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Friday, October 31, 2014
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Race Report: Waldperlachlauf 20km
Two Sundays ago we participated in the fifth annual Waldperlachlauf (Perlach Forest Run) 20km edition. We signed up a few days before to get some racing experience in the legs as we continue to prepare for the upcoming Florence Marathon at the end of November. Both of us have only ever run a 20km running race once before and it was a part of the Roanne-Villerest Aquathlon Longue Distance (see this classic GrenobleWMD post for a reminder). That 20km was only the second part of the competition which in total consisted of first a 4km open water swim, followed by a quick bite of high-fructose corn syrup in the transition area, and then, finally, the 20km run. In that event, after spending around an hour and a quarter swimming the equivalent of 10 times around a quarter-mile track, I ran the 20km in a time of one hour, 30 minutes. Nothing that's going to get me on any track teams, but respectable nonetheless.
Two years later, one Ironman later, one marathon later, quite a bit of running later, and no 4km swim to tire us out beforehand, you'd think one might improve on said time. Nope. All you have to do is cruise along at a hair under 4:30's for an hour and a half and you've got it. Nope. Now, there were of course some extenuating circumstances that we can turn to: (1) the weather in Munich is generally fairly miserable but then lo and behold we woke up on that fateful Sunday morning to a forecast of 25 degrees celsius and not a cloud in the sky when we'd been used to running in 10 degree drizzle; (2) this was a small race with only a few hundred participants and the community volunteers have not quite figured out that you should probably be offering water on a 20km course, especially on the hottest day in Munich's autumnal history; (3) it was a mentally difficult course in that the 20km route actually consisted of completing a 5km loop 4 times -- ouch!; and (4) we're older now and not currently as in good shape.
The race started off well. We hit km mark 1 in just under 4 minutes, 22 seconds. Feeling good. And 8 seconds banked for later on. But the sun was just beaming. Though they called this the Perlach Forest, there was no tree cover, and somehow it seemed that no matter where you looked you were staring at the angry burning sun. Kilometer mark 2 came 4 minutes and 35 seconds later. "Oops" we joked, knowing that going slower than the planned 4:30 was simply a comical calculation error, and nothing to do with being out of shape, tired, or slow. No matter, though. We would re-assess our current speed, re-direct it upwards, and check on things in 1 kilometer time. Plus we had only lost 5 seconds, and therefore still had 3 seconds of the original 8 safely tucked away to be drawn on only if and when they might be needed. Unfortunately, like most Canadians, we would soon find ourselves with a sorely overdrawn account.
Kilometer 3 passed in the same amount of time as its previous marked distance: 4 minutes, 35 seconds. That brought us on to the side of 2 seconds overdrawn. And things didn't get much better after that. The worst would prove to be a disastrous 4:50 on kilometer 19, and we ended up with an average pace of 4:41 for a total time of 1h33m45s, a full 3 minutes, 45 seconds above our "safe" goal time. So what happened? Well, we've already discussed the excuses above, and they are each probably somewhat involved, especially the one about not being in as good shape.
In any case, it was tough, but Sandi did get on the podium as she tends to do these days. She even won a 30 euro gift card at a running store, more than paying for our entry fees. So I guess it wasn't all bad!
Two years later, one Ironman later, one marathon later, quite a bit of running later, and no 4km swim to tire us out beforehand, you'd think one might improve on said time. Nope. All you have to do is cruise along at a hair under 4:30's for an hour and a half and you've got it. Nope. Now, there were of course some extenuating circumstances that we can turn to: (1) the weather in Munich is generally fairly miserable but then lo and behold we woke up on that fateful Sunday morning to a forecast of 25 degrees celsius and not a cloud in the sky when we'd been used to running in 10 degree drizzle; (2) this was a small race with only a few hundred participants and the community volunteers have not quite figured out that you should probably be offering water on a 20km course, especially on the hottest day in Munich's autumnal history; (3) it was a mentally difficult course in that the 20km route actually consisted of completing a 5km loop 4 times -- ouch!; and (4) we're older now and not currently as in good shape.
