Tag Archives: run

Articles, Running

Running Playlist Song #3 — Common People

1 Comment

Playlist Song #3
William Shatner — Common People

I admit it: I’m a Trekkie through and through. Back in the day, I saw Vancouver TheatreSports League‘s Star Trick musical no fewer than two dozen times, and wrote a front page story for the WestEnder about it, to boot. I ain’t no fan of the Ferengi, but I’ve wasted more than my share of hours watching TV, movie and fan fiction productions of at least three different Star Trek shows. Hell, ask Chris: I’ve played William Shatner’s Rocket Man over public address systems at college basketball games.

It’s not the cheese factor, though, that brings me to pump William Shatner’s 2004 cover of Pulp’s Common People into my earbuds on the hoof.

Cover of William Shatner - Has Been
William Shatner’s 2004 Has Been is full of surprisingly solid tunes, thanks to imaginative the production of Ben Folds.

Produced by Ben Folds for Shatner’s adventurous album Has Been, this track just plain kicks ass whether you’re at the gym, at the track, or driving the highway. Musically, rhythmically, socially, you name it — Common People is anything but a common track. Shatner delivers an angry fuck-you spoken-word vocal, perfectly set to irritable guitar, simplistic keyboard and indie rock drums. Folds blends Joe Jackson’s sublimely whiskeysour vocals into the chorus. Between the three of them, Folds, Jackson and Shatner make us believe they all have been trounced by some uppity rich chick who just wants to slum on the other side of the tracks.

I can’t get into the original Pulp version, musically, but damnation the lyrics here are fantastic. I’m a sucker for writing that tells a complete story effectively; if someone can do that in the context of a pop song, count me in. Jarvis Cocker nails the phenomenon of class tourism so predominant in the 80s and early 90s — think Fight Club for a participatory exploration of hitting bottom. Later, reality shows like Honey Boo-Boo would allow “normal” viewers to point and laugh at those they perceive as less intelligent, less developed, less rich or just less.

“Everybody hates a tourist, especially one who thinks it’s all such a laugh.”

“Laugh along, even though they’re laughing at you and the stupid things that you do because you think that poor is cool.”

Album: Has Been
Release date: 2004
Beats per minute: 178
Subject: Class / Money / Sex /
Content warning: None
Video (Shatner cover):

Video (Pulp original):

Previous songs on the playlist:
Lady Gaga – Poker Face
Gioachino Antonio Rossini – William Tell Overture Finale

 

Articles, Running

Halfway there

Back in March, nearly 300km ago, I wrote that my goal of running a thousand kilometres this calendar was going more smoothly than expected. I also admitted that I’d probably just doomed myself to suffer some serious physical ailment — which turned out to be completely true. Just as the weather started to warm up this spring, I stepped awkwardly in a divot while walking to work, and gave myself a grade three ankle sprain.

It meant nearly 10 weeks of a somewhat sedentary lifestyle. Crutches and a plaster cast, then a walking boot, then a tensor bandage. Very little motion for the left foot. Loads of elevation, icing and compression translated into loads of television, reading and — well, I can’t in all honesty say ‘depression’, but ask my wife, I was mopey and difficult more days than I care to admit.

Continue reading Halfway there →

Articles, Running

Bucket list check marks

2 Comments

I got to make a big, fat check mark on the ol’ bucket list last weekend. No, not the one involving four bronzed goddesses wielding skewers of barbequed Kobe beef, bottles of fine Belgian porter, dewy eyes and pouty lips; I’ll have to save that particular event for another life. Rather, I completed the Vancouver Half-Marathon on Saturday. Considering my downright anti-running attitude as little as a year ago — there may have been comments to the effect of, “unlike those gaunt, neon gear-laden freaks over there, I have absolutely no desire to voluntarily subject myself to jogging distances that have been known to kill people” — this is a major  personal accomplishment of both mind and body.

So far I’ve racked up just over 400km in 2014, well ahead of schedule for my goal of one thousand klicks, despite having several training setbacks for minor injuries (a mild ankle sprain) and illness (two bouts of the flu).

408kmSo what was the BMO event like?

Continue reading Bucket list check marks →

Articles, Running

Sub-60 10km

For the first time since I was a bloody teenager— and let’s be honest, I don’t even know if I did it back then — I ran 10 km in under 60 minutes. While I should probably be all happy about breaking that barrier, I can’t say I enjoyed it very much. It felt a little too much like… I don’t know, work.

309km

I’m now at 309.6 km during this calendar year; that leaves me a shade under 31% complete on the 2014 goal of running 1,000 km. Some quick math tells me I’m about 30 km ahead of schedule despite having missed nearly two weeks with the flu in late March.

