Boy that was fast.

1). My arms are killing me! This rapid increase in swimming time has me oh so sore but it’s a good thing I’m doing it because:

2). Sharkfest! Our intrepid friend and 90+ something triathlon finisher Fe-Lady somehow got me to sign up for Sharkfest! What that means is that next June 10 I will ride a ferry out to Alcatraz Island, pull on a wet suit, jump into the 58 degree, murky waters of the San Francisco Bay and swim back to Bakers Beach. Have I ever told you the one about how I am terrified of fish? This should be interesting. I’d say I did it so I could meet Fe-Lady but I live here so I could have done that, anyhow. If I drown or get eaten by a shark you know who to blame 🙂

3). 5K – I need to run a 5K to get a current 5K time. The only one I ever I ran was in 1997 and it took me 38:23. I could beat that time tomorrow by quite a bit. Imagine what I can do with a little speed work training. I love getting better instead of older.

4). Lance! I’d like to thank Lance Armstrong for saying that running the NY Marathon was the hardest thing he had ever done as an athlete. When asked if he would do it again he quipped “Now’s not the time to ask that question. The answer now is no, I’ll never be back. But I reserve the right to change my mind,” he said. “I don’t know how these guys do it.”

Anyone taking bets on how long it will take him to get over the pain of NY and decide to actually train properly and run another one? His original goal was 2:30. I give him 2 months, max. Or maybe he’ll decide to do an IM. That is also a possibility and one I rather like.

5). A thank you to the BlogFather of the RBF and now CRN – Mark. Mark did a post on his training in which he said he would do his long runs at 70% of his max heart rate and short runs at 80%. I wrote him and said that was daft – too hard! He wrote back and explained that it was actually taking it easy. I looked at my own history with the HRM and realized that according to the (inaccurate) age – 220 rule my max is about 169. I usually run at about 150. That would be a little over 90% effort. No wonder I get burned out early and can’t negative split. I’m going to try actually slowing down to speed up. I’ll keep you posted on how that goes.

6). Wedding Plans – Humbly Ann and I are working on floor plans for the wedding. She submitted this one with a little note:

“The fourth one is you and me at the end of the party on the ground because we are tired and drunk. It’s a little blurry – but we will be too.”

If you need any child rearing advice you know who to call.

Sometimes an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and sometimes that formula fails miserably.

I think I’ve mentioned before that one of my volunteer endeavors (the only one these days) is with an organization called CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates). A CASA (as we are known) acts as an advocate for a child in the foster care system. It’s sort of a Big Sister/Big Brother on steroids deal where you spend time with the child and make sure he or she is getting all appropriate services. It’s a great thing to do.

The child I advocate for lives about 20 miles from me and the best way to get there is by traveling a road that has a lot of watershed land on one side and a couple of reservoirs on the other. It is very dark and windy – as in it has a lot of curves although it can be windy, too.

As I was driving home tonight I thought to myself, “I should really watch for deer” and I did. I scanned the land to the left and to the right searching for the glint of eyeballs. I watched my speed but it is a fairly fast road and the limit is 50 so I was doing 50. I had an SUV somewhat on my tail (do they ever drive any other way?). And then, just like that, as I am scanning for deer, a large, dark body pops out on my left and tears across the road as though all of my good thoughts and precautions conjured it out of the woods. I slammed on the breaks and heard the screech of rubber sticking to the asphalt. I knew enough not to crank the wheel to the left although I really wanted to. I thought everything was okay and the deer was moving fast enough to clear the car and then BAM! Ugh. But the deer kept right on moving.

I turned on my signal and pulled over to the right and the SUV sped past. Could the driver really have missed that? Or did the person just not care? After turning on the emergency flashers and pulling on the brake I got out of the car and looked behind me and saw nothing. I checked out the car and it is okay except for some broken lights. You might think all was well but the car is a tank and has honest to goodness bumpers made of rubber and steel. That poor animal must surely have suffered a broken leg.

I had no idea what to do so I drove off. I feel small and mean and horrible and somewhat filled with dread because I will be driving this road every week for the foreseeable future. Is hitting a deer like being hit by lightening? Does it only happen once? If I did conjure the thing up out of the woods can I protect myself by refusing to think about deer when I drive? If you hit a deer do they reserve a special chair for you in hell? I hope not.

=====
Morning update –
I was thinking about this after swimming today and I realized that if I hadn’t been on deer alert I would probably have nailed that animal broadside and been rear ended and it would have been very, very ugly. So I will always think about deer on that road and I may just slow down a bit at night. If that makes SUV drivers unhappy then so be it.

And on another note – It’s a great day to be a Democrat. And we finally have a woman as Speaker of the House. Yes!!!

Sometimes an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and sometimes that formula fails miserably.

