SGM Pic

I realized I never posted a picture. This is me right before Mile 23. Right before I decided that I couldn't take the massive amounts of calf pain anymore.

Pool Review

I was checking out the official length of my pool and ran across this review of another community pool that isn't too far away.

"Good News: Outdoor, 25 yards, kickboards, clocks.

The Bad News: TEN dollars. In (blank). You bastards are lucky I'm in this shit town to begin with and I have to pay ten bucks to swim? You should pay me for bringing some life into snoresville. But I digress.

Details: Bring some sandals, because you have to walk over the rock-embedded, foot-thrashing concrete that surrounds the indoor pool to get to the outdoor pool. Some negligent mother let her kid wander into my lane but I showed him who was boss in this town in no time. I'm doing fly, kid- take that! I don't pay ten dollars so I can be polite to some commune-raised hippie brat who calls his mom "Sarah.""

So Serious

I went swimming for the first time in over three years this morning. I found out that swimmers are just as anal as cyclists are. Apparently you must inform the other swimmers in your lane prior to beginning your laps that you will be swimming in their lane. Additionally, if there are only two people in your lane, you stay on the same side of the lane. If there are more than two people, you circle, which is how I swim if there are at least two people. If you don't follow these rules, they'll stop you in the middle of the pool just to let you know that you've broken the rules.

Also, don't pay cash to get in or the entire line will groan. Finally, a speedo is required or you are laughed at.

I'm glad that I now have two sports whose participants I don't like. I was getting bored only hating cyclists.

Just swam an easy 900 this morning. I'll probably be swimming twice a week until I start training seriously for a race again, at which point I'll drop swimming for the boring exercise that it is.

Sakae Sushi

Just in case you were wondering, Sakae Sushi has the best sushi I've ever eaten. That includes all the sushi I consumed in New York and Japan. Granted, I didn't have the pockets to go to the uber-nice sushi places while I was in Japan, but still, I ate some pretty quality sushi.

My favorites:

- Barracuda - flown in from Japan daily - very rich and meaty
- Bluefin Red Tuna - also flown in from Japan daily - almost steaklike
- Uni - shipped up from Monterey daily - super sweet with a texture that wasn't too firm and wasn't too slimey
- Oh-toro - This place has three grades of toro (fatty tuna belly). This grade is the fattiest. As I eat it, all I'm thinking is that I want to rub it all over my body and then lick it off. It's that good.

Who am I kidding, it is all outstanding.

Ageism

The other day I was running in the foothills with a friend. We wanted to do 11 miles and didn't want to run over the same ground twice, so we stopped at a trail map to check out where we could go. As we investigated the map, we heard runners coming. I couldn't see them, but could tell from their voices that it was a group of women. My friend looked at me and said we better go so we wouldn't have to pass them on the trail. So we headed up the trail.

About a minute later, the voices were right behind us. We were in a canyon, so I figured it was just acoustics of the canyon that made it seem as if they were right behind us. After another minute, I finally figured out that they were right behind us. Embarrassed, I moved over to the right, heard a little "Thank you" and watched three young girls run by us.

They couldn't have been more then 14 or 15. And they were blowing past us. Now let me say that were were not trying to run fast. Leisurely 8 minute miles through the hills. We'd also been running for 5 miles with 6 to go and they probably had only been running for 1 with 5 to go (we were on a popular 6 mile loop). However, we still got blown by by three teenage girls.

My friend and I were silent for a few minutes. I broke the silence by saying that that was unexpected. He responded by saying that the girl in the lead "looked good". I was a little shocked. He noticed my shock and quickly said, "You know, her running form. It looked good."

Yep, these are the kind of people I run with.