Strange Night in Didsbury

Went out to Didsbury Boxing Day to see some friends and listen to a sweet band. It felt good to get out on the open road, which was clear and dry. The band was playing a hotel in center of town, which gradually filled up pretty good, like an annual high school reunion complete with parents and underage kids. Watched pensively from along the brick wall much of the time, chatting lightly. Tried to project an image of boldness, helped along by my stache, which got me some handshakes and impressed a 17 year old relative (who at 6 something looked at least 20) no end. Good people. Tell some funny stories, hear some good ones about girls fighting, am slightly disturbed. Friend disappears, I find out later she is sick from drinking too much. Nights such as these, filled with friends and relatives and nostalgia that may not even belong to you, were made for running away from you. I've been there. Alcohol can help overcome reality, help reconnect to a past that was not yours, and could not be so idyllic as you dream it, but the illusion, however comforting, is hollow, temporary and ends with the bruising reality of vomit and cold air. I head home at 11:45, fairly tired from the holiday crunch. On the way home I see a shooting star that lasts for probably 3 seconds with a small intermittence, pointing down at Calgary. I am still pondering this omen and its potential significance.

Now that's what I call getting the heck outta Dodge...

You heard it hear first pardners, after cowboyin up and writing 5 exams in 5 days I packed my clothes, including my sweet brown suspenders and hockey gear, cleaned the house some for the boys as they is still busy a-writin exams and left Edmonchuk in my dust - good riddance you government/union loving punks! My eyes was bleary from book-learnin, I had a headache and was running on just a bowl of oatmeal, and had taken a few body blows on that last Conflicts exam but I managed to make er down to Cal-grizzy in about four hours on those snowy, wind-blown roads (ain't that bad), to a heapin helping of my Mom's shepherds pie. Yum. My old man and I had us a good chat about the oil business and the stock market and what it means to be a climate sceptic (how people have forgotten that the arguable existence of 'expert consensus' means absolutely nothing to the scientific process is beyond me... I blame our lazy, conformist society and inability to question received knowledge) and how that works in to our heretic Dutch (home of the Anabaptists... temporarily) ancestry (wooden shoes, wooden head, wouldn't listen). I went to bed early, couldn't sleep, finally fell asleep, got up early, tried to lie in bed because it's Saturday and I don't need to get up, said heck no, got up and wrote this.
For everyone in Calgary I'm back and will be hooking up some runs and what not this week so heads up. For everyone in Edmonton I didn't say goodbye to, I ain't good at goodbyes so please accept these early tidings of Holiday Cheer!
Adieu

Two poems and an update

Hello friends, in the spirit of putting it on the line, please see the poems below, one written by Catullus, the other written about a week ago by myself as a bit of an escape from exam prep mode. A big thanks to my friend Jamie Weikum for his encouragement and kind criticism. I'm back to exercising after two weeks off everything (except biking to school) and feeling great. Yesterday was 30 minutes super easy, really focusing on mechanics, followed by some a-skip/march, then some abs/lifting type stuff. Felt super! Listening to some great tunes now as well... I'm the last person on earth to get into MGMT but there you have it I know that this is a flashback to two years ago but whatever. Also, Tears for Fears 'Head Over Heels', what a cool track, this is everything melodramatic and cheesy and awesome about the 80's that I always thought Jason Lindsay was crazy for liking, and now love myself as punishment.

A young cutthroat shivered up the clear stream

I watched, squatting, then standing, shook the water from my hand

Brilliance of red slash on white throat

How will these waters, these mountains mark me?

Grass rustling dry on jeans

Galaxies of flies flit in the dusk

Great riverbank cedars

Cottonwoods speaking of mute Mississippi

A young bear shuffled up a tree

Forest cracking with branches broken by tremendous wrists

Suspended in silence of sinew

The blue sky and dissonant sway of tree

Face to face with my brother across the river

I turn, looking at his feet, repeat his name, back away

Drinking from my hat, the river, golden

Threaded its’ way through strewn boulders

I came back and you were here again

My world stopped, cars filling the ditches

Blizzard propelling me on reckless to you, to death

-Sean van der Lee

Angst

ennui & angst

Consume my days & weeks,

and you have nott written

or done anything to soothe my illness.

I am piqued.

So much for our friendship.

Ah! Cornificius,

a word from you would cure everything,

though more full of tears

than a line from Simonides.

