Got Some

Just catching my breath a little from a busy day of soccer-related activities. I actually need to hit the hay around 10 tonight because I'm getting up at 5 a.m. tomorrow. Every year I volunteer to help out at the Nahant 30K. Last year, I got totally soaked because it poured the whole time and it looks like it'll be that way again tomorrow. Lovely.

So as much I felt pretty good running Reach the Beach last weekend, I was pretty sore for a few days afterward. Ended running Tuesday, skipping hockey Wednesday because my legs were really tight, and running Thursday, Friday and today. I'm still toying with the idea of running a half marathon this fall. One possibility is the Manchester Half on November 1. We'll see.

I finally finished Infinite Jest this week, only two days after the Infinite Summer deadline. Not bad: 1079 pages in three months. Given everything I had going on and the usual glacial pace of my reading, it was more than I could have hoped for. Even better, I really enjoyed the book. David Foster Wallace wrote it in 1996 and foresaw a lot of stuff, including the corporatization of America, our increased dependence on pharmaceuticals and the use of entertainment to calm and distract the masses. An amazing read. The group has already planned its next group read: Bram Stoker's Dracula for the month of October. I'm going to skip that because I have a stack of books on my nightstand I need to get to, but I expect to join them to read the next book, Roberto Bolano's 2666, in January. Having the deadline and reading the discussion really helps push me to keep reading when normally I would just blow it off.

Since Apple rolled out iTunes 9 recently, I've been enjoying the Genius function, which creates mixes from your iTunes collection based on individual songs you select. Today, I used David Bowie's "DJ" as a jumping off point and Genius created a great mix that included this classic:

Not Tomorrow

Checking in on the night before I head up to NH for Reach the Beach. I feel ready to run. I did back-to-back 5-milers yesterday and today and skipped hockey tonight so I wouldn't injure myself before the big event. I'm actually planning to go outside in a little while to try running with my headlamp just to see what it's like. I picked up some munchies and beverages after work today: some salty stuff like pretzel rods and Wheat Thins, chocolate chip Clif Bars, and two bottles each of Gatorade, Snapple Iced Tea and Coke. There will be plenty of water available, and Deb made a batch of chocolate chip brownies for each van; again, she's a good woman. Have to pack before I hit the hay: three different sets of running clothes for my three runs, a reflective vest, clothes to change into between runs, etc. My legs are in Conway (7.23 miles), Gilmanton (4.3), and Kingston (6.7). The second run is expected to be at around 3:30 a.m., hence the headlamp and reflective vest. Kinda fitting that my final run will take place in the town from which I graduated high school. Heading up to Newburyport by 5 p.m. tomorrow, where we'll get picked up by our van and then go to NH. Our team, the Van Down by the River, doesn't actually start running until 12:20 p.m. Friday. I'll be posting Twitter updates when I can.

Bring it on home...

• Big brawl last night in the Jays-Yanks game. After the Jays teed off on Yankees pitching, two Jays were hit by pitches and Jays reliever Jesse Carlson threw a pitch behind Jorge Posada, which triggered a series of events leading to a benches-clearing donnybrook. Nice to finally see a response from the Jays, who were hit by several pitches during the last series with NY without retaliating. Hey, when your team is 30 games back, you need something to cheer for.
• The Leafs played their first exhibition game of the season tonight against Boston, a 3-2 loss. NHL Network carried the game, so I watched parts of it and was impressed with some of the rookies including Nasem Kadri, Victor Stalberg and Tyler Bozak. Hope to see them all as top 6 forwards someday. Hope springs eternal, right?
• Infinite Summer comes to a close next Monday and I'm currently on p. 885 of Infinite Jest, which means I have less than 100 pages to go. I expect I'll get a fair amount of reading done in the next two days while I'm killing time between runs in RTB, so hopefully I'll have the book finished on time. I'm impressed at my progress. The next book the group is tackling is Bram Stoker's Dracula, but I'm not sure if I'll join in. I've got plenty of other books already gathering dust on my nightstand that I need to dig into.

Got Nuffin

As we get ready to make our first trip to Toronto in six years, my mind is squarely focused on my beloved Jays and Leafs. On the one hand, the Jays have been struggling for the last several weeks and now there are rumblings that they're considering trading staff ace/savior of the franchise/best pitcher in baseball Roy Halladay. What? Some of my Red Sox-lovin' friends are already imagining the Sox starting five with Halladay in it. Not so fast, says Richard Griffin of the Toronto Star. I hope he's right. Halladay's a free agent after next season, so certainly there's concern in the organization whether they'll be able to afford to keep him, but that doesn't mean he needs to be dealt now. The plan all along supposedly has been to build the team for a run next season; it ain't happening without Roy.

As for the Leafs, things are actually looking up for the lovable losers. GM Brian Burke has been busy in the offseason, beefing up the club with the additions of d-men Mike Komisarek, Francois Beauchemin, and Garnet Exelby and forward Colton Orr. And he landed Swedish free agent (but NHL-untested) goalie Jonas "Monster" Gustavsson this week to back up Vesa Toskala. The Leafs still need plenty of offensive help, and Burke will likely deal Tomas Kaberle and one or two others to that end. They're already going to be much tougher to play next season, which is a step in the right direction.