The race started off well. We hit km mark 1 in just under 4 minutes, 22 seconds. Feeling good. And 8 seconds banked for later on. But the sun was just beaming. Though they called this the Perlach Forest, there was no tree cover, and somehow it seemed that no matter where you looked you were staring at the angry burning sun. Kilometer mark 2 came 4 minutes and 35 seconds later. "Oops" we joked, knowing that going slower than the planned 4:30 was simply a comical calculation error, and nothing to do with being out of shape, tired, or slow. No matter, though. We would re-assess our current speed, re-direct it upwards, and check on things in 1 kilometer time. Plus we had only lost 5 seconds, and therefore still had 3 seconds of the original 8 safely tucked away to be drawn on only if and when they might be needed. Unfortunately, like most Canadians, we would soon find ourselves with a sorely overdrawn account.
Kilometer 3 passed in the same amount of time as its previous marked distance: 4 minutes, 35 seconds. That brought us on to the side of 2 seconds overdrawn. And things didn't get much better after that. The worst would prove to be a disastrous 4:50 on kilometer 19, and we ended up with an average pace of 4:41 for a total time of 1h33m45s, a full 3 minutes, 45 seconds above our "safe" goal time. So what happened? Well, we've already discussed the excuses above, and they are each probably somewhat involved, especially the one about not being in as good shape.
In any case, it was tough, but Sandi did get on the podium as she tends to do these days. She even won a 30 euro gift card at a running store, more than paying for our entry fees. So I guess it wasn't all bad!
About to take down our next victims
Me thinking "we have to do another lap???"
"Ouch"
Even more "ouch"
Yay but it's all worth it when you get a medal, a certificate, and a gift card
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
The Civil Code
Pemulis was angry. Fuming mad, even. Many have sworn that they saw cartoon-like steam exhausting from his ears as if they were the dual-chimneys of a proud, classic locomotive barrelling down a twisting metal track. This wasn't the first time that he had been a victim of the civil law's extra-contractual obligation recognized as appropriation of personality, and sadly, it most probably wouldn't be the last. But it hit a nerve let me tell you, and dammit if we wasn't going to do something about it this time.
Since his fame had grown following the publication of his first short-story collection, "Rotel Doesn't Rhyme with Hotel", a handful of semi-autobiographical sketches detailing his time as a part-time student, part-time barley malter, full-time partier at the University of Edinburgh, he had all but forgotten what it was like to experience the beautiful semblance of privacy in his life. It had begun more or less during the course of the book's South American promotional tour where he would perform nightly readings in small cafés and bars over the course of about an hour while simultaneously drowning the better part of a bottle of single-malt Scotch (at this point any one of the Glens would do), a taste that he'd apparently acquired during his time as the fun-loving principal personage of the very collection of stories from which he would read during said sessions. The readings started innocuously enough, drawing a dearth of fans -- perhaps 10 or 20 on the best of nights -- all emerging from those strange corners of the seedy underbelly of the Internet where 512-bit encryption keys reign and fan faction based on the GrenobleWMD stories passes as currency. But one night a not-unknown Swedish photographer whose name happens to escape the author at the present moment stumbled into the right bar on the right night. It just so happened that coincidentally these two characters somehow knew each other from a long-forgotten Parisian past and photographer proceeded to snap some B&W's of Pemulis the author in action. These photos, for one reason or another, seized the imagination of the youth worldwide, and quickly, as they said back then, went viral, the photos that is. Every pretender, English major, screen writer, and angst-ridden artsy teenager from Buenos Aires to Constantinople to Saigon easily and firmly identified with Pemulis's Rotel stories and his whiskey bottle, and sales of the book exploded like a rear-ended Ford Pinto. It came as a bang; the publishing industry went nuts for a kid who looked, to them, like he may be their heavenly salvation in the face of video games, cell phones, and those drab filth-filled Internet blogs written by talentless hacks with too much time on their hands and too many stars in their eyes. Fame arrived over night with not so much as a duffle bag to support itself with and it wasn't going to settle for a place on the fold-out couch. It kicked Pemulis out of his bed, it trashed his kitchen, it ate his food, used his shampoo, got toothpaste all over the sink, and it didn't once even consider to take no for an answer. It arrived without warning and it laid its claim into his life, just like that.