Catullus, trans. Peter Whigham

Another day, another fifty cents

This is an old saying my ol' pardner Greg Properzi espouses. It expresses his worldview perfectly, aged 25 with a wife, practicing law in a small town, gradually buying up a family farm, and looking variously to start up a butcher shop or greenhouse - nothing but hard work, intelligence and getting your hands dirty. Like Dangerfield: I can't get no respect. But at the end of the day, the fact is that I don't want any. I'd rather have a farm and grow my own food and be my own master and be forgotten.
I am taking a week off of exercise. After Stewart my calf was bugging me, but I tried to do a bunch of easy runs, concentrating on foot placement, with a large amount of form work, core, and calf strengthening. Things were going well, and I felt like the range of motion in my ankles was really opening up and that other aspects of form were coming right into line. I am kicking myself for not putting in a regimen of lower leg hops, bounding in all season (not to mention core work and a-march). But the calf was still bugging me in a low level way. I figured it's been bugging me for 10 weeks no matter what I do for it, why not take a week's rest, as I haven't really taken a prolonged break (over 2 days) since early February.
I'm not satisfied at all with how slow I ran this season (in fact it pisses me off pretty bad) but I am happy to say that it was awesome to be back working hard and training systematically, and that I learned a lot from the trials and tribulations along the way. A big thanks to all the people associated with DA BEARS, especially the coaches Georgette, Glen an Guy for coming out all the time and being there for me. Not to forget the physio guys etc, and DA BEARS themselves who accepted me like one of the pack from day one and are all badass dudes. Faster times to come. Gotta trim down my legs. It's funny but I trimmed down the arms/chest/stomach really fast but my legs are still way too bulky. It's gonna take swearing off olympic lifting, keeping with better diet and some solid miles (maybe on bike) to get rid of the excess. Well looking at starting up on Saturday and seeing how the body feels.
Have been taking the opportunity to ramp up the school work, but I'm also just getting excited about other things that are filling the temporary void left by some time off running. The other day I really felt like just doing some hard, heavy work, like framing. That led into some thoughts of making some money and buying a farm way out on the frontier, or buying some stock again.
Basically to make a long story short I figure I've spent enough time licking my wounds from the job market over the summer and feel like getting back in there for some more punishment. No-one else is gonna make it happen but me. It's strange, I think 'A River Runs Through It' was really to the point on the topic of help. The chances we have to actually help someone are sacred, that is to be able to help when someone needs it, with what they actually need. A lot of people have tried to help me get a job and in some ways I have been unfair to them by refusing them, not wishing to impose owing to my own stubborn notions of self-reliance - meanwhile I did nothing. I wasn't ready to be helped, and however kind, most of the offers couldn't have really helped anyways. But who knows. Now it's time for me to help myself, and maybe then I can accept some of those kind offers, from friends that are too good for me. One of the nice things about getting to work where I did this summer was that it finally lent me some certainty with regards to the idea of where to start my career, which I can't say I had before.
I would also like to note that I have been doing some writing of late. A little poem, a short prose piece. I'm not sure where any of this is going but for now it is satisfying some urge and releasing a little tension (hard with no exercise). Maybe I will post some of the stuff one of these days.
Thanks for reading
Keep the shiny side up amigos

Open Letter to DA BEARS

Boys, Stache here.
I've seen a lot of runners and a lot of teams, and let me tell you that I love this group. Everyone else in my life is sick of me talking non stop about how much I am loving training again and how rad it is being a Bear, hanging out with the boys, and thrashing workouts - mostly the workouts thrashed me but I managed to get a few kicks in. I've never been part of a group as focused on running, and as deep with strong runners: the relationship is self-evident. The team we are sending to CIS is just a pile of studs, they are gonna turn some serious heads this weekend and that's a fact. I believe in this group, and every single man in it. Years from now you will look back at these days not only with fondness remembering all the great workouts and laughs, but with awe at what the people in the group have achieved. I am thinking back on my first group, with Jason Lindsay (soon to be joined by Christine Laverty) in Calgary Track West in September of 1997. The core of that group went on to do great things on the track, academic achievements of all sorts, and what are the beginnings of ambitious careers. We are all still in touch, and get together whenever possible, despite being variously strewn across the world, for runs or perhaps a pint of lager (or cranberry juice, depending on personal preference). When I go back to Calgary, the first place I check in is the track, the first people Icall are track people. The bonds you forge out there on the track and trails, are eternal.
Boys, thank you so much for letting me count myself among your sacred number this year.
I wish each and every one of you nothing but the absolute best.
And to paraphrase Pre, for those of you going to CIS: you hold in your hands a great gift that requires every ounce of effort to be blasted out of you on those 10km. My last CIS I was so thrashed at the end that I couldn't heat myself and was shivering cold even in every piece of clothing I brought to Point Pleasant. I was never happier with a race.
See you tomorrow
Yours
Sean van der Lee

Opa the Boxer

So I am feeling a little under the weather post race here, so I took the opportunity to do a little overdue research and found this neat article about my Grandfather's days boxing at U of A in the forties in the Bruce Peel special collections archive. Enjoy.

Pre race JAMS

I've raced a lot of years, and through a process of relentless exploration, trial and error I think that I have isolated the absolute raddest tracks to listen to get hyped up and focused to the nines before the big races. Here goes:
Motley Crue - Kickstart my Heart - sick video too, fast cars and skydiving, what more do you need?
Wu Tang Clan - Triumph, Da Mystery of Chess Boxin' - makes you mean plain and simple
Vangelis/Parry - Jerusalem - uplifting hymn from Chariots of Fire, words penned by William Blake (I'm trying to keep this the last thing I hear to keep the phrases in the mind)
Turbonegro - The Age of Pamparius
Tom Waits - Goin Out West
Animotion - Obsession - sweet trashy eighties for an Aerobics class on coke
ODB - Baby I got your money (a little lightness, for early on)
GNR - Paradise City (for early on in the hype up to get head in a sublime, June smelling place)
Silverchair - Anthem for the Year 2000
ACDC - Who made who (lately, though almost anything from these crazy dudes fits the bill)
Black Strobe - I'm a Man - don't be afraid to strut boyee
Scatman John - Scatman

You can thank me later.
Please come on out and cheer on DA BEARS and the Pandas this Saturday, October 31 starting at 12 noon at Hawrelak Park - we need your rowdy screaming from the sidelines!