A new and original plan
Tuesday, January 30, 2007For most of the day today I harboured the illusion that I had a rehearsal this evening, and so governed myself accordingly. I also felt a bit like I was fighting a bug of some variety or another during the day; muscles generally felt a tiny bit achy - a sign of a flu, I thought. Exactly what I need, yet another one, I thought yet some more. After not experiencing significant illness for nearly three years before, this year the little guys are throwing the book at me, it seems.
But when I arrived home I was determined to run, given that I hadn't run since Saturday, despite a combined rowing/cycling workout on Sunday and an easy 20 min row on Monday. So, defying the lethargy declaimed by the cells in my body, I set out, and quickly discovered a singular spring to my step that I have not experienced for sometime.
Soon after hitting Cook Street I found myself accelerating and, by the time I was passing through Cook Street village, only a few minutes into the run, I was doing a full on interval, with a stride as quick and smooth and as fluid as I have ever experienced. Brad C was coming the other way and implored me to run faster, and by the time I hit Dallas Road, wisdom was the better part of valour and I shut it down.
From there I continued a gentle pace around Beacon Hill park and struck upon Don P just as he was reaching for his car tire to insert it into the trunk of his car. How long have you gone? I asked. Fifty minutes, he replied. No, I mean with the tire? I asked again. Yah, fifty minutes, with a couple of loops before to warm up, he said. Holy shit, I said. I can't imagine running fifty minutes dragging a tire behind me, I thought - that would be darn hard work. I guess when you do crazy thinks like ultra-marathon runs through the Gobi desert, you have to do some crazy things to prepare!
Setting out again for another loop, I did about 800 - 1000m more at a full out interval - again, my legs felt amazing, and I honestly don't remember the last time I carried that much speed. I was tempted to time a full mile, but I decided there was no reason for heroics at this point - two intervals was plenty enough for the time being, especially since I thought at the time I needed to get back to prep for a rehearsal. By the time I returned home I felt like a new man, and wondered what possibly could have caused the symptoms I seemed to experience earlier - maybe my body just needed a really hard effort to blow out some cobwebs. I supposed I'll know better tomorrow.
As it turned out it was only Adrian Sly rehearsing his Lord Chancellor part this evening, and I'm back in with the troupe tomorrow. A chance to practice a bit on my own, and to hit the hay a little early and hopefully to stave off whatever seemed to ail me today.
__________
When I went to the bar as a very young man
Said I to myself, said I
I'll work on a new and original plan
Said I to myself, said I
- the Lord Chancellor in Iolanthe
30 01 07 21:51 | Hugh | 
Blunt not 2
Sunday, January 28, 2007Just as a quick follow up to the last entry, now that the rehearsal tonight is over, I feel a lot more optimistic about things. The duet is feeling better, with just a tiny bit more work required on the tempo for the last couple of bars, but definitely feeling more comfortable all around. As I was able to leave a bit early, I didn't get any feedback on it, however. Nonetheless, I feel I can relax a lot more about that song now, which is a significant breakthrough, especially since most of the rest is quite comfortable as well. Now I can really focus on my movements, rather than stressing so much about the music. This is significant turning point for me, I see.
On the minus side of the ledger, however, I was forgetting a lot of my spoken lines tonight. This was partly because Chris had me changing their tempo, which was throwing me off. I tend to memorize spoken lines by rhthym and pacing as much as by the images or meaning of the words, and if I'm asked to change tempo, I have to re-memorize it - not entirely from scratch, but I have to rehearse it at the new pace for a while first.
All in all, things are coming together though.
Blunt not the sword
Sunday, January 28, 2007So, this morning I rowed for a shade over an hour - about 14km - during which time Bob M. sat nearby providing interesting tips on how to race the Monster Erg next weekend: "get up to speed with short, fast strokes, and hold about 1:38 pace for twenty seconds, then settle into 1:40 pace, which you will try to hold for the rest of the race. Every 500m, give ten hard strokes - this will not increase your pace much, if at all, but will help you to hold the pace. In the last 300m, give it everything you have, and in the last 10m, rather than take a long stroke, take one short stroke - might save you a few tenths of a second" (!). I'm not sure the last item will make much difference, but all the rest seems to be sound. "This week, practice your starts," he said.
Later, I joined Ben for an hour on the bike. He was off to about 3.5 hours on the bike, and an hour of running, as he is preparing for a half-ironman in California in March. 3.5 hours on the bike seems unfathomably long to me now, although there was a time when that would have been only a medium long ride.
