e-race this, end of summer -- what the __________?

how can it be - that the time of year my teacher friends deplore is already here? I must agree it is not my favourite long weekend of the year, however one mustn't stew over things one cannot affect. Let's hope the sun stays with us until tuesday!

so I have to give the race in Parry Sound last weekend a mixed review... nice setting, decent course, but a little disorganized and chaotic. on the first run we went totally the wrong way -- someone, a disagreeable teenager probably, changed the direction of an arrow on a sign about 2 km into the run --- and we ended up on the bike course much to the surprise of a policeman, whom I think was quite unfamiliar with the idea of triathlon and / or duathlon. He then managed to point the lead group of 7 runners (me included) even further the wrong way, of course by this point there was no right way so it really didn't matter which way he pointed... much confusion, and whistling and then we all turned around and I went hard all the way to transition to try to gain some of the spots I had lost... so this caused me to have a bit of trouble for the first 5k on the bike, although I did pass a couple of people who proceeded to draft behind me... still I never felt comfortable on the bike, went hard but seemed to lack the lung capacity that was needed (perhaps the sore throat of the past week had a bit of influence). anyway it was a long (26k instead of 25) undulating course, very windy too, and onto a fairly busy highway that wasn't closed to traffic. one close call but nothing to cause me such great anxiety. Len Gushe passed me just before the hill at the turnaround, and I actually almost saw him go by me. silver bullet! envy!

the second run was only 3 km and I ran decently but not great... there was a guy about 300m ahead of me out of transition and I slowly began catching him on the out leg. then I saw Sam and the other 2 leaders coming back from the turnaround. when i reached the t/a point (located at the bridge where we went the wrong way on the first run) the sign had been blown over, yet "duathon turnaround" was still visible --- I was quite surprised by this because the person I was chasing and the 2 others who were inbetween had not returned on the path. I said to myself, "how did they miss this?"and started heading back to the finish. I finished 4th overall but didn't push the last half since there was no one ahead of me or behind me, and it was only a training race... and I didn't feel all that great. But in two weeks there will be no excuses or reasons for not pushing it.

'train on' mes amis --- MIKA!

running on viruses, powers, and the artificer's light...

okay, okay, if it's not the heat, the air conditioning, or the threat of rotating... blackouts, then it's some worm or worms flowing through our network, infecting laptops mainly; but now it all seems somewhat under control. Another weekend, another race... down-town Parry Sound on Saturday, so if you're nearby (drinking at the cottage say) come and watch us race - starts at about 430 pm.

To keep you occupied until then here is a snippet (sp?) of prose (poetry?) about my tuesday running group experience...