I think I’ve mentioned before that one of my volunteer endeavors (the only one these days) is with an organization called CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates). A CASA (as we are known) acts as an advocate for a child in the foster care system. It’s sort of a Big Sister/Big Brother on steroids deal where you spend time with the child and make sure he or she is getting all appropriate services. It’s a great thing to do.

The child I advocate for lives about 20 miles from me and the best way to get there is by traveling a road that has a lot of watershed land on one side and a couple of reservoirs on the other. It is very dark and windy – as in it has a lot of curves although it can be windy, too.

As I was driving home tonight I thought to myself, “I should really watch for deer” and I did. I scanned the land to the left and to the right searching for the glint of eyeballs. I watched my speed but it is a fairly fast road and the limit is 50 so I was doing 50. I had an SUV somewhat on my tail (do they ever drive any other way?). And then, just like that, as I am scanning for deer, a large, dark body pops out on my left and tears across the road as though all of my good thoughts and precautions conjured it out of the woods. I slammed on the breaks and heard the screech of rubber sticking to the asphalt. I knew enough not to crank the wheel to the left although I really wanted to. I thought everything was okay and the deer was moving fast enough to clear the car and then BAM! Ugh. But the deer kept right on moving.

I turned on my signal and pulled over to the right and the SUV sped past. Could the driver really have missed that? Or did the person just not care? After turning on the emergency flashers and pulling on the brake I got out of the car and looked behind me and saw nothing. I checked out the car and it is okay except for some broken lights. You might think all was well but the car is a tank and has honest to goodness bumpers made of rubber and steel. That poor animal must surely have suffered a broken leg.

I had no idea what to do so I drove off. I feel small and mean and horrible and somewhat filled with dread because I will be driving this road every week for the foreseeable future. Is hitting a deer like being hit by lightening? Does it only happen once? If I did conjure the thing up out of the woods can I protect myself by refusing to think about deer when I drive? If you hit a deer do they reserve a special chair for you in hell? I hope not.

=====
Morning update –
I was thinking about this after swimming today and I realized that if I hadn’t been on deer alert I would probably have nailed that animal broadside and been rear ended and it would have been very, very ugly. So I will always think about deer on that road and I may just slow down a bit at night. If that makes SUV drivers unhappy then so be it.

And on another note – It’s a great day to be a Democrat. And we finally have a woman as Speaker of the House. Yes!!!

On Sunday morning we are scheduled to meet our guide and the other members of our group in the hotel lobby so we can call fly out of Lima and head for Cuzco. As soon as we reach the lobby a guy in a navy track suit wearing a pair of navy crocs asks if we are with Southern Explorations (the fabulous tour company we traveled with). We say yes and everyone exchanges names and heads out for the van where we wait for D & K. They are late. They finally show up and we learn that their luggage was lost en route and they have not much more than the clothes on their backs. How fun. Fortunately they had travel insurance (don’t leave home without it!) so ultimately they were fine.

We fly out of Lima after learning that you don’t get to leave Lima without paying a tax. They have a sort of exit tax/usage fee for leaving the city. I think it’s kind of brilliant. The flight is uneventful and short and we are soon in a completely different city.

Cuzco is at about 11,000 feet so it is important to take it easy when you first arrive. Our hotel was on the main square and we were thrilled to find that there was a parade going on. The occasion was a celebration of the Rosary Virgin. I was so happy to have a 1G chip in my digital because there were so many great shots! (click on the thumbnail to see a bigger image)

That is but a few. I’ll open up the whole album if I ever when I get through these travels.

We watched the parade for a long time then went exploring and discovered that you can’t swing a dead cat in Cuzco without someone trying to sell you something. Stuff to buy abounds. People walk along the street selling artwork (Senora – I painted this myself), all of which looks alike. Kids sell postcards. Little girls in native dress carry around baby alpacas and let you take their picture for a sole (about 35 cents).

That evening we look in the Lonely Planet guide for somewhere to eat and discover The Fallen Angel which is a very cool restaurant. You have to knock to get in the door and when you do you find that they have created tables using claw foot tubs filled with rocks and water and goldfish and covered with heavy glass. There are bed like couches covered in pillows for seating. Out in the courtyard is a spectacular sculpture of a fallen angel. The food was fabulous. I had pumpkin ravioli that was to die for.

We really wanted to wander the city and trip the light fantastic but alas we were acclimating to altitude and needed our beauty sleep. It was a blessedly quiet and car alarm free night.

I just got done reading a post over at Complete Running Network about running a marathon wearing hardware. I don’t wear my iPod in a marathon because I like the whole racing zeitgeist with the roar of the crowd and all that but I did use it as a crutch in my last marathon when I was falling apart and needed a boost. I do wear my Garmin so I can upload the race results to Google Earth and look at it and think, wow – I ran all that way!