After feeling just a wee bit negative about the rehearsals this last week, I've been practicing a different way of singing the duet "None shall part us" and will see how it goes over tonight. At the moment, this is the weakest part of my contribution, and I'm intent on making it at least as strong as the rest, if not the strongest, in its own way. In the words of the bard in Macbeth, "blunt not the sword, enrage it!"
Always night and day
Saturday, January 27, 2007
At the running clinic this morning, under sunny skies but cool temperatures, we had the runners do a continuous 10min hill session - much the same as last week, but with no stopping at the bottom. They worked hard, and I could see some pushed a tad harder than they were ready for. Trevor Miller, kinesiologist, discussed shoe stability in the last half hour.
Later I hooked up with Cliff for an easy run. As I had already done some running earlier, and lacking the mileage base for a run much longer than 1.5hours at this point, I ran for an hour, while Cliff carried on for an additional 45 minutes. Later still, I had a nap for over two hours, which I sorely needed, after a number of nights of minimal sleep and a couple of evenings recently of wine sharing, which tends to hamper my sleep.
Yesterday, I was on the rowing machine for 40minutes - mostly continuous at around 2:00min/500 pace, but with a few harder efforts. I did a few alternating exercises involving arms only; straight arms, and using legs only; back only; back and arms only; accelerations using full body. I quite enjoy these exercises. With the Monster Erg next weekend, I am not even remotely sufficiently well trained, but I'll do it just for some fun and something different.
_________
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.
- The Lake Isle of Innisfree, WB Yeats
The week so far
Thursday, January 25, 2007Seems like a good time for an update. Overall, the week has been a busy one - rehearsals Sun/Tues/Wed, and today Scott was over assisting with the wretched duets (the first moreso than the second) that are still in need of work. I'm not feeling all that great about the first one, frankly, and with my mind now more on staging - which is at the moment pretty messy - it's not so easy to be thinking about fixing errors in the music, despite the importance of doing so. Stephanie now has them well under control, so it's up to me to align myself with her standard - kind of essential in a duet.
At the moment, there's a bit of rehearsal fatigue happening, and I can sense it in everyone, chorus, leads and the directors. My sense is that when this happens, the motivation to fix things is not as strong, because there is sensory overload occurring - just an awful lot to be thinking about. But this is part of the challenge for everyone, and moreso for the inexperienced, such as myself - overcoming the physical and mental requirements involved in learning a lot and memorizing it, coupled with the angst that accompanies continuously striving toward as high a standard as possible amid constant prodding by directors (and coaches) to achieve that end. One has to keep in mind the "grace under pressure" mantra as much as possible, keep aiming as high as possible, and hope like hell it all comes together when the performances happen.
A few days ago, when I mentioned to John C our three rehearsals per week since January; that we had started in November with the music, he asked me, "How much rehearsal time do you need?". Well, the answer is: a lot, when you have to learn and memorize big chunks of music that is not necessarily very easy, dialogue and a lot of coordinated movement on stage. The chorus has some difficult pieces too, as do all the leads, and to integrate everything with the movement and the dialogue too takes a ton of work and a dedicated, extended effort. Obviously, a professional company could do it all a lot faster, packed into a few short weeks of eight or ten hour days, but this is a group of people who have jobs and other commitments during the day - all talented and most of them quite experienced, nonetheless - and it takes months of rehearsing to put out a show of good quality. And it will be a show of good quality, of that we can assure people, despite the trials and tribulations it may be taking to get there.
______
Training this week: today I did a workout at the gym consisting of 25mins on treadmill with a 5min warmup, a 10 min tempo, increasing the pace at no set point from 3:50/km to 3:26 to 3:00 for the last minute; a 2 min easy jog, and an 8min tempo at increasing pace from 3:47/km to 3:15 to 3:00 for the last 1.5 mins. This was followed by a rowing workout also of 25mins, including 1500m at increasing pace from 1:50 to 1:40/500m pace, though I'm not sure how long it took; the balance being around 2:10 pace or slightly faster.
Wednesday, I did a 45 min easy run.
Tuesday I did zero training whatsoever.
Monday I did an easy run and some light rowing. Now it's quarter past 11, and I'm bagged.
Saanich 8km
Sunday, January 21, 2007Today was the Saanich 8km race, which originally I had decided not to do. But owing to the fact that the race had been moved back by a week, I decided to do this race and to skip the Mill Bay 10k next weekend.
Having done relatively little training in the last few months, I entered the race without having invested much emotional or physical energy into the lead-up to the event, and it was nice to post a time that was reasonable by my standards: 27.16; by no means a disaster. Looking over my 8k times over the years, I see my PB of 25.55, was set in 1996 in Bazan Bay, with a few times in the low to mid-26's (one of which was last year), and most of the rest in the 27s (with the odd one over 28). The time was within a couple of seconds of the Merrython 8km in December, though I suspect that course was about 100m short. I don't remember doing any 8k races when I lived in Vancouver (1990-1994) only plenty of 10k, Halfs and Marathons, when my PBs for those events were set.
