than I was used to and I really had to go through the memory banks to figure out just why the building was familiar and what part of the city I had popped up in.



The Forks of the Thames

   Once I had figured out where I was, I decided I should probably head back in the general direction from whence I'd come. In truth, I think I'd totally lost track of the path I had originally been on and could go on no longer following it. So I ran along the city streets for a bit before I made it back towards Greenway Park.


Bethesda Centre

   On the way back to Greenway, I passed what used to be the Bethesda Centre, a home which was run by the Salvation Army for unwed mothers and their babies. It is currently unused and up for sale. I only mention this because this is where Justin Bieber's mum stayed back when she was heavy with him. Now North America is heavy with him. 
   So, back under the Curnoe tunnel and on to the Sewage Plant, where I'd parked. From there I had to tack a couple extra kilometers on just to bring me up to eight. This part of the trip twice took me past the deer carcass, which was conveniently already in the cemetery.

   Back at the car and my 8K was in the books. The Jovia method got me there without thinking I had actually stopped nine times along the way, if only briefly. I was only doing some photojournalism, right?



Yes, It's That Time

   I went for large chunks of late spring, the summer, and early fall without being able to run on any kind of regular basis. There were a variety of reasons for this and at this point the reasons have been exhausted.
   So you'd think I'd be out every day running my little heart off and jumping for joy at the same time!
   Well, I'm not.
   Don't get me wrong, I love the idea that I'm able to. For what it's worth, though, back when I was running regularly I was also into the routine of it, both logistically and motivationally. I knew ahead of time what days I would be running and I planned the rest of my life around that. Motivationally-speaking, the fact that I was making steady progress also helped greatly to make sure that I was getting out there, maybe even on days when the weather was crappy or I was already tired.

   Nowadays, it's little difficult because I've lost quite a bit of what I'd gained over the winter and there is very much a starting all over again kind of feeling. That's a bit of a mental setback, for sure. It's a little hard having to work your butt off just to get back to where you were before.
   I also miss having stuff to blog about! When you're injured, you can sometimes at least blog about your injury and how it's progressing (or not), how the latest doctor appointment went, what the newest therapy tool is, etc. When there is no longer a viable injury to discuss, no races have been run and no real training regimen to comment on it's just a touch difficult to blog. Sort of like today!
   I have gotten out a couple of times this past week and it was rough. The running has not been terribly easy and I have only been doing 5k runs to this point. I used to be able to run a full 5k without stopping but not now. So that is a goal, for sure, either to run them faster or to run them without stopping. I never seem to be sure when I head out whether I want to simply run the whole way or whether I want to beat the last time I posted. It seems as though I can run hard for spurts, then walk, and get a decent time. If I run slow enough, I can run the whole thing but the time then suffers.
   At this point, I'm inclined to go for the fastest times. At some point this pretty well has to end up with me running the whole way, doesn't it? Gonna be a lot of work but that's okay.

First Blogiversary of "Strides"!

   "Strides" just celebrated its first anniversary!!
   It's now been one year since I began to describe in writing my little running "adventure". Of course, it seems as though I just started it yesterday!
   At the time, I thought I was engaged in a pretty solitary pursuit--who really knew that anybody other than me might be running and then writing about?

   Well, one day it occurred to me to hop on Google and find out if anybody was doing something like that. What I then discovered was that tons of runners were blogging. Or was it that tons of bloggers were running? Not sure on that one but the fact of the matter was there were a lot of us!
   As running bloggers, we come in all ages, sizes, body shapes and skill levels. Our blogging styles go from folksy to technical. We talk about what motivates us and what presents roadblocks (including, of course, actual roadblocks).
   As bad luck would have it, many of my posts this past year have dealt with either injury or other assorted reasons why I couldn't actually run.
   I went through a long stretch when I was recovering from plantar fasciitis. I was able to run for awhile after that but then found myself undergoing a treatment course for sun damage on my face. It has only been within the last day or two that I've been able to get back out there.


WAY too much opportunity to talk about THIS!

   What I found while I was off from running was that I blogged about medical stuff. I blogged about PF treatments and whether they seemed to be working or not. I blogged about my visits to the SoleScience centre at Western where I underwent a gait analysis and walked away with orthotics. And they even paid sixty bucks for my old, worn-out running shoes! I read other running blogs voraciously, looking for anything which might provide a topic for my own, seeing as how I wasn't actually running.
   More than anything, this past year has connected me with a whole bunch of other bloggers. Some of their stories and reasons for running mirror my own and some are vastly different. As a whole, though, they are very engaging and quick to offer advice or moral support. They also offer an audience and nothing's much more important to a blogger than to know that someone out there is actually paying attention!
   Hopefully, Year Two of "Strides" will find me doing more posts on how the running is going (not stopping) and more race updates as well. I know that the past year of running has left me in much better shape and the hope is that this trend continues. We also now have a gym membership (sadly unused lately) and this should also help, just need to actually go!
   At this point, I just wanted to thank you, the reader, for showing up here as often as you have! As I just stated, it's really not a lot of fun blogging if nobody's reading (although I would blog regardless) and the odd comment from y'all certainly makes it worth the time and effort! Cheers and good health to you all!