#118forBoston

  • Activity: Running
  • Distance: 10 km
  • Duration: 59:06
  • Average Pace: 5:55 min/km
  • Calories Burned: 859
Articles, Running

Running Playlist Song #1 — Poker Face

2 Comments

As a new runner, I need all the help I can get. Here, I’ll talk about the songs on my running playlist and what makes them — and me — tick.

Playlist Song #1
Lady Gaga — Poker Face

Look, I’m no fan of Top 40, but when I’m looking to hoof my lard ass from point A to point B, sometimes I need some motivation. Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, better known as Lady Gaga, happens to put together tunes that get me moving. Comparisons to Madonna are obvious, even trite — Gaga, seemingly a personification of New York ambition, emerged from a Catholic background to manufacture image-based, sexually charged pop music — but even with Born This Way being pretty much a carbon copy of Express Yourself, I find just as much Freddie Mercury in her work as Material Girl.

Poker Face runs at 120 beats per minute, which sites like jog.fm suggests will pull you in at about eight minutes per kilometre, but I find personally that it’s the perfect driving beat for 5:45 klicks.

Album: The Fame
Release date: 2008
Beats per minute: 120
Subject: Cards / gambling
Content warning: Sexual innuendo / repeated use in chorus of profanity (so subtle is Gaga’s insertion of the f-word, however, that the overwhelming majority of radio stations do not use the edited version in their broadcasts)
Video: 

Articles, Running

I don’t like running

Running sucks. There. I said it.

One foot in front of the other, over and over and over again, the endless trudgery of running kilometre after kilometre hypnotises otherwise intelligent people into thinking it’s somehow good for them. But it isn’t. It’s just not. It can’t be.

Running ruins your knees, stresses your back and makes you gaunt & desperate for semi-digested fistfuls of proteinate goo. But it’s not the Walking Dead cosplay that worries me the most. It’s the ice baths. Any activity that inspires a person to immerse their tired, battered lower body into a tub of ice water has to be the work of Satan himself. Come on, people — this is torture we’re talking about.

I hate running. Hate it. Like, with all my soul.
I hate running. Hate it. Like, with all my soul. Related: anyone got some whitening strips? Yeesh.

I started running last summer — irregularly, I’ll admit — as part of my training for our world record-setting Table Hockey Extravaganza. I worked out with the fine folks at Fitness Science Corporation, who offered to make us fit and trim for the attempt. I was fine with the squats, the situps, and the Russian twists. Hell, I even agreed to a regimen of freakin’ burpess. But somehow, evil genius Dr Rob Tarzwell convinced me to run recreationally.

It started innocently enough: “Hey, wanna run 4k after you finish those push-ups?” How could I say no? Look at this face, I dare you.

Rob Tarzwell celebrates his new addiction to setting world records in obscure Canadian pastimes. Photo by Clint Trahan for Pucked in the Head.
Rob Tarzwell celebrates his new addiction to setting world records in obscure Canadian pastimes. Part of his genius is that doesn’t look evil. Photo by Clint Trahan for Pucked in the Head.

Six months later, and I’m training for my first half marathon. My iPhone app (RunKeeper) tells me what to do, and these days I’m putting in well over 20km a week and soaking my stanky tootsies in a demonic arctic tea while reading up on VO2 max and heel strikes. DAMN YOU, TARZWELL!

Just like running, Dr Rob’s evil genius has no discernible beginning or end. It’s eternal, and no matter how hard you fight it, it will beat you into submission and assimilate your ass into the bizarro world of  DAMN YOU, TARZWELL!

I originally thought running might be a cheaper way to exercise than the old trap of unused gym memberships and seasonal beer league registration charges. Need I say it? DAMN YOU, TARZWELL! Money flies out the window, dammit, on neon Coolmax, GU Roctane gel and a rotation of two to three pairs of Mizuno sneakers at any given time, not to mention race fees that include ‘free’ tech shirts but then plop oxygen deprived finishers in the midst of tents and tables full of retailers hawking yet more gear.

Okay, okay. I’m getting fitter and faster. Yeah, I think more clearly and to make sure I’m ready for the next run, I tend to watch what I eat more carefully. But that doesn’t mean I enjoy the rhythm, the fresh air or the fact that compression calf sleeves — no word of a lie — make me feel ten years younger. It certainly doesn’t mean that I’m thankful for that push out the door that bastard gave me last year; in pure Tarzwellian fashion, he doesn’t even run more than twice a week his bad self.

Look, I’ve got to go. RunKeeper just told me I have 6.4km to do tonight. Damn you, Tarzwell.

Running sucks.