My training these last 2 or 3 months has consisted largely of 25mins every other day on the treadmill during the week, with some sort of intervals on Saturday and an hour to an 1.5hrs easy on Sunday - total mileage about 50km/week since the end of October. In addition I have also been doing some rowing machine workouts, but even those have been sparse since I left for Mexico almost a month ago.
I do think rowing workouts are actually quite complementary to running, contrary to some thoughts I had earlier. In the past, one problem from rowing workouts was sore knees that made it painful to run on the same day. However, having refined my technique somewhat by reducing my stroke-rates for my longer rowing sessions, while maintaining high power output, I have nearly eliminated the problem with sore knees, allowing my run efforts to be productive. Rowing is of course, also very complementary to cycling, being a high power-output exercise, so when I pick up the riding sometime in late March, I am confident I will get myself in good cycling shape very quickly.
Rowing workouts are beneficial to running in two main ways, I've discovered: more opportunity for additional aerobic threshold workouts and, perhaps most importantly, stretching the legs through the full range of motion, which encourages higher knee lift during running and efficient stride. It also promotes good core strength and a strong upper body generally, without excess bulk development (although I tend to get that anyway).
Regardless, it's interesting how one can invest almost no emotional energy, and relatively little physical energy and still run almost as well as those times when he geared up mentally for months for a certain event and trained very high mileage for it. On the other hand, I likely won't get much faster without more mileage, and I couldn't race much longer than a 10k at the moment, and even that would be pushing it, I think.
Yesterday was my first running clinic day, with other run leaders Heather Danforth and Bruce (?). Heather is the current Canadian long course triathlon champ. As fun as it may be, I am not sure if I will want to help lead the clinic through to its conclusion in April, but I'll see (they've only asked me for a couple of weeks' commitment at this point). For our first day, we had them do some warmups ("ABCs") and 5 hill repeats near Beaver Lake.
Later, I hopped on the erg machine for 20mins, with one 5min tempo starting at 1:50pace, accelerating gradually through the time to 1:40pace. I thought this would help open my aerobic system up a bit for today, and I think it did, although my legs felt a bit sore this morning, and I was worried the erg workout was counterproductive. However, I think it did accomplish what I had intended.
On Friday, Hicham and I met up at the Oak Bay track for 6 x 200m strides at about 5km race pace, for a total of about 12km.
Off to a Sunday rehearsal shortly.
A little bagged
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Feeling generally bagged for a good part of the day today at work, despite a full night's sleep, I decided to do little exercise today, although something a little north of nothing seemed preferable. I do not have a good theory as to why I feel as tired as I do. I am over that virus, I am fairly sure. But upon describing my state to Amaia, one of the attendants at the gym and a personal fitness trainer, she suggested perhaps my lymph system is somewhat fatigued after having been fighting a virus for a good solid couple weeks - I may be over the virus, but my body is still in white blood-cell manufacture mode - something like that.
The Frontrunners sponsored athlete gathering was this evening, which I attended prior to a half hour of easy spinning on an exercise bike and some core exercises at the gym.
There is a large number of sponsored Frontrunners runners this year - perhaps 25, many of whom I don't know. So it was a bit like a party at the shop today, and nice to catch up with a few people I haven't seen in a while.
I had nearly forgotten that I had been persuaded to help out for a few more sessions of one of the running clinics despite having decided against it at one time. This is the 'Running Well' clinic, which will consist of slightly more advanced runners, so the sessions may be even be a bit closer to actual training for me, unlike the last clinic I helped with. The clinics are getting really desperate for run leaders, and I told Rachelle I would help out at least with the first couple or so while the group settles in a bit. I was reminded that the first one starts this Saturday, which is a week earlier than I thought. Oh well, it should be fun.
Some potentially interesting things happening with my work circumstances as well, which I should be able to write more about soon.
Maybe there really is no wonder why I'm feeling fatigued...
_______________
"Years ago I tried to free myself from him and went from the mythologies of the suburbs to the games with time and infinity, but those games belong to Borges now and I shall have to imagine other things. Thus my life is a flight and I lose everything and everything belongs to oblivion, or to him."
Borges and I, Jorge Luis Borges
Implications
Wednesday, January 17, 2006
This being my first Wednesday off rehearsals in a few months (not including over Christmas), and as I have become much accustomed to them and usually look forward to them, I nearly felt rather lost. But this allowed me to relax a bit after arriving home from work and to run outside at a time of my choosing, marking my first run outdoors in the evening and darkness since sometime in early December, I think.