That is in stark contrast to this morning’s run which I took after swimming 2000 yards. Went out there wearing my HRM, my Garmin and my iPod. I really should have had an antennae sticking out of the top of my head to complete the outfit.

When last we met to discuss my trip to Peru I had spent most of the first day in Lima.

After we finished looking at the art in the museum we caught another one of Lima’s amazing cabs and headed back to our hotel and then out for dinner. We had read about a restaurant somewhere near Kennedy Square so we headed that way. We couldn’t find it but I did spot this cool sculpture inside of a fenced in yard

We ended up in some touristy restaurant but the food was okay and we were seated outside so we were happy. What was better was that there was an art festival going on . After we finished eating we walked around looking at the artwork and the stuff for sale and then we noticed a crowd of people and heard music.

I wish stuff like this happened in the States. I haven’t seen anything like it since I was kid growing up in Ohio and we had the whole town out square dancing on Wednesday nights.

We walked toward the music and found a small amphitheater. There was a band playing and it was open mike for the audience as far as I could tell. A man came up to the mic and started speaking and a woman came down from the audience. She was very short and in 4 inch heels which she removed. There was a lot of shuffling around and finally another man handed her a hanky. The band struck up a tune, a woman took the mic and started singing and this lone woman started doing a dance with the hanky. Then a man joined her and the did the hanky dance which they clearly both knew, together. I didn’t get the impression that they had a prior relationship – the relationship was formed on the spot because they both wanted to dance. They were having the time of their lives and so was the audience.

When they got done the MC said something in the mic (sorry, I don’t speak Spanish so I had no idea what he was saying), another man took the mic, talked for a few minutes and then the band started playing what must have been a traditional and well known song and the man started singing. Members from the audience got up, found a partner and start dancing. Everyone knew the songs and the dances. This process was repeated over and over, with a different person taking the mic each time and people switching partners.

It was fantastic. People did this unabashedly and without agenda beyond having fun. I didn’t see anyone who looked uncomfortable or like they felt threatened or anything. It was just sheer joy. One lady in a raincoat unbuttoned it and holding the edges of her coat demurely like it was a poofy ball gown swung left to right as though she were at the Queen’s Ball at the Ritz. I enjoyed it so much I took a movie of it on my camera but it came out too dark to see. I’m going to see if I can get someone to lighten it up and then I’ll post it. Those Peruvians really know how to move their hips!

We watched for quite a while and then headed back to the hotel to try to sleep. The car alarms and horns were even worse than the night before but we managed.

On Saturday we went to the Museo National which has a comprehensive history of the country. Very few of the plaques describing what we were seeing were in English but some were and it was most informative. What I liked most is that there were many groups of school children on field trips. I guess in Peru you do your basics Monday through Friday and have field trip day on Saturday. The kids were adorable and very attentive.

The afternoon was spent just sort of wandering around. We went back to the art festival and each bought a small watercolor. I think we turned in early and spent yet another night fighting to sleep through the noise. We were ready to head to the next place – Cusco.

To be continued (sorry to drag this out but I’m off to the beach for the weekend!)

1). The Funny Thing that Happened Today

I had to take my son over to where he wisely left his car last night because he had a couple of beers at a party. He got a ride home (good boy!). After I dropped him off and was on my way back I stopped at a stop sign and saw a woman coming up to my car looking sort of frantic. She was in a suit, holding a cup of Starbucks coffee (which was odd because I was in a residential neighborhood) and a tote bag. I rolled the window down and she said, “Excuse me – could you give me a ride to BART if it isn’t out of your way? You can drop me at the corner. I came out to catch a bus but I missed it and I’m already late.”

Whoa! I thought that was just so odd. Who asks strangers for a ride these days? On the other hand I am a small woman in an older Volvo Wagon so I guess I don’t exactly present as the trailside strangler. I said, “sure” and she got in. In that moment I remembered Wednesday in the Aadams family all “dressed up” for Halloween but wearing her regular clothes. When someone at school asked her what she was gong as she said, “I’m a serial killer. They look like everyone else.”

My passenger was very flustered and had a lot of stuff to deal with but I asked her to please put her seatbelt on and she did. She told me again about how late she was and then proceeded to give me step by step directions as though I had no idea where I was. Little Wednesday’s face kept floating through my head but as long as she didn’t pull a gun out of her purse we were okay.

The whole experience was very weird but I guess she really was just late and frantic and figured I was a safe bet. I dropped her off at the station and went on my way.

