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Ahhh! Zombies run!

Zombies and survivors ran together during the Running with Zombies 5K fun run event in San Jose, which I participated in with my sister, both of us shambling out of bed bright and early Saturday, donned decaying flesh, and set out to run our brains out.

Despite some confusion as to where to park (the online directions were wrong), my sister and I had a rotting good time at the race. It kicked off with an air raid siren. The sky was grey and bleak with a slight mist, matching the tone of the event as we ran along the quite, closed off streets of San Jose, making it feel as though the city was a dead zone. The terrain then carried us through winding trails of a park where scattered zombies snarled at runners (some caged behind a chain link fence), past a abandoned and dilapidated building, and down a dirt, vacant feeling path where slow shuffling zombies wandered (one dragging the plastic corpse of a half eaten pig).

It was fun to see all the people who came, from young kids to wizened adults, many of whom came as zombies. Some got fairly creative with their costumes, including a zombie Star Trek officer.

As I haven’t been actively training as much as I would like, I felt a wee slow during the three-mile run and was definitely below my usual pace. But, hey, I was undead at the time, so I have an excuse and it was a shotgun blast of fun. I’d do it again in a heartbeat (if I had one). I think I’ll rise to the occasion again next year.

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Survivors and zombies assemble before the the race start line.
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Me and my undead sister.
zombies in a cage
Caged!
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Running the Detroit Riverwalk

Detroit Riverwalk
View from the Detroit Riverwalk, looking across to Canada.

It was a grey skied, muggy afternoon at the Detroit Riverwalk, but the river was beautiful and it was a perfect place for a run. The path was mostly empty when I started, but as the afternoon turned into early evening, more and more people filled the walkway, running, walking, chatting, hanging out, riding bikes, laughing. All around me people were out enjoying the evening.

As I ran along the trail, occasionally glancing out across the water, people would say, Hi, or offer encouragement. One young woman broke off from her crew of friends and ran along beside me, mimicking my movements with a big grin on her face. A younger me would have been embarrassed by the good-natured mockery — but today, I just smiled and fell into pace with her, exaggerating my own movements as she did, participating in the sillyness until she fell back, rejoining her group, all of them laughing and me laughing, too. The laughter invigorated me and I picked up my pace, feeling stronger and lighter.

I felt easy, like I could run for days — one of the rare times I feel this way on a run. The mileage tracker on my phone informed my that my pace was faster than it has ever been.

This was the first time I’ve gone running while traveling. The combined factors of packing the running shoes (extra weight), trying to figure out where to run, and a silly self-consciousness about the idea of being judged by the locals has kept me from trying it. Today I figured out that not only is running while traveling doable, but it can also be a rather pleasurable way to experience a new place.

Detroit Riverwalk
Detroit Riverwalk
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How did it get so late so soon?

“Its night before its afternoon. December is here before its June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?” — Dr. Seuss

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Photo: Petra Dr – Creative Commons

I’ve felt the weight of of time these last few weeks. I woke up this weekend amazed that July has passed me by, and I wasn’t entirely sure how it happened. I had this flash of terrifying premonition that I would wake up tomorrow and I would be 90 with nothing written or completed, my life already vanished before my eyes in a great big “Where has it all gone?”

I’m probably being over dramatic.

Okay, I know I’m being over dramatic. But I also know I’m not the only one who feels this way. Life seems to fly by so fast sometimes, especially when you’re not actively engaging in the things you/re passionate about — as I’ve been doing these past few month. I have been actively avoiding writing any resembling my novel and most things resembling stories or poems, with a few exceptions.

That said, I don’t feel the slightest bit guilty about spending every available moment of the past week with my cousin, who is in town from Alaska. Hurrah for family love and laughing about our own strange families and drinking three bottles of wine in a single night!

In other news.

I have been upping my running as of late. After completing a 5K, I was all mentally geared up to go for a 10K, but fell off running for a while. I’m trying to run Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, strength train on Wednesday. If Life will let me fit in a Thursday run, then I’m trying to do that, too. One the whole, I’m feeling good about my progress — despite having to rebuild my endurance to 3 miles again — and I’m starting to look for a 10K to sign up for in November or December.

Though in the meantime, I’m stoked about the upcoming Run with Zombies, fun run 5K, which I’m planning to sign up for, if I can convince a family member or friend to join me (my usual race buddy hates horror and won’t touch the race with a ten foot machete).

Back to the time thing.

As a way to assuage my feeling of lost time, I’m setting a goal of writing for a minimum of 10 minutes per day. While that may seem low, it’s just about the right amount for how busy I am at the moment. Also, once I get started, it’s unlikely that I’ll actually stop at the 10 minute mark.

So that’s it, goals and such for the week.

How are you these days? Do you feel like the forward progress of time is against you? Or are you seizing the day?