My run consisted of an easy 45 minutes down to Beacon Hill - twice around the loop, then up Dallas a ways, and a return home. It was much as I remembered the last run in the evening to be: raining slightly, cold, and dark. No new discoveries there; not even some subtly new way of seeing it all in light of time in Mexico, my currently altered focus, or the sheer time away from it: it was still just raining slightly, cold, and dark.
Granted, I could embellish the description: the rain was just heavy enough to be perceptible as dimples oscillating in the puddles that formed on the streets. But as I wound the curve of Beacon Hill park, the rain appeared much heavier as it sliced, shardlike, the triangles of light that spread beneath the streetlamps, punctuating the night. Why should rain seem so much more powerful when illuminated by lights shining through the night, I'm not quite sure, but it does.
And the cold, and the darkness - well, the embellished description of the rain implies the dampness, and the dampness implies the cold; the streetlamps imply the darkness, and the darkness implies the sense of solitude. There is, it is said, nothing new under the sun.
____________
"I do not dare to state that they are simple;
there isn't anywhere on earth a single page or single word that is,
since each thing implies the universe,
whose most obvious trait is complexity."
- Jorge Luis Borges
Isolate, iron; isolate, iron
Tuesday, January 16th, 2007
Trying hard to fit in some sort of interval workout before my rehearsal at 7:00, I managed to get into the gym for 15 minutes on the rowing machine with 2 X 2min efforts: the first one at 1:39-1:40 pace, and the second at 1:37-1:38 pace, with about 2mins inbetween.
Thinking I then had a slot on a treadmill, I had to wait while someone insisted on taking more time from a slot they hadn't signed up for (meaning I don't feel so bad for doing a similar thing to a fellow the other day - whom I saw today and apologized to, by the way). Nonetheless, I got in 20 mins with 4 X 2:00mins at 3:00min/km pace, with 2 mins rest in between. The running intervals did not feel good, partly because the rowing efforts left me a bit bagged from the start, but also because I think I have a bit of accumulated fatigue from the last week of training.
Scarfing down some food after arriving home, it was then off to a short rehearsal (for me anyway), as we did only an hour where Stephanie and I went through the two duets again. Tom isolated a couple of note problems for me in the "If we're weak enough to tarry" duet, which is a very fast duet, and hard for me to hear my own mistakes and figure out how to fix them. There is also a rhythm problem in the last couple of bars in "None shall part us", but aside from that, that one is getting closer to being where we want it.
I've set up a meeting with Kathleen to go over them both again and help me iron them out, and hopefully Scott can spare some time soon to help me as well. We are at the point now where we need to really get things smoothed out, or the mistakes will become engrained as habits and will be stuck in the show. I'm actually feeling a tiny bit panicky about these things, but all I can do is keep working. There is still two months to the performances, so things should be pretty good by then, I am trusting.
I don't have a rehearsal tomorrow (Peers chorus and fairies only again), so I'll spend the time going over the trouble spots, and also thinking more about the stage configurations during the dialogue and the singing, which are hard to practice on one's own. But it will be good to do some visualization, which I haven't been doing much of yet. On the positive side of the ledger, I have most everything fairly well memorized, singing and dialogue (aside from the trouble spots), so it's really just a matter of ironing out the weak bits and sorting out stage presence and movements. I am told I'm at least a bit ahead of the game in the memorization department, which means I can still focus some of my energies on working out the musical glitches, which for an inexperienced singer like me, just takes a bit longer than it would for an experienced singer.
Generally the entire cast seems to be coming along really well.
The wintry blasts
Monday, January 15, 2007There is a feeling here of a real winter, the kind filled with snow and cold and dark and storms that accompany five months between November and March in very nearly the rest of the entire country of Canada. No doubt we garner little or no sympathy from our neighbours to the East, but the ordinarily vast divide between what they perceive to be a winter of any kind, and what we have experienced this season has, it seems, narrowed substantially.
This has been a cold, storm-fraught winter here on the West Coast; we are becoming accustomed to the snow and, as we wander the icy walks with toques and gloves and high-collared coats, many of us, I think, are resigned to an expectation that we will see considerably more of it before the cherry blossoms of February, late no doubt in their arrival, signal the arrival of spring.
Today I popped down to the rec centre for a gentle spin on the exercise bike and a few minutes on the rowing machine; some stretching and core exercises, and a bite at Rebar with Roger and Kerri afterward. The Oak Bay recreation centre teemed with people like they might at an intersection on the Champs Ellysees of Paris, darting to and fro across the traffic streams, lurching in groups as they approach and cross the inroads to the freeflowing roundabouts. There was certainly an intensity there which surely only the combination of New Year's resolutions and the inclement conditions outside could attract.
