The Pale Horse

Frankly, I was not expecting a great deal when Agatha Christie's The Pale Horse made its way to the front of the queue. After all, the novel does not feature either of my two favorite Christie characters, Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot. Another discouraging feature ( I felt) was the inclusion of witches, a séance, and things that go bump in the night. In the end, I was pleasantly surprised however.

The central character of the novel is an historian named Mark Easterbrook. The story comes together with Easterbrook as the protagonist; the story could not have worked with either Marple or Poirot. As it turns out, the murders have a more traditional cause - no spooks or ESP or anything supernatural. It's a not so simple case of poisoning. Thallium poisoning, to be precise.

Prior to this novel, I had never heard of thallium or thallium poisoning, although I've come to learn that prior to it being banned in the United States by Richard Nixon with a Presidential Executive Order in February 1972, thallium was widely used world wide as a poison for rodents. In the 1950's thallium found it's way into a number of mystery novels as a "poisoner's poison". In real life, also from the 1950's, there was an"Australian Thallium Craze" where several murderers used thallium as their poison of choice.

The Pale Horse is notable for having saved at least two lives after readers recognized the symptoms of thallium poisoning from its description in the book. In 1977, a 19-month-old infant from Qatar was suffering from a mysterious illness and brought to London. According to reports, a nurse by the name of Marsha Maitland recognized the symptoms of thallium poisoning from having read The Pale Horse  and the child was saved. In a case from Latin America, a woman had saved the life of a neighbor, also after having read the novel. I've found two different versions of the Latin American story. Wikipedia says "In 1975, Christie received a letter from a woman in Latin America who recognized the symptoms of thallium poisoning, thus saving a woman from slow poisoning by her husband". However, another source says it was the wife who was poisoning the husband. Interesting, either way.

Dog Food Run

 

When it comes to exercise, whether it's weight training or cycling, I believe one should strive to push oneself to new limits. That is the motivation behind my past two days of hard going 10 kilometer bike rides.
I'm also a firm believer in getting the proper rest. One doesn't push ones body every day without giving thought to slowing down or resting from time to time.

So today, rather than do a 10K ride for a third day in a row, I decided to do a somewhat easier run to the Gentle Paws Pet Store in Sibulan to purchase dry dog food. The total distance, back and forth would be just 5.6 kilometers - far less than my daily rides of late.
Although I had no idea when the pet store opened, I knew it would be pointless to leave out at my normal riding time of 6 AM. I decided, instead to leave the house around 7:30. That would give me time to have a caffè mocha and a couple of pieces of whole wheat toast before heading out.
Of course, the store was closed when I arrived. The cashier at Mercury Drug said she believed the pet store opens at 8:00. It was nearly that - I wouldn't have long to wait. I could sit in front of Mercury Drug.

There were two boys hanging around out front. They try making tips by placing pieces of card board on the seats of motorcycles that park in front of either the drug store or pet store. This is done to keep the hot sun off the seats, although this isn't really necessary at 8:00 in the morning. Most people will give them a peso or two.

I wanted to take a few photos of the boys, but they weren't having it.

When the pet store opened, I went inside, bought two 1 kilo packages of dry dog food and chatted with the employee for a few minutes before I headed back home.

Advancing the Goal

 

Yesterday, I set a new goal vis-à-vis my bicycle riding. Since the beginning, I've concentrated on increasing the distance I rode every day. As I mentioned yesterday, now that 10 kilometers is a normal morning ride for me, I'd stick with the 10K and work on increasing my speed. It was the first time I had timed my ride - the result being 10 kilometers in 48 minutes for an average speed of 12.5 km/h.

I didn't set out to break a record yesterday. I rode at my usual pace - sometimes pushing myself, sometimes coasting. This morning, I wanted to push myself and see if I could improve on my earlier performance.

I could feel a difference. I rode harder and faster - pushing my limits. I knew this morning's time would be better, although I would not know just how much better until I had completed the 10K. When I had nearly arrived home, with about 1 kilometer to go, I felt I could not push myself any harder. This was going to be my best effort. When I arrived home, I was completely exhausted.

Checking the time, I saw that I had dropped 3 minutes off yesterday's ride. 45 minutes for the 10K. I beat yesterday's speed of 12.5 km/h, doing 13.3 km/h today.

I'm already thinking about tomorrow's ride. Do I continue to push myself harder this third day, or do I hold back a little to allow my body to rest?

I'll decide on that question in the morning when I go out.

New Goal

 

On March 20th of this year, three weeks before my 69th birthday, I purchased a bicycle. At that time, it had been about 40 years since I last rode one. On that day, I had hoped that I'd be able to ride the bicycle from the bicycle shop to my house.....no such luck. I hadn't ridden very far before I was too winded to go further.

Not one to give up, I began a daily ride along the Diversion Rd. in Sibulan. My goal was to increase the distance I traveled each ride. There were times, in the beginning, when I could not make it from our house to the end of the Diversion Road in Camanjac without stopping to catch my breath before going on.

I've slowly built up my stamina - every increasing the distance, until now, a morning ride of 10 kilometers is normal for me.

This morning, for the first time, I decided to take note of the time it took for me to ride those 10K. I made the 10K ride in about 48 minutes, making my average speed 12.5 kilometer per hour. I don't know how to evaluate that speed, all things considered. I wasn't going full bore the entire ride, but I was certainly tired at the end.

10 kilometers seems like a good daily distance for me, so I've decided that now, rather than continue to increase my distance, I will go the 10K daily and strive to increase my speed.