__________

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An Adorable Monster and other good things

I did not exercise all last week, unless you count my playing with my niece, a.k.a. The Monster — following her as she ran around the park and rolling with her in the grass and spinning in circles and then hauling her over my shoulder to get her back to her parents at the picnic tables — which I totally do.

The Monster had a lovely Easter. She got to paint eggs and then “find” eggs during an Easter egg hunt (which was more us just tossing plastic eggs into the grass and playing pick up with a plastic bucket, because she’s not yet two).

Words Here and There

I haven’t been putting many expectations on myself in terms of writing lately, due to the many, many things going on in other arenas of my life. But I’ve managed to feel a few sparks of inspiration over the past couple of weeks, which is awesome.

Despite my previous protestations that no poetry would be written this month, I’ve added a number of poems to The Poetry Project over on Wattpad. You can read each of the poems at the following links:

I’m planning to close The Poetry Project to new prompts as of April 30th, so if you would like me to write you a poem, then please leave me a prompt in the comments either here or there.

I’ve put together an excel sheet of chapters of the werewolf novel, noting things that need to be added and major problems that need to be solved along the way. It’s not a complicated layout, but it was enough to start getting my thoughts in order and I’m also using the tabs to start trying to keep track of characters and places that are important. I still have NO IDEA to solve the one major problem I have at the moment. The most obvious solution is to cut out the problem entirely, but I’m not sure that’s what I want to do.

I also met with the Writing Gang over the weekend, all of whom continue to be awesome. They gave me some feedback on some of the later chapters, which was valuable as always. I think I need to look at solving the big problems and work my way through edits from the beginning at this point. *le sigh*

Good Movie Watching

The Host (2006)I saw The Host (Gwoemul) for the first time over the weekend and it was SO FREAKING AWESOME. The story involves a large genetically mutated creature that rises up out of Han River in Seoul, South Korea and begins to attach the population. A young school girl is taken by the creature during the initial attack, and amidst a virus scare and government lockdown, her family escapes quarantine to try to rescue her.

It sounds like just your typical monster movie, but the story is intelligent and the family is both charming and silly in their bungling attempts to save their daughter/niece. It offers fantastic action sequences with a spice of humor, alongside an interesting social commentary. The monster turns out to be the least terrifying aspect of the story. Instead it’s the failed efforts of the Korean and U.S. government to solve the contamination problem, as well as the cold calculating treatment toward the patients in quarantine by officials and doctors alike that becomes truly frightening.

This is one of those movies that was so cool, I want to now see everything done by the director, Joon-ho Bong. The director’s most recent movie is Snowpiercer, which I’ve heard is amazing. So, I that may be the next movie I seek out by him. If you want more evidence of Joon-ho Bong’s awesome, you can check out this post.

Things to Do This Week

  • Edit chapter one of werewolf novel and try to solve big plot problem
  • Find a publisher to submit chapbook manuscript to
  • Continue research/do homework on business thing that I can’t talk about yet
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Things

This weekend was mostly lazy with lots of movie watching. It was mostly bad or so-so movies (with the exception of The Spectacular Now).

I’ve started reading The Three Musketeers and I’m rather enjoying the antics of Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and d’Artagnon. There’s a lot of hot headed-ness, running off to get into sword fights, slinging of insults, intrigues with mysterious women, and so on. All quite fun.

The most exciting thing this weekend was the family visit to the 4D Ultrasound* clinic. I don’t know if I announced this to you all, but my sister’s due to have her second baby (a boy) in a couple of months (end of June), so I’ll get to have a second little person to read to. (^_^) Anyway, the technology these days is amazing. We could see the features of baby Colton so clearly and he’s adorable. Looks just like his big sister. It’s so exciting!

*I don’t know why they call it 4D, when it doesn’t actually transcend time. It’s more like an advanced 3D technology.

Writing Life

Since April is National Poetry Month, this is normally the time I would be wildly attempting to complete the 30 Day Poetry Challenge or reading poetry on youtube or in some other way trying to engage. That hasn’t happened this time around, because there’s still traces of a bunch of things going on. While I’m not going to try to pound out two dozen or more poems this month, I do want to get back into my Morning Poetry Ritual (in which I must write a poem each morning). I need some sort of spark to keep the words burning in me.

For those interested in Poetry Month goodies, here’s a couple:

Running Life

Haven’t run much since completing the 5k two weeks ago, and I need to get back to it. I’d like to move up to the next level and run a 10K this summer.

I’ll try to get a couple of workouts or runs in this week, although it might not happen on the weekend because of family events filling Saturday and Easter Sunday. I’ll have to take it easy, though, since I’ve somehow managed to straing my lower back over the weekend.

How are you all this week? Are you loving life?

_______