There was little work for the leads at last night's rehearsal - most of the work was choreagraphy for the Peers chorus and the Faeries. More for the leads tomorrow, with what might be an off day on Wednesday for some of the leads.
___________
...
Or how shall we gather what griefs destroy,
Or bless the mellowing year,
When the blasts of winter appear?
-The Schoolboy, William Blake
Exits
Sunday, January 14, 2006The recent white snow, while gradually dissipating into the colors of browns and greens and all the myriad colors of the rooftops, is not finally exiting with any great haste. The sidewalks remain icy and the consistent sub-zero temperatures these last few days have granted the snow an extended welcome, much to the chagrin of many a runner and cyclist in town. And the chagrin of all the runners, who have usurped the middle of Dallas road has, no doubt, been transferred to the chagrin of many a motorist who must navigate their way around the pesky runners.
Thus was the run of Hicham and I this morning along Dallas Rd, for roughly an hour and a half, where we saw perhaps fifty other runners merrily owning the road. Our run was gentle, and my hamstrings were feeling a bit tight from a 20 min tempo run yesterday on the treadmill at 3:20/km, and an hour of rowing. During the hour of steady rowing I did one 10 minute tempo effort at about avg 1:48 pace.
It was nice finally to hear Marilyn (Island Road Racer member, for those reading not knowing her) sing in her Victoria Choral Society performance, along with three other outstanding soloists yesterday evening. The program consisted of Mozart and Bach.
Owing to odd circumstances in which Ben and I found ourselves at the Royal Conservatory, watching an Early Music Concert of four instruments, we missed most of the first half of the VCS performance. The early music concert was entertaining, and I enjoy the music of the middle ages greatly, but vocals are always more uplifting for me. So, soon after seating ourselves and realizing we were at the wrong concert, to our sheepish embarrassment we exited and relocated, but only just before the end of the first half of the VCS performance.
Nonetheless we were treated to some great singing all around, not the least of which was Marilyn's fine soprano. I had seen Steven Price at the Sing-along Messiah in December - he has an impressive bass with great range.
A poor player
Friday, January 12, 2007Yesterday Scott was over to assist me with some basic theatrical body movements and some breathing technique for singing. We went over a few of my spoken lines with a view to coordinating various movements with the lines, which was fun, but not very natural for me. Apparently I exhibit a lot of unnecessary head-movement when I speak my lines, and it is not easy to detrain a longstanding habit like that. However, I'll continue to work on implementing whatever things are thrown at me and hope for the best come the end of March.
Scott then had me singing while lying on my back, expanding my lungs into the floor and holding my diaphragm solidly without collapsing it (or very gradually) while singing. An interesting and very helpful exercise. Scott tells me I have a very focussed and resonant sound, which most singers have to train to achieve. He was trying to get me to go the other way a bit, to spread the sound out more for certain notes.
Today I did an easy half hour on the treadmill, keeping my HR around 110. I then hopped on the rowing machine for half an hour as well, keeping the pace at about 2:15 per 500m - HR was probably a bit higher at that pace than it was on the treadmill, but it felt fairly comfortable. Yesterday, I did a few efforts on the treadmill again for 25 minutes, though oddly I can't remember exactly what the workout was - I think it was a bit steadier than Wednesday's workout, though still hitting 3:00km pace at the end of each effort. I think I did about 15mins on the rowing machine and 10 minutes on the exercise bike as well.
________
"Out, out brief candle
Life is but a walking shadow
A poor player who struts and frets his hour
Upon a stage and then is heard no more."
- Shakespeare, Macbeth
stimmed out
Wednesday, January 10, 2007With two evenings in a row of staging, at the moment I'm feeling rather overwhelmed. Yesterday the practice was just Stephanie and I with the stage director, Chris, and Tom and the piano player, Hiromi, going over our speaking lines, movements and the two duets. There was another man, whose name I forget, recording the movement notes. Fortunately, the dancing end of things is going to be minimal, but there are still a lot of movements to remember. Things were going fairly smoothly, and by the end of the session, I even very nearly had the second duet all nicely ironed out, with the movements and all.
Today, however, I seemed to take a couple of leaps backward, screwing up my entry with the fairies, and forgetting a lot of my lines. Tom mentioned I dropped the pitch on at least one of the notes during the one duet and was noticing a breathing problem, and also mentioned the balance was off, that I was drowning Stephanie out a bit - that's on top of the missed words during the song. I also decided to skip the high G and go with the two B alternative, since with everything happening, I didn't even want to attempt it.