Fame arriving fast, loose, and on fire was exhilarating though. Booze, women, drugs, nights flying by like swirling vivid colours. No responsibilities and being taken care of by hangers-on and handlers. Fast cars, expensive watches, glistening boats, private jets, private rooms, private clubs, but, alas, no private life. No way. With the Patek Philippe 1518 Perpetual Calendar pieces also came photographers, reporters, interview schedules, and worst of all, the fans. Deranged lunatics mobbing you in the street, women and young girls alike grabbing at you, every god damned kid with an iPhone taking videos, Instagrams, and whatever the hell else they did with those things. But Pemulis could handle the fans. He could handle the photographers, the reporters, and the promotional appearances. They were taxing. They were painful. But he could handle it. What shook him to his very core, though, was when one day, this day to be exact, somebody, somewhere, crossed the line. What he fully could not take or accept was the use of his personhood in the course of advertising to sell a product when he had not agreed to said appropriation of his personality, and worst of all, when he vehemently despised, in all ways, shapes, forms, and configurations, the product and/or service in question.
It was a calm Spring morning, and Pemulis was relaxingly sipping his morning whiskey-coffee in a chair by his window. While perusing his very favourite website, a blog devoted to the quintessentially Swiss industry of haute horology, he thought at first that, though it happened rarely, he may have indulged in one too many scotches during his weekly after-breakfast Thai massage. He gave his head a shake, rubbed his eyes, threw another gulp of extra-old, extra-rare down the hatch for good measure, and looked again, closely. Sure enough, however, there he was. He stared at himself staring back at himself, only in the picture on-screen he was not wearing one of his many Patek super-complications, a Rolex GMT Master II with classic Pepsi fluted bezel, or even his A. Lange and Söhne 1815 Rattrapante Perpetual Calendar (see below).
No, it was not the thing of beauty that you see floating in the space above these words. It was something that can only be described in the English language by a word like the following: hideous. Or how about this one: nightmarish. What appeared on the screen on that fateful morning was a photograph of Pemulis performing a reading from Rotel in a bar in São Paulo, a bottle of Glenfidich 18 immediately to his right, and, astonishingly, in the foreground, a floating Rolex Vintage Rainbow Daytona. Ahh!!! The agony! He flung his computer aside in a knee-jerk reaction so swift and powerful that the machine flew off his lap and crashed in two as it forcefully struck the ground in a magnificent impact. The screen lay in the middle of the room, disconnected, slowly fading to black with a ghosting image of the evil rainbow jewels gently pulsating, and Pemulis's vacant stare becoming nothing but an outline and then, before his eyes, nothing.
Since his fame had grown following the publication of his first short-story collection, "Rotel Doesn't Rhyme with Hotel", a handful of semi-autobiographical sketches detailing his time as a part-time student, part-time barley malter, full-time partier at the University of Edinburgh, he had all but forgotten what it was like to experience the beautiful semblance of privacy in his life. It had begun more or less during the course of the book's South American promotional tour where he would perform nightly readings in small cafés and bars over the course of about an hour while simultaneously drowning the better part of a bottle of single-malt Scotch (at this point any one of the Glens would do), a taste that he'd apparently acquired during his time as the fun-loving principal personage of the very collection of stories from which he would read during said sessions. The readings started innocuously enough, drawing a dearth of fans -- perhaps 10 or 20 on the best of nights -- all emerging from those strange corners of the seedy underbelly of the Internet where 512-bit encryption keys reign and fan faction based on the GrenobleWMD stories passes as currency. But one night a not-unknown Swedish photographer whose name happens to escape the author at the present moment stumbled into the right bar on the right night. It just so happened that coincidentally these two characters somehow knew each other from a long-forgotten Parisian past and photographer proceeded to snap some B&W's of Pemulis the author in action. These photos, for one reason or another, seized the imagination of the youth worldwide, and quickly, as they said back then, went viral, the photos that is. Every pretender, English major, screen writer, and angst-ridden artsy teenager from Buenos Aires to Constantinople to Saigon easily and firmly identified with Pemulis's Rotel stories and his whiskey bottle, and sales of the book exploded like a rear-ended Ford Pinto. It came as a bang; the publishing industry went nuts for a kid who looked, to them, like he may be their heavenly salvation in the face of video games, cell phones, and those drab filth-filled Internet blogs written by talentless hacks with too much time on their hands and too many stars in their eyes. Fame arrived over night with not so much as a duffle bag to support itself with and it wasn't going to settle for a place on the fold-out couch. It kicked Pemulis out of his bed, it trashed his kitchen, it ate his food, used his shampoo, got toothpaste all over the sink, and it didn't once even consider to take no for an answer. It arrived without warning and it laid its claim into his life, just like that.