Our T.O. trip starts on the 19th. I'm hoping to catch a couple of Jays games while we're in town, hopefully one of which will feature Halladay. We're still sorting out the particulars, but it should be fun.

I'm a pretty healthy guy, but I have been struggling of late with eye infections, specifically in my right eyelid. It went on for a few months earlier in the year and appeared to be under control, but now it's back, along with a little pink-eye action. It's farkin' annoying. I can't wear contacts, so I have to wear my old glasses playing hockey and running. I feel like one of the Hanson Brothers, with a Terminator-esque red right eye. Right now, the course of action is lots of hot compresses and antibiotic drops. I'm hoping this crap clears up before we go on vacation, but with my luck, it probably won't.

Infinite Summer update: I've been pretty diligent in reading at least a few pages a day. I'm up to p. 130 as of this typing. There's a lot to absorb. I'm trying to read it during regular waking hours, as opposed to just before I go to bed, because there's a lot of nodding off/re-reading the same sentence over and over again at that point. Deb kindly ordered me the paperback from Barnes & Noble so I don't have to lug the monstrous hardcover edition I took out of the library everywhere I go. Good woman, that one.

Say hey:

• So it was hard to escape the whole Michael Jackson tribute concert thing yesterday. While I was at the ophthalmologist's office, I caught a bunch of it on TV. My take on the whole thing is, he certainly earned a tribute concert as one of the biggest performers of our generation, but do we really need round-the-clock coverage of every last detail? The memorial ended up costing LA $1.4 million; I'm sure there's plenty of cash lying around in bankrupt California right now. I'm ready to hear about what the hell is going on in the real world.
• I've spent a few hours this week checking out eMusic's new offerings from the Sony (Columbia/Epic/RCA, et al) major label conglomerate. I've been a longtime subscriber to eMusic for its wide selection of indie labels, DRM-free MP3s and relatively inexpensive pricing. It was once $10/month for unlimited downloads, which was awesome but really made no sense from a business standpoint. A few years ago, eMusic went to tiered monthly pricing; I've been doing the $14.99/65 download plan. Well, starting next month that price will get you only a little more than half the current number, down to 37 downloads a month. It's still cheaper than Amazon or iTunes, so I'll stick around for the time being. But in addition to losing its indie cred, eMusic has made other changes that are pissing off its longtime subscribers. I understand that the company feels it needed to make this move to survive, but it's too bad that it's squandering a lot of the goodwill it had earned over the years.
• Got to admit I was surprised to see that Sacha Baron Cohen wasn't in character as Bruno for his appearance on Letterman last night. Especially since he came out in full Bruno regalia for his Conan spot a few weeks ago. No doubt Letterman wasn't in the mood to play along, whereas Conan had to deal with Bruno's crotch in his face. Whatever the case, I don't think I'd ever seen an interview with Cohen as himself and he was quite charming and funny and dare I say, normal. Maybe Cohen was playing to Dave's older, perhaps not quite as gay-tolerant audience.

What We Know

Woo hoo, another short week! Almost makes up for this constant stream of crappy weather. This is the worst month of June in terms of weather in recent memory. Somebody told me today that it has rained 25 of the 29 days this month. Damn.

So I was supposed to run 15 miles on Saturday as my week 2 long run in my 16-week marathon training plan. Last week, I was supposed to do 13 and only did 10. This weekend, once again I just didn't have the energy or the desire to do 15; my body felt fine, but the will wasn't there. I ended up doing 10 miles in very humid weather and struggled to get through it. As I was trudging along, I came to the conclusion that I just didn't want to fight this fight for the rest of the summer. If I can't get fired up to do my long runs in the first two weeks, how am I going to be eight or 10 weeks in? As a result, I've decided not to run a fall marathon. Fortunately, I hadn't signed up for Maine yet. The seeds of this were planted during last week's run when I thought that maybe I'd train for a month and see how I felt, but now I think I don't even want to get that far into it. My right IT band is still pretty tight from running Boston and there's no sense making it worse. I still have Reach the Beach to train for in September, and I'll probably run a half-marathon or two in addition to that. And I'll do some shorter races this summer and recharge the batteries. I still enjoy running, but I wasn't enjoying the long runs. I can shoot for a marathon again next spring.

I've begun an endurance event of another kind: Infinite Summer. Participants are endeavoring this summer to read the late David Foster Wallace's 1996 magnum opus Infinite Jest. It's sort of the War and Peace of modern times in that it is an intimidatingly long (1100 pages), critically praised novel that many folks may have purchased back when it came out but never made it all the way through. I never picked it up back then, but I've always wanted to tackle it, so I figured why not now? Infinite Summer runs from June 21 to September 21, just like the real summer, but I was unable to procure a copy of the book until Saturday. I had hoped to buy a copy but the local Barnes and Noble was all out, so I got it from the library. It's the hardcover edition and is a beast to carry around; I might pick up the paperback at some point just for convenience sake. At any rate, I'm about 50 pages in and I'm diggin' it. The contest calls for you to read about 75 pages per week, and the Infinite Summer blog features interesting essays from particpants. I've been struggling to make time for reading lately, so this will force me to do it.