Generally there was just a lot of stimulus, a lot to be keeping in mind overall, and I seemed to be freezing up a bit. There is a part near the beginning where Strephon is surrounded by faeries, a couple of whom poke and prod the half fairy/half mortal. While it was great fun, just generally with all the stimuli it was not easy to keep in mind everything I needed. I was also fairly tired, not having had enough sleep last night after the late evening and having to rush from the ferry (or should I say faery?) to the rehearsal. In sum, it was not the most satisfying of my practices.
Scott has lent me the "Inner Game of Music", which I started to read on the ferry yesterday, and it should prove invaluable. Scott and I are meeting tomorrow to go over some breathing technique and some exercises for body movement on stage.
I managed to squeak in a treadmill workout before the rehearsal this evening, just 25 minutes with 4 intervals: 1 X 4 mins at accelerating pace finishing with 3:00km, 2 x 2mins at 3:00 km pace, and 2.5 minutes at 3:00km pace. Generally the speed felt good, but it didn't feel like I could have done a whole ton more of them.
Yesterday was no training, while Monday I managed half an hour easy on the treadmill and some spinning on the exercise bike.
Harris and the mare
Monday, January 8, 2007It's interesting how often the simplest of stories carry the most moving of messages. So many children's stories of course are based upon simple themes, but ones which represent raw and profound human values. The animated film, Barnyard, which I watched this weekend, is an example - a simple, funny story about leadership. "A strong person stands up for himself, but a stronger one stands up for others," said the father cow to his son.
I've often thought of my own weakness when it comes to standing up for others, although I have done so in small measure before, as have we all. I have never been a parent, but I've no doubt the ability to stand up for one's family is so powerful and natural, that you would sacrifice your life for your children. But what about when wrongs are done to strangers, or people we may not even necessarily like. How often do we let injustices go because there are too many doubts and questions and fears we have, should we stand up for others?
Recently at the Oak Bay rec centre I was on the rowing machine, and an elderly couple sat down on the two machines next to me. They did not speak English to one another, and I had never seen them there before. The man wore open toed sandals, and the attendent, swiftly observant, noticed this immediately and told the man he could not wear open toed shoes since it was too dangerous. The man seemed to understand, but the couple looked at each other, and the man continued to row, having ignored the attendant.
A couple of minutes later, the attendant said, "I cannot have you stay here if you are wearing sandals." The man understood what this meant, muttered something to his partner in his native tongue, and proceeded to leave. The attendant was not entirely disrespectful, but given the circumstances, this enraged me. And yet I was also too weak of resolve to say anything, and I became more enraged that I could not speak up and say, as I wanted to: "why don't you give him a break - tell him that it's ok this time, but next time he must come with closed-toed shoes. Tell him you'll see if there is a pair of shoes somewhere you can lend him, or tell him he can only use the rowing machine and the exercise bike, not the free weights. But why ask him to leave? Surely there is not an overwhelming likelihood that he is going to hurt his feet if he stays on the rowing machine, as that is the stated rationale for not allowing open toed shoes."
It was my intention to row gently, but I started to pull harder, angered largely because of my own ineptitude in saying what I really wanted to say. I quite literally thought of the old cow on the movie Barnyard who said "a strong person stands up for himself, a stronger one stands up for others." The only thing I could onclude was how weak I was for seeing an injustice (at least what I perceived to be one in the circumstances) and doing nothing about it. Granted, neither did the dozen people in the vicinity who saw and heard what was said, but perhaps they agreed with the attendent for whatever reasons they concocted. It is easy to justify a policy by saying simply that it is a policy, without examining the underlying rationale for it and asking whether it really applies in the circumstances.
In any event, the occurrence still troubled me this morning and I wrote to the director and manager of recreation for Oak Bay about the incident. She responded and said their policy was to grant a little more leeway than was apparently exercised by the attendant, and she promised they would review their policies with the staff. So, I felt somewhat better for it, but even so, the review comes after the fact, and the injustice, as minor as it truly was, was not made right at the time - and I still wonder about my own abilities to truly help others, and still can only see myself as a weak man in that respect.
All that aside, yesterday Cliff and I hooked up for 1 hr 15 dark and early. Cliff had come off a 17 hour shift at the firehall just up the street from me and was bonking a bit, and I am still on the tail end of a bug, so an hour and quarter was plenty for both of us. I did hit the gym for some core exercises and light weights (and the rowing machine to warm up). Later I had a rehearsal, where we did three hours of staging - covering only the very beginning. This included my first little solo song, and some dialogue. It's not an easy exercise to remember your body movements, keep the rhythm of a song and remember the words all at once, at least not for me. Fortunately I have most of my speaking lines memorized in addition to my singing parts, so I don't have to be lugging a book around with me.