2). I have a new ambition for March.
I was reading the forums over at RaceAthlete and coach Mike Ricci told IronPol to improve his swimming by swimming every day in November. That reminded me of how important it is to spend a lot of time in the water if you want to get faster so I decided I’d adopt that plan, too. I won’t quite make it every day but I am going to try to swim no fewer than 5 days a week. My masters group has 5 workouts a day M – Th, 4 on Friday and 1 on Saturday. I’m not going to even attempt to swim Sunday because whereas IronPol must answer to God on Sunday, I must answer to my riding group, the New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle. No time to swim. I will report my time improvement early in December. I know there will be one because swimming is entirely unnatural and there is no way to get faster other than to swim a lot. Working on technique makes a big difference but if you don’t swim a lot the big difference isn’t nearly as big.

3). I’m going to get back to my tales of Peru.
I didn’t even get us to my second day yet. Stay tuned.

4). Go IMFL racers.

Special Go, go, go to Nancy Toby and to Bold. We’re with you, people!!

ps – if you haven’t read Bold’s ‘Final Thoughts’ post go read it right now. The man has more grace and humility than Ghandi. Sersly. What an inspiration.

1). The Funny Thing that Happened Today

I had to take my son over to where he wisely left his car last night because he had a couple of beers at a party. He got a ride home (good boy!). After I dropped him off and was on my way back I stopped at a stop sign and saw a woman coming up to my car looking sort of frantic. She was in a suit, holding a cup of Starbucks coffee (which was odd because I was in a residential neighborhood) and a tote bag. I rolled the window down and she said, “Excuse me – could you give me a ride to BART if it isn’t out of your way? You can drop me at the corner. I came out to catch a bus but I missed it and I’m already late.”

Whoa! I thought that was just so odd. Who asks strangers for a ride these days? On the other hand I am a small woman in an older Volvo Wagon so I guess I don’t exactly present as the trailside strangler. I said, “sure” and she got in. In that moment I remembered Wednesday in the Aadams family all “dressed up” for Halloween but wearing her regular clothes. When someone at school asked her what she was gong as she said, “I’m a serial killer. They look like everyone else.”

My passenger was very flustered and had a lot of stuff to deal with but I asked her to please put her seatbelt on and she did. She told me again about how late she was and then proceeded to give me step by step directions as though I had no idea where I was. Little Wednesday’s face kept floating through my head but as long as she didn’t pull a gun out of her purse we were okay.

The whole experience was very weird but I guess she really was just late and frantic and figured I was a safe bet. I dropped her off at the station and went on my way.

2). I have a new ambition for March.
I was reading the forums over at RaceAthlete and coach Mike Ricci told IronPol to improve his swimming by swimming every day in November. That reminded me of how important it is to spend a lot of time in the water if you want to get faster so I decided I’d adopt that plan, too. I won’t quite make it every day but I am going to try to swim no fewer than 5 days a week. My masters group has 5 workouts a day M – Th, 4 on Friday and 1 on Saturday. I’m not going to even attempt to swim Sunday because whereas IronPol must answer to God on Sunday, I must answer to my riding group, the New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle. No time to swim. I will report my time improvement early in December. I know there will be one because swimming is entirely unnatural and there is no way to get faster other than to swim a lot. Working on technique makes a big difference but if you don’t swim a lot the big difference isn’t nearly as big.

3). I’m going to get back to my tales of Peru.
I didn’t even get us to my second day yet. Stay tuned.

4). Go IMFL racers.

Special Go, go, go to Nancy Toby and to Bold. We’re with you, people!!

ps – if you haven’t read Bold’s ‘Final Thoughts’ post go read it right now. The man has more grace and humility than Ghandi. Sersly. What an inspiration.

First off – Congrats to all of the MCM runners. For the most part it was a beautiful day in the neighborhood – if your knee didn’t get blown out, that is.

I knew I wasn’t quite done writing about Nike and then Grace posts pics that simply cannot be ignored.

First I wanted to post a couple of other impressions about the race. I did my first marathon in 1999 with Team in Training. One of the many ways they raise money is through selling corporate sponsorships that include having the sponsoring company’s logo printed on the running singlets. In 1999 the dot com companies couldn’t get enough of sponsoring races. The business was booming and what better demographic to recruit from than well educated, health minded individuals? In San Francisco the finish line party areas were just dirty with recruting tents and the backs of the singlets for TNT were covered, shot gun blast style with a thousand tiny logos. Here is mine with its 50+. Those were the days, man and I WAS THERE! I was so there.

How times have changed. The singlets I saw at Nike, even the ones from the Bay Area Chapter and from areas around Southern California had no more than 20 logos. And Western Canada? We need to have a talk. You Canadians did an excellent job with the wearing of the Maple Leaf but have you NO companies that will sponor athletes running for a cause? Your shirts are too empty.

Remember how I thanked Amy for coming in at the same time as me so I could watch as Ted proposed to her? Well here is the happy couple:

And here is me clapping for them:

As you can see I was genuinely thrilled for them and it was a great moment in race history but not quite as great as the moment I got my Nike bling from the firefighter you see on the far right in this pic