Fame arriving fast, loose, and on fire was exhilarating though. Booze, women, drugs, nights flying by like swirling vivid colours. No responsibilities and being taken care of by hangers-on and handlers. Fast cars, expensive watches, glistening boats, private jets, private rooms, private clubs, but, alas, no private life. No way. With the Patek Philippe 1518 Perpetual Calendar pieces also came photographers, reporters, interview schedules, and worst of all, the fans. Deranged lunatics mobbing you in the street, women and young girls alike grabbing at you, every god damned kid with an iPhone taking videos, Instagrams, and whatever the hell else they did with those things. But Pemulis could handle the fans. He could handle the photographers, the reporters, and the promotional appearances. They were taxing. They were painful. But he could handle it. What shook him to his very core, though, was when one day, this day to be exact, somebody, somewhere, crossed the line. What he fully could not take or accept was the use of his personhood in the course of advertising to sell a product when he had not agreed to said appropriation of his personality, and worst of all, when he vehemently despised, in all ways, shapes, forms, and configurations, the product and/or service in question.
It was a calm Spring morning, and Pemulis was relaxingly sipping his morning whiskey-coffee in a chair by his window. While perusing his very favourite website, a blog devoted to the quintessentially Swiss industry of haute horology, he thought at first that, though it happened rarely, he may have indulged in one too many scotches during his weekly after-breakfast Thai massage. He gave his head a shake, rubbed his eyes, threw another gulp of extra-old, extra-rare down the hatch for good measure, and looked again, closely. Sure enough, however, there he was. He stared at himself staring back at himself, only in the picture on-screen he was not wearing one of his many Patek super-complications, a Rolex GMT Master II with classic Pepsi fluted bezel, or even his A. Lange and Söhne 1815 Rattrapante Perpetual Calendar (see below).
Living in Montreal at the time, Pemulis turned to his trusted avocat, Maitre Solange Sorel, and gave her an earful. She, in turn, quoted to him Articles 3 and 36 of the Civil Code of Quebec:
3. Every person is the holder of personality rights, such as the right to life, the right to the inviolability and integrity of his person, and the right to the respect of his name, reputation and privacy. These rights are inalienable.
[...]
36. The following acts, in particular, may be considered as invasions of the privacy of a person:
- (1) entering or taking anything in his dwelling;
- (2) intentionally intercepting or using his private communications;
- (3) appropriating or using his image or voice while he is in private premises;
- (4) keeping his private life under observation by any means;
- (5) using his name, image, likeness or voice for a purpose other than the legitimate information of the public;
- (6) using his correspondence, manuscripts or other personal documents.
Bam! Articles 3, 36(3) and 36(5), thank you so very kindly. And a special thank you to you, M. Bonaparte, for creating such a beautiful, ordered set of logical codes that we can run a functioning legal society on top of. Sorel just as soon had one of her articling student underlings fire off a terse infringement notice addressed to one Rolex SA of Geneva, Legal Department, and they were then swiftly off to the Plateau to celebrate their hasty action with a case of Glenlaurel and a box of Montecristos. Later that night, in a haze of Cuban cigar smoke and notes of pungent peaty moss with hints of vanilla, Pemulis swore that he would never be the victim of such a heinous civil crime again.
Justice came quickly. As he emerged from his stupor on the floor of a warehouse apartment not far from the South shore the following morning, Pemulis's phone was buzzing with a call from none other than Mr. Gian Riccardo Marini himself, the recently newly appointed CEO of the famed Rolex watch company.
"Good morning George, how are things in Montreal?"
"You tell me", Pemulis said dryly.
"The sun is shining here in Geneva and I just came out of an interesting discussion with both our legal department and the boys down in advertising."
"Interesting, you say?"
"Well," Marini began as he smiled, pushed his chair back from his desk, and gazed out the window at Mont Blanc which could be seen in the distance, "I'm going to be completely honest with you, George."
"I hope so Gian."
"Well the truth is that we screwed up. Everyone knows you like our watches and the boys just got a little carried away with things. It seemed like a great idea at the time, but when I take a step back, well... So, what I'm trying to say is, we made a mistake and we'd like to make it up to you."
"How so?" Pemulis asked.