Today I did a short, easy treadmill run - 25 minutes. I want to keep up the consistency, and as I am in Vancouver for work and have another rehearsal at 7:00pm, I may not get a run in, though I'll try at lunch. Rehearsal tomorrow is for just Stephanie and I for our duets, and the staging and some dance choreography for the last piece. With nearly zero experience in all of this, I'm certainly getting the crash course in everything from the singing to the acting, the body movements, and the dancing - a pretty steep learning curve.
I have to be up early tomorrow for the ferry to Vancouver. I could have taken the floatplane, but I enjoy the ferry and want to have my own car with me, since the meeting is in east Surrey, and it will be just that much easier with my own vehicle.
__________
"In my nine and fifty years I'd never known,
That to call myself a man, for my loved one I must stand.
Now, Harris, fetch thy mare and take us home
Now, Harris, fetch they mare and take us home."
- Stan Rogers
The waxing and waning
Saturday, January 6, 2007
The virus I've been fighting finally seems to be abating. Admittedly, I thought the same a couple of times during this last week, only to wake up each morning clearing my lungs and nasal passages. This infection certainly hit me harder than the cold I had in November, and if this pattern of waxing and waning continues until Monday, I'll have had it for two full weeks, having contracted it shortly after arriving in Cancun.
Today I managed to do an actual run workout that included 2 x 10 minutes at tempo. The effort felt good, and it seemed to help clear my system out. Even so, I noticed in the afternoon that I started to feel a bit congested again, but then it seemed to abate - here again this is the cycle I've been experiencing all week. However, I think after two weeks I have developed a sufficient stock of white blood cells, so I'm not too worried about pushing it a bit, even if I experience short-term apparent relapses.
So, with that in mind, later I did a 25 minute rowing workout that included one 1000m effort at 1:40-1:42 pace. I could tell I was tired for that effort, as I could not have held it for much longer than 1000m. Yesterday, I did a very easy 25 min treadmill run, and a few minutes gentle rowing. On Thursday I also did a half hour treadmill workout, but threw in a small amount of faster paced running, and 15 minutes on the exercise bike. Tuesday and Wednesday I did no training at all.
For our Wednesday rehearsal we did a complete run through of Iolanthe, including all the spoken dialogue. My breathing was wonky and my timing a bit off on the duets in particular, partly due to some residual lung congestion (but also partly because I just don't have the one down pat yet) - but at least my voice was restored, more or less, after I'd basically lost it for a couple of days in Cancun. On Wednesday we also did the photo shoot for the advertising poster, which features Phyllis and Strephon (Stephanie and I) gazing lovingly into each other's eyes.
We have 13 rehearsals this month, and 12 next month, and at least as many in March, including six performances, so they are going to be busy months. I pulled out of a Frontrunners run clinic I had earlier offered to help lead starting next week, as it would have been added stress to an already busy schedule, which also includes some possible interesting transitions at work during this period. Of course I also want to maintain some semblance of run/erg training during this time, so the run clinic had to be sacrificed.
The plan tomorrow is for a longer, easy run with Cliff bright and early, and a rehearsal in the evening, where we begin the staging configurations. Although there is still work to be done ironing out one duet in particular and other improvements here and there, I do know my parts, including the dialogue, well enough to do the staging without the book (I think anyway) - so it should be quite fun.
Just as a final note about my overall experience in Cancun, I would say it isn't the highest on my list of preferred destinations, largely because I would not consider the area very good for training, either for running or cycling. I did see some cyclists while I was there, so cycling happens, but the topography is pancake flat, which can get rather monotonous for cyclists and runners. However, there may be better locations along the Mayan riviera for training, and Cancun could serve as a base.
Here I'm trying here to justify my time share purchase, while wondering how much I will actually want to be in Cancun. But because it is exchangeable, it will have good long-term value, I hope. So, while I would definitely go back to Cancun because it is beautiful and warm, it would largely be for just for a winter break, without any real training objectives during that time. I can certainly see spending a couple of weeks at the resort there just doing some of my usual things, like painting and writing with an ocean view to accompany me and warm air and blue skies outside, and not necessarily worrying about doing a lot of other traveling around either. In any event, we'll see whether the time share becomes worth it or not.
Cancun wrap-up Part II
Tuesday, January 2, 2007As I was saying in my last post, the taxi driver seemed to misinterpret a question I had asked. Soon after posing my question, he began to accelerate. The speed limit on the road to the airport was 70km/hr and about 20km away from my hotel. It was not long before I noticed, with a slight shift of my eyes to the left but no turning of the neck, that we were hitting 140km/hr, deftly threading the spaces between vehicles.