High Park Intervals

A summer Tuesday without rain and we gather at the edge of parking-lot sunshine, twenty or so runners waiting to get away… The people ambling towards the park restaurant just look, walk — and look, and that's what we enjoy: silence, envy?
Our workout begins with most of us talking, brief reminders of how we are. The trails, this night, are warm, soft, still humid, yet two of our women scold themselves over what they'd chosen for lunch, then my own Chicken Curry enters the conversation and I feel all the evidence of my living gets stored within my bowels. Above us, the clouds we had thought disappeared return — though not as violent, and a yellow haze looms in the city, and somewhere in our pack a pair of asthmatic lungs is already beginning to burn. We ascend the hill towards the one-way road and there is a baseball diamond bordering a bikini-clad pool. The pitcher has long white socks — is a SAINT, the batter taps his shoes, steps out of the batters' box, and behind me one of the men says, I hear endurance athletes take longer to reach orgasm. And another one asks, is that good?
The hill seems shorter on the way down and I don't bring water because I once trained with an Ethiopian named Yifter. We reach our grassy clearing where it seems a perpetual picnic is held, and there's always one kid who wants to run beside us. There's always a parent shouting the name of Ashley, Nigel, or Cody, and the kid looks at us and says I can run faster than all of you.
In the clearing we rest before the true workout begins. I don't know what time it is because I lost my watch on the long weekend, yet time doesn't seem to matter as much as my heart-rate — 160 after the first hill. I know this because I've felt it many times: it doesn't matter how many miles you've gone it's how many more there are 'til you race. And I remember I haven't been as focused as I used to, and I haven't been thinking about any philosophy, god, or church: I haven't been to a cathedral or synagogue in seven years. That was in Worms and the woman who brought me there is now married and living in Chicago. (My brother went to Chicago in June for the US Open, yet some people say, golf isn't a sport!)
I hear Rachel breathing hard behind me: we circle "the lake" in tandem though it is actually a pond — robust, grey. But tonight I won't let a woman go past me, and at the end of our loop I am slightly ahead, yet my arms are heavy, lumbering, and the coach says relax your shoulders. Then we rest again for three minutes, and sweat drifts across every ounce of our skin — and everyone but me seems to need water. The coach whistles again, once for us to go fast, twice — slow, and I think this must look funny to anyone watching and I wonder if a dog trainer would be impressed. At the end of it all a woman on a bicycle asks us where "the restaurant" is, three of us point to a road going up and she mutters, the hill, the hill…
Our coach says he once ran a final 300 in 40, then he talks about Yifter's finishing speed, and no one seems to understand how fast he really was, and no one would understand him because he only speaks sentences in Amharic. Yifter the Shifter says words like fast, fast! and faster! And I remember he once tried to tell me there are no blueberries in Ethiopia: he laughed and I didn't know what he'd meant, yet I assume we've all had fresh blueberries and ice-cream, and we've all smoked hash in a concert parking lot. We've all banged our heads and headed home without knowing…
The subway train is air-conditioned and my wet shorts are soaking the seat, a man with a clenched hand gets on at Keele Street and the skyline of a city at sunset disappears. The man walks by me with his fist close to my right eye, stops, and grabs the railing. At the last tunnel there is an exit, a staircase and another man sleeping in the orange light. Upstairs, the pizza is dry, not as hot as it should be — and I eat as I walk along a side street because the beggars and fire-trucks are too noisy on Bloor.
And I wonder why Milosz didn't write: a long row of runners' crawls along a weed-lined path. And I wonder why a woman in a green blazer is carrying two car tires out the back door of a frat house, I wonder if she has a big enough trunk. Then I see my apartment building on the corner of St. George Street — I see someone standing at the front entrance.

when we last visited here...

there was no State of Emergency and I had suggested it was just another day in the Big Smoke... well how wrong was that? 4:12 and... poof, if you live in North America then you know the story --- the computers went down (instead of 'the lights went out'). So now I'm assuming everyone has survived Power Outage 2003, and that Monday has brought back some form of normality, i.e. lights on, air conditioners alive and well, appliances running, computers ticking, and everyone doing their consumer-y best to conserve energy. yeah right. I must admit the outage had little effect on me, other than giving me a friday off... an extra afternoon at the beach as it were.
Firstly I walked home (only 9 minutes from where I work) thinking the outage was only a local one but as I passed each non-functioning stoplight and building without power I figured, hey something's going on... so I called my parents and they reported that their power was also out and they live 2 hours outside of t-dot. I then tried calling other people but the phone network was overloaded and I wasn't able to get through. Once I reached my apartment I decided that the best thing to do was to go for a run, thursday is usually my long slow one... very dedicated don't ya think! There were lots of people on the sidewalk by this time and they looked at me a little strangely as I passed by them... the only other runners I saw at this time was the UofT dudes at Churchill Park. It was very hot and humid and not the best hour of my running life but then it didn't need to be since I was racing on Sunday. I arrived home to find the lights still out, had a quick and cold shower and went outside to see even larger streams of people on the sidewalks, and lots of other people gathering on patios drinking themselves into a different state of emergency... I suppose that isn't such a bad way of coping since I've heard it took some people over 5 hours to get home during the rush. Anyway, I managed to find dinner at the Cora Pizza - they were still making some za despite the oven-y heat in their little eatery... went home, tried calling a few people but they were either not there or I could not get a connection. Fell asleep amid the peace of non-electricity and woke up at eleven p.m. when my little but effective fan came on (telling me I had power again)... isn't that a rough evening?~}

still essential even though I didn't have to work on Friday, Mika

another day another workout...

yesterday - went to the AC / Benson pool at about 445, it was crowded, about 8 people in the fast lane, 3 of whom shouldn't have been there --- managed to avoid all the obstacles and put in approx. 2700m some quick, some kick, some long stuff, (with lots of rest since I'm racing this weekend), then went upstairs for an hour of spinning, started slow but felt great by the end...
so yeah, another day another workout... what would I do without it?

stock and awe

question ---- did you ever buy Nortel? or should I say have you ever bought Nortel?
have you averaged down, or did you get in at the bottom? It's still a risky play, they say.

