On Friday I went to the Sound Runner in Branford to get fitted for real running shoes. Carla had told me that she always buys a full size larger shoe for running than what she normally wears, and lo and behold, after having me step on that little metal contraption that I felt like I hadn't encountered since childhood, the salesperson suggested I try a size 9. A short while later and $130 lighter, I left with a pair of Brooks - which Carla later told me were also the first running shoes she had (surely that augurs well for the running enterprise!) Yesterday was the first run I did with them, and they were so much more comfortable than the cross-trainers I'd been using. I still have something weird going on with my right foot, so now that I can cross off "need appropriate shoes" I can make an appointment with the orthopedist. I had mentioned this issue at my first and only appointment with him in January (I was there to check on the progress of a strained Achilles), and since I don't have a noticeable problem with my normal gait he suggested they could refer me for physical therapy if - and I quote - "you want to be a runner." I laughed and assured him that I didn't! I was so confident I'd be going to 9Rounds as regularly as I wanted. Oh, you little fool.
I have been making use of the online workouts that 9Round is providing; ideally I'd like to alternate one day running with one day of 9Round. I turned what was once Daniel's room in the basement into my workout corner; I can do pretty much everything except overhead lifts and jumping jacks (because of the lower ceiling) and not feel as awkward as I did when I was working out in the living room. Part of the frustration of not knowing how long all of this will go on is not knowing how much money I should be planning to invest in equipment - because as I've discovered, things like kettlebells and weighted bars are not cheap! You don't need those to do the 9Round online workouts, but at a certain point bodyweight resistance only does so much. I miss hitting the heavy bag. I just can't imagine being back in the physical gym, perhaps until there's a vaccine - the physical space is very small, you're only 3-4 feet from the next person, and with HIIT exercise there's so much huffing and puffing...it's the perfect infection scenario. Since I prepay for the year in full, I haven't had to make a decision, but when October comes around - am I really going to pay that fee for video workouts? :-/
I also can't survive on running alone! That said, I am grateful for some of the experiences running has brought me. Yesterday morning, for example, I was excited to try out the new shoes - so much so that even when I discovered my mp3 player was dead I decided to go out with no music (a first!). The weather for the morning on Google just read "fog," and it was not kidding. When I got to the beach, you could barely see the rock jetties in the fog and nothing of the Sound beyond. The only other people there were a woman and a little girl who were playing at the water's edge, and a man standing on one of the jetties. Their figures were sort of hazy, too, because of all the mist. On the return leg, past the lighthouse (I love seeing it! Every time!), usually you're looking across the harbor to New Haven, but I couldn't see anything beyond the shore! It was wild. Under normal circumstances, there's just no reason I'd be in the park at 8:30am on a Saturday, but right now, needs must.
In reading terms, I finally ordered a copy of Barry Lyndon, which I'd been wanting to read since watching the Kubrick film at Sara and Zach's last summer. I'm about halfway through now, and I can definitely say the movie's an improvement! It was always going to be hard for anything to match up against Vanity Fair, of course; I suppose that book would be considered third-person omniscient, since the narrative not only follows multiple characters but knows their thoughts, in addition to the satirical asides of the Narrator figure. Barry Lyndon is narrated in first-person, so while Thackeray's irony and satire comes through in the way Barry talks about himself,it's much more low-key and limited. What you learn about other characters, for example, is entirely reliant on what Barry wants to report about them. There's also a lot more context that I'm clearly missing, in part because while Vanity Fair is set in a near-contemporary time to Thackeray's own, Barry Lyndon takes place in the mid-to-late 18th century. I don't know anything about the Seven Years' War, or the geography of Prussia, or half of the other things that he makes reference to. I would definitely have benefited from an annotated copy!
Speaking of annotations, before Barry Lyndon arrived I had just finished making my way through an annotated copy of Pride and Prejudice that Sean had given me for Christmas. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I learned from it! Class differences with regard to meal times, for example, or the social change that accompanied the shift from country-style line dances to the more intimate waltz. There were so many minor details that I'd read over in the past that - while not necessary to the understanding of the story - actually meant something that I hadn't understood. It was also nice to have a bit of the commentary on the characters and their development. In the introduction it was mentioned that Austen herself felt like she'd really polished the dialogue, maybe even to too fine a point, and that this is most apparent in places where characters are able to deliver this fine-tuned speeches even while wracked by great emotion. With that having been pointed out to me, I really noticed it! And realized that it's different than Emma or Sense and Sensibility, in which the dialogue is more natural. Fascinating stuff!
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