"I get you there in cinquo minutos!" he said, holding the fingers of his left hand outstretched, his right hand on the wheel.
"Yes," I replied, nearly shouting above the roar of wind that rushed in from his open window, and as the speedometer topped out at 145km/hr. "We are making good time!"
Moving backward in time, prior to my exciting taxi ride, I finally managed to rent a bicycle from a little car/bike rental not far from the main disco strip. There was no quick-release on the bike seatpost, and between the shopkeeper and myself applying near herculean efforts to twist the rusted seatpost a little higher, we managed to raise the post to a rideable height - still a bit low, I realized when I finally set on my way, but I only had the heart to return once to ask him to pull out his monkey-wrenches again.
So on my merry way I ventured out to the ruins of El Rey, about 10km up the main road past the resort strip. El Rey is a small set of ruins, compared to Chichen Itza, for example, but impressive nonetheless. The iguana in the area scampered around like insects. Afterward I ventured out further still, but found no interesting side roads before it was necessary to return the bike and begin final preparations for departure.
Backward in time further still, to the night before the day of my departure. Originally I had it in mind that I would let loose again on the dance floors of Cancun discotheques. Senor Frogs was my target. But owing to the congestion in my lungs, I thought better of it, and instead discovered the movie, the Girl with the Pearl Earring was on television, followed by The Girl in the Cafe. These great films held my attention to the conclusion of my evening before the lights went off and sleep carried me out of my last full day in Cancun.
__________
Some photos:
Gourds at the shops in Isla Mujeris
In Cancun and area there are many stray dogs. These awoke from their slumber when I stood nearby watching them. I have never seen such a collection of sad eyes before.
Beautiful plates in the shops of Isla Mujeris
Significant only because I took this photo from an overpass, likely the second highest point in Cancun.
The amazing pyramid of Chichen Itza.
The jaguar clutches a human heart: one of many stunning reliefs at Chichen Itza.
The crumbling dome of the astronomical observatory.
Aramigo paceline.
View from the cheap seats.
Crossing paths.
Like babies, locals pass away the travel time.
Sun breaks through on my last morning in Cancun.
The oceans of the region are famous, I have learned, for their many blue hues and purity.
An ancient tree.
Only on close inspection can this glyph be seen...
...inside this structure at the ruins of El Rey.
The old contrasts with the new.
Iguana near the ruins of El Rey abound in the dozens.
A pictorial of Cancun is not complete without one shot of the calm before the storm in party central.
Cancun Wrap-up Part I
Tuesday, January 2, 2007Part I of the Cancun Wrap Up
Arriving in Vancouver from Cancun late on New Years Eve, I rang in the new year in a Richmond hotel, before finally proceeding home to Victoria yesterday.
The world is shrinking, becoming denser, more tightly woven. When I arrived in Cancun on the 24th, I wondered what the chances were that I would run into someone I knew while there. I concluded that the chances were small, but not zero. Cancun is a popular destination, and there could well be people there I know. But even if such acquaintances were somewhere in Cancun at the same general time that I was, what would the chances be that our paths would intersect at some mutually travelled location? Smaller still, it seems.
Almost seven days passed and no such chance meetings occurred. That was until I arrived at the airport to check in for the return home. Navigating my way to the Skyservice airline - line number 212, I was told - as my eyes shifted from the airline name on the TV screen to the end of the queue where I would wait, approaching me was Tom from Victoria. We recognized each other immediately, no double-take as there sometimes is for people you see out of context. It was merely a familiar "Tom!" and "Hugh!", as though we were crossing paths on the streets of Victoria. As it turned out I was immediately next in line to Tom and Debbie, both of whom had been in Cancun for two weeks.
Oddly, the last time our paths intersected, I was in the seat immediately beside Tom and Debbie at the Cinecenta at UVic. Even then, after the movie had finished, Tom said jokingly, "See you at the next one! We won't need to phone each other first."
A couple of minutes either way, and I could easily have not seen Tom at the airport: it is a large airport. The precision of that time was faciliated by the fast driving cabbie who got me to the airport three hours ahead of departure, much farther ahead of schedule than I needed to be.
The driver, with spotty English, seemed to misinterpret a question and comment I had made: "Do all taxi drivers drive fast here?" I asked. "I've noticed an interesting clustering phenomenon where cab drivers drive substantially faster than the rest of the traffic and tend to agglomerate in clusters. I've been wondering why that is. Is this clustering due to the fact they all drive fast, tending by some self-organizing principle to end up near each other?" Actually, in truth I only asked the first question, but I was thinking the rest as I spoke!
