rickie rambles randomly

So many miles
Those days are gone
You’re still alive!
And after so,
So many miles!
- Sarah Slean, “So Many Miles”

The first line of that chorus (above) rang in my ears through most of the run. I looked up the lyrics when I got back, and it just seems so fitting.

16 weeks of training culminated in 21.1 kilometres through Strathcona, downtown, Stanley Park, the West End, and Yaletown. Here’s how the morning unfolded (UPDATE: Link to the route map, in case you wanted to follow along):

• 03:59: My alarm clock wakes me. I crawl out early enough that I didn’t need the backup alarm on my iPhone.
• 05:55: Walk out the door to catch the first bus heading downtown.
• 06:30: Arrive early enough to see off the marathon walkers.
• 06:40: 20 minutes of warm-ups, and I was already starting to sweat.
• 06:55: Officially join the horde at the start line.
• 07:03 (timer starts at 0:00): I cross the start line.

• 7:00 (7 minutes in): I turn on to the viaduct, and the sweat has already started.
• 15:00: The crowd is still thick along Prior Street.
• 21:00: Three runners pause to catch a bird that had something caught in its feet. The passing runners cheer as the bird is allowed to fly freely.
• 25:00, 35:00, 80:00, 110:00: DJs along the route blare out electronica from turntables. There’s nothing better than rave music on a Sunday morning. It did give me a boost, though.
• 40:00: Spectators were cheering a couple of girls wearing bunny ears. I had seen them a few minutes earlier, but at this point I noticed their stuck-on bunny tails.
• 53:00: I started to feel little twinges on my knee. Shouldn’t be enough to slow me down:
• 71:00: Halfway through! Could be on pace for 2 hours, 20 minutes.
• 85:00: Started the punishing push up to Prospect Point.
• 90:00: Still pushing up to Prospect Point.
• 94:00: Passed Prospect Point, but it still looked like we were heading uphill.
• 98:00: Did my usual one-minute walk after 10 minutes of running, which was kind of hard during a downhill.
• 102:00: Passed 15-kilometre mark. I could still make 2h20.
• 120:00: The president of my company (a runner himself) was handing out water in front of English Bay Beach. He had told me that he would be volunteering there, so it was no surprise to me.
• 130:00: The final mile, a crawl up Granville under the bridge.
• 135:00: Still in the middle of Yaletown, but I’ve been pushing since I left Stanley Park.
• 138:30: Made the final turn, with the finish line in sight.

• 09:23 (139:49 by my watch, but it should be close to the chip attached to my shoe): Crossed the finish line, just under the 2h20 I had been on pace to finish.
• 09:45: After de-stretching, I headed inside BC Place for the usual post-race eating fun, but I passed it completely and ended up in the corral on the other side. I went back out and in, but gave up and just passed through the gate for the food.
• 10:20: Left with my baggie full of bagels and fruit and walked back to the bus stop.

Quick analysis: The course had distance markers every 5 km, and my watch calculated the splits from those spots. After averaging about 6:50 after 15 km (or 33-34 minutes for 5 km), I picked up the pace and finished the last 6.1 km in under 38 minutes, which allowed me to make the 2h20 pace from the halfway point.

Training summary: After 16 weeks, and including today’s run, I logged a total of 274.6 km.

What’s next: I don’t know, at least in terms of training for anything. But after the requisite week off, I’ll be back pounding the pavement, trying to go three days a week, with a slightly longer one on Saturday. It would be like the training schedule I just finished.

Slightly late posting this, but it was substantially complete when I drafted it 2 weeks ago.

BBC News: Doctor Who heads to the BBC Proms

Doctor Who Prom program

The front page of the BBC Proms site describes it as “the world’s greatest classical music festival”. (For anyone who hasn’t a clue about the Proms, the site has an About page with a history of the festival and photo gallery from last year. Other bloggers’ reactions to combining the Daleks with Debussy, the Sontarans with Saint-Saëns, aren’t very glowing. A lot of it has to do with the continued dumbing-down of the Proms to make it more accessible to the masses. (There is actually one cheeky comment that decries Doctor Who’s dumbing-down by being part of the Proms.) I can’t say anymore about the dumbing-down allegations; before reading about this, I’ve never heard of the BBC Proms.

Wait a minute - that sounds familiar. Oh wait, we Canadians have our own dumb-down row with the changes to CBC Radio 2 and the disbanding of the CBC Radio Orchestra. After my post describing the final phase of the Radio 2 revamp, I’ve been absorbing a lot of reaction in other blogs and in the MSM. While I can understand the CBC’s viewpoint of broadening the network’s programming in order to make Radio 2 more relevant to more Canadians, I just don’t like how the approach to do so was taken. Or maybe my judgment’s being clouded because I’m still smarting that they took away Brave New Waves and Radio 3.