I won't tell you what I've done... unless I end making some doo.

revelations?

early on a Wednesday morning... would one expect something so divulging, perhaps not! But today walking along the fashionable (i.e. urbane) side of Bloor Street I encountered 3 people (of varying colour, persuasion, etc.) who were "asking" for money, I wouldn't say begging ---- since holding an old coffee cup at an angle to one's belly and glancing at you without saying anything as you pass by seems to me to not constitute begging ---- Now being the bearer of a somewhat social conscience I contrast this with the friends in my training group from last night, who arrive in nice cars and / or with fancy bikes (I have one too so this isn't a critique on anyone who is either successful or has money to spend on things they will use), and as we warm-up by jogging we talk about travelling to far-off races, or going looking for overpriced houses in this city... or adding this or that component to an already brilliant bike... and in comparing "us" to the person who is standing alone on a mostly deserted stretch of sidewalk --- glazed by the dawn glare of office buildings, i think back to the first time I was in Poland shortly after the fall of communism and most of the younger people kept telling me what a good thing it would be to have people working for themselves so they could spend their own money and make their own future, and the older people weren't as sure because even though they didn't like a lot of what communism stood for they felt that everyone was treated the same, and had the same things, benefits, health care, and were always looked after in some way by the state (though "taking the vodka" wasn't necessarily a most glorious means), and I don't remember as many street people in that first visit as I saw in my last... and now, since I was there in 2000, I know how different Poland is compared to the first time I was there, and the changes seem so much bigger than those in my own country, city, town, and yet the similarities of Canada to Poland are becoming nearer, and I think and I tell myself, "yes it is getting better, it must be getting better..."

apologies for any disjointedness but I am also working as "we" speak. carry on, live well, be kind - mika!

idea for a poem

crow, at st. theresa's track, saturday afternoon

here, grass burning without smoke, oval lungs,
and filters of humid air descending into town.

on three sides - homes, music, bottles, and smoke
of another kind, nostrils reeling...

so that is the beginning, not bad for a monday morning: but where does the crow come in... hmmmm, yes appropriate question. perhaps you'll see this poem build, mould itself, or perhaps it will end up in the landfill of recycled ideas... with the seagulls... au revoir mes amis!

mysterious disappearance

So where I have been? Off gallavanting with another blog? Not exactly. The long weekend (extended by vacation days and charity golf) saw me doing what I like to do most... running, biking, swimming, partying, beaching, sailing, partying, beach volleyball-ing, and visiting my favourite lake / cottage. Now reality (as much reality as there is on Friday morning) has set in and I'm working on many things besides being here working... my website (where you might have come from), my poems, my manuscript, and a couple of new story ideas... one of which stems from how I lost my watch on Friday afternoon ---- a short lapse into dimwittedness. Alors, time waits for no one: clever or otherwise. Later - bro, sis, mq

the tour de france is over, so what will occupy my time?
in case you didn't know i am an avid cyclist, runner, and somewhat
of an avid swimmer. that would make me a triathlete. it's monday
and for some unforeseen reason i am quite energetic and upbeat
today... maybe because it's time to return to training, to find that
motivation again... mes ami!

salut, mq

cooler than ph*k?

yeah yeah this is so cool!
sometime soon i'll have to put up some verse
and then perhaps you will see it morph... into something
like a poem, but right now it's time to update my pages.

address to follow, mq

saturday afternoon, toronto, mixture of rain, high winds, and vicissitudes...
time to log my first entry. welcome!
LA sealed the tour today... he is the best, yet I seem to be cheering more for Jan. next year I think he'll get him.

salut mq