"First things first: I've talked to Solange and we want to offer you three things. Number one, we've already pulled the ad. Number two, we'll be running print and online retraction notices for the following three weeks confirming that you never allowed your image to be used in the course of our advertising and that you never endorsed the Rainbow Daytona, and most importantly I think, number three, we would like to offer you an original 4113 Split-Seconds Chronograph straight from our vault here in Geneva."
"Sounds generous", Pemulis was able to offer while suppressing his excitement.
"Well what do you say, George? I personally believe that it's more than fair."
"You've got yourself a deal."
Pemulis hung up the phone (so to speak) and called a taxi to bring him home. He stepped inside and walked straight to his fine oak bar. He poured himself at least five fingers of one of his favourite Scotches, a rare 1967 Glenlivet Cellar Collection. He sat down in a chair by the window of his Mile End apartment, and took a long deep drink. The sun was shining, lighting up the trees on the mountain, and making the streets sparkle from last night's rain. He grabbed a notebook from his side table and a Mont Blanc pen, and he began to write.
Monday, October 13, 2014
München im Herbst
The US National Weather Service calls an Indian Summer "weather conditions that are sunny and clear with above normal temperatures, occurring late-September to mid-November". In Germany, apparently, the equivalent warm Fall days are called "womens' summer"; who knew?
Golden colours
Blue skies and beer gardens
The Isar and the Alpines Museum
Franziskaner Weißbier
Red leaves and Sandi in the Wiener Platz
Munich parliament buildings
Sandi/Joelle with the Mighty Isar
Lehel / Isar
An Isar Brücke
Sandi / Isar
The river and my swimming pool (Müller'sches Volksbad)
Selfie
Sandi
Fall trees and buildings
Fall
And though it was a few weeks ago that we did the race, here we are with our winning medals / cookies for the Oktoberfestlauf 2014
Friday, October 3, 2014
Grenoble; it is the name of the blog after all
Grenoble is a small city of approximately 150,000 in the south-east of France nestled among the Alps. It is surrounded by three mountain ranges: the Vercors, the Chartreuse, and the Belledonne, the tallest. It is therefore both a skiing and cycling paradise. Every time of year has its own special feeling. Spring's arrival is perhaps the most alluring; it is easily tracked visually as the mountains slowly turn from a wintry grey-brown to a lush full green. The river Isère speeds up and changes colour as it carries the melting snow down from the mountains and south towards the sea. The right bank's pizzerias begin to set the tables outside and the Sunday markets pop up along the Quai Perrière bringing crowds of old and young people. The cafés around les Halles Sainte-Claire fill with shoppers and coffee and wine drinkers, leisurely reading the newspaper -- the Dauphiné Libre or Le Figaro or Le Monde -- while eating croissants and pains au chocolat and discussing life. Cycling up the mountain towards Lans-en-Vercors along the Route de Grenoble, passing first through Sassenage as the climb begins, you meet amateur and professional cyclists, all marvelling at the views of the city and the Rhône valley just beyond the edge. Past Lans-en-Vercors one passes gorges, waterfalls, majestic mountain valleys, meadows of cows, sheep, and goats, and old French towns with names like Saint-Martin-en-Vercors and La-Chapelle-en-Vercors. Back in town, you can relax after your ride in the Place Victor Hugo sipping an apéritif or reading a book by the fountain as you gaze up towards La Bastille that keeps watch over the town.
Grenoble -- and all of France for the most part -- is more than what you can do and see. It is a feeling. You can be sitting in bed reading a magazine with the walls around you looking the exact same as in any other place, but knowing that you're in Grenoble gives you a feeling that you're somewhere special. I think that partly it's the mountains. They protect you in a way from everything that is outside of them. Naturally it's true: there's no wind in Grenoble because the mountains protect the city from it. But even more than that, they provide a feeling that you're in a place, and that it does not stretch off forever and ever.
Grenoble -- and all of France for the most part -- is more than what you can do and see. It is a feeling. You can be sitting in bed reading a magazine with the walls around you looking the exact same as in any other place, but knowing that you're in Grenoble gives you a feeling that you're somewhere special. I think that partly it's the mountains. They protect you in a way from everything that is outside of them. Naturally it's true: there's no wind in Grenoble because the mountains protect the city from it. But even more than that, they provide a feeling that you're in a place, and that it does not stretch off forever and ever.
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