But back to Doctor Who at the Proms. Let me point out that Murray Gold’s compositions for the three completed series so far are very good. “The Cybermen” and “All the Strange Strange Creatures” in particular give that cinematic epic feel to the Doctor Who experience. Some pieces can also stand out quite well on their own, apart from the Doctor Who context. If anything, I think that Gold’s music (especially on the two CD soundtracks for Doctor Who) can be a gateway for listeners to discover other classical music.

I guess one’s dumbing-down is another’s opportunity to expand musical horizons. And it’s not just the supposed hoity-toity who only listen to classical. There is definitely that kind of sensibility among indie hipsters (and you know who you are) who shun anything mainstream. Case in point: Leslie Feist’s indie cred, already given a beating with last year’s iPod ads, is likely considered non-existent after her multiple Juno wins earlier this month. I guess the lesson here is: just cut through the bullshit and listen to whatever moves you.

Gillis is Canucks’ new GM: The one thing that crept into my mind when this was reported Tuesday night is whether Mike Gillis is still Markus Naslund’s agent, and if he still is, the inevitable conflict that will result. Can you imagine Gillis as a one-man negotiation team, crossing the table multiple times as he plays his dual roles? I’m probably in the wait-and-see camp: will he just tinker, or will Gillis go Extreme Makeover: Canucks edition?

Lull between rounds one and two: Before the quarterfinal series started, I did my usual predictions, and I went 6-2. Philadelphia and Dallas managed to win instead. I matched McKenzie’s predictions (he also chose Washington and Anaheim), and beat Maggie’s 5-3. For the semifinals, I’m going with Montreal, Pittsburgh, Detroit and San Jose (and McKenzie copied me here too).

Road hockey: My company holds an annual tournament wherein part of the parking lot is blocked off and two teams face off over the lunch hour. Our department decided to form one team, and we recently played an exhibition match. Most of us are new, and so the others aren’t sure what to make of us. After this game, I’m sure all the other teams know we can be the league doormat, but we just recruited a ringer who has guaranteed us that we will win it all…

Masterpiece Theatre’s Jane Austen run has finished with the 2007 BBC adaptation of Sense and Sensibility. Andrew Davies gives us this version, and from that standpoint, works pretty well. The slightly longer allotted time (about 2.5 hours) for this adaptation gives it a better sense of pacing, at least relative to the other recent offerings in the Austen season.

Going through both parts within the same day (last week’s part 1 via the PVR and this week’s part 2 “live” on PBS’ HD channel - yeah it probably wasn’t HD, but far better quality nonetheless), I really liked the establishing shots of the Devon coastline. And in my mind, I kept thinking of the Ang Lee-directed adaptation from the mid-1990s, or at least in terms of how Margaret and Marianne Dashwood, and to a lesser extent, Edward Ferrars, looked similar in both versions. And I admit not even having watched all of that film.

Sense and Sensibility is probably the Austen novel I had the most trouble getting into. It might be because it was a novel that wasn’t covered in a course’s synopsis, and as such, was the last of Austen’s six novels to be read. But in terms of the plot, I think Davies covered it well for this adaptation. At least, I followed the story and figured out who was “sense” and who was “sensibility”, which could speak well toward Davies’ attempt to write an adaptation that can placate the Janeites yet remain accessible to the casual viewer. 8/10

Did I miss something? That’s what I get when I watch something on the PVR a week after it aired. The PVR’s description for last week’s jPod episode had a prom and the departure of Carol, but that obviously was not the episode I watched. I remember the CBC not airing jPod two weeks ago (March 21), replacing it with figure skating (?), but with NHL playoffs fast approaching, I’m guessing the prom episode never aired. Of course I watched tonight’s finale. Clearly, jPod was meant to continue beyond its initial run. There wasn’t even an attempt (I’m not sure it would have been possible) to re-shoot a coda to tie up the loose ends neatly. Needless to say, with that cliffhanger ending, I am optimistic that there can be an attempt to resurrect jPod for a second season. Any takers?

I’m sure that’s what some people would have thought when they’ve finished watching this on A&E or the film version starring Gwyneth Paltrow that came out around the same time. Clearly, Clueless was still fresh in my mind when I settled in to watch Kate Beckinsale as Emma, the sixth of seven films in Masterpiece Theatre’s Complete Jane Austen. My sister and I were figuring out which characters in Emma translated into Clueless. We observed that one of them that didn’t seem to cross over was Jane Fairfax (possibly because the secret engagement thing can’t work in a high-school context). We also mocked that secret engagement between Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax (played by Olivia Williams, who eventually played Austen in Miss Austen Regrets), at least in terms of how the film gave subtle hints of that before it was finally revealed. Example: Emma and Frank were flirting and talking about Jane, who was seated across and away from them. There was one shot with Frank catching a glance at Jane; it’s framed in such a way that it’s just the two of them in shot, with Jane slightly out of focus.

I liked Kate Beckinsale’s portryal of Emma. She exhibits that emotional range that would be required for Austen heroines, from flirting with Frank to the abrupt surprise of Elton’s proposal, and then with Knightley’s dressing-down at Box Hill. I think she really was at her element in her scenes with Knightley. There is that almost-familiarity of being siblings-in-law, but I cringed a bit when he told her about holding her as a baby… before they kissed. Overall, this Emma’s good; there’s a lot to recommend it, and a good choice for Jane Austen City Limits. 9/10

This is my progress since the last update:

• Week 4: 2 runs, 13.94 km (longest: 1o.46 km)
• Week 5: 3 runs, 18.20 km (longest: 10.89 km)
• Week 6: 2 runs, 15.26 km (longest: 12.01 km)
• Week 7: 2 runs, 18.07 km (longest: 14.62 km)
• Week 8: 3 runs, 21.98 km (longest: 14.67 km)
• Week 9: 3 runs, 15.37 km (longest 8 km)
• Week 10: 2 runs, 20.10 km (longest: 15.69 km)

I knew it had happen sometime, because when you run regularly, it’s not a matter of if you get injured, but when. In the last week, I’ve been hampered with a bum knee that just appeared out of nowhere. My chiropractor assessed it and told me to take trial runs to see how it feels. Those were the week 10 runs; the knee was fine, but there’s still some pain. I’m going back to the chiropractor later this week and see what he says. Six weeks to go until the race; hopefully the worst of it is over.

Image: BBC Doctor Who site

The date’s not exactly confirmed but UK viewers should see Doctor Who series 4 starting in April, so it’s not that far away. Viewers in the USA will get their fix through SciFi later in April.

Realistically, the CBC could show this in the fall, and if they are paying any attention, will pair it up with Torchwood series 2 for a double-bill. But then again, I’m not holding my breath for that to happen.

UPDATE, 03-22-2008, 2240 PDT: The trailer aired on TV for the first time (on BBC One), but apparently had been played in movie houses long before that. And it uses “All the Strange, Strange Creatures”, the best piece of orchestral music in my head this month!

When I first heard about the novel by Karen Joy Fowler, I was automatically intrigued. Sure, it would make for a short-lived book club if that was its singular raison d’etre, as Prudie would put it. And I’m sure such Austen book clubs have existed, but I like Fowler’s twist of having the lives of the six club members parallel a portion of the Austen novel they were assigned. Some of it doesn’t feel contrived or an unnecessary tack-on to the character’s back-story, but it imbues the Austen aura on the novel as a whole. I also liked the Austen novel summaries and quotations both praising and criticising Austen in the last 200 years found in the back of the novel.

As for Robin Swicord’s film adaptation, I was having trouble distinguishing Sylvia from Allegra in some scenes when the book club gathered. I’m not sure if Swicord removed a decade from Jocelyn’s, Sylvia’s, Bernadette’s, and Grigg’s ages compared to the novel, but this is probably a better selling point to promote the film. (Who would then portray the age-appropriate characters if that were the case?) The flashback sequences were handled well, even if in dialogue. The flashbacks involving Prudie and Grigg would have been ones I wanted to see, had there been time for them.

Overall, I liked the novel, and I liked the film to the extent that certain liberties have been taken for the adaptation (not unlike, for example, the versions shown on Masterpiece Theatre so far, P&P 95 exempted). Novel: 8/10, Film: 7/10

Discovered via Globe Hockey via Canucks Hockey Blog:

Canucks Playoff Picture. All 30 teams are there, as well as other sports. Sportscentre showcased (who else?) the Leafs’ probability to make the playoffs, and thankfully the numbers don’t lie on that front.

Talk about a roller-coaster season… I had rolled my mouse over the low-point, that November 1 match against Nashville, which I attended and, against my better judgment, stayed to the hideous end. But don’t despair just yet. If you follow to the bottom of that page, and this is where TSN got its numbers for that Sportscentre graphic on Thursday night. Even if the Canucks can manage a 6-4-1 record (under .600) in their final 11 games, the chances of making the playoffs are 90%. Go 8-2-1 (.773) and better, and a playoff berth is all but guaranteed. I’m impressed with the methodology for the “What If?” section, as it simulates all remaining games many times over to determine the probabilities.

Needless to say, the Canucks better find scoring, and soon. Luongo can only take the team so far, and they seem content to let him steal games for them. But a combination of offense and defense will take you far in the playoffs.