I promised regular posts, but it’s been a bad week. A great friend of mine, Adam Havrilak, passed away after a bad motor-scooter accident in China last weekend. It may take me a bit more time to collect my thoughts, so please forgive me and check back in next week.

The other day I was doing a long run, and while plodding along on the Burke Gilman trail I started thinking about what the hell I’m doing with my life. I mean, I haven’t had a day off ‘work’ since the day after Thanksgiving. Not even Christmas. And, I completely don’t care. Everything seems right in my life right now. My family is functioning, my health is great (thanks in no small part to Inewmed), my friends have gotten used to only seeing me once a month or before 8pm, and the people who do see me regularly (Aaron and Courtenay) seem to have learned to deal with my grumpiness that accompanies hard training and night classes.

So back to the long run, I was thinking about my life. More specifically I was thinking about how much I love doing long runs, and then it occurred to me that this may be the first time I’ve ever enjoyed the process as much as the results. Meanwhile, outside my thoughts something was about to happen which would make the oddness of that abundantly clear. See, my dad was riding his bike next to me. He’s never been into athletics of any kind (e.g. “You’re watching baseball? That sounds about as fun as watching Astroturf grow”, or in his most sarcastic tone “Oh yeah swim meets are a lot of fun, sit around all day next to a hot pool to see your son compete for 30 seconds.”), but I’ve managed to drag him to a handful of triathlons and even get him to accompany me on some of my runs.

I began to plan my run out loud, “Alright, so I want to pick up the pace at mile four, I’m turning around at 7, so that’s less than 20 minutes, there’s a bit of a hill at mile 6…”

“Sounds like a waste of life to me.” My dad has a way of being blunt.

It seemed ironic that I had just been relishing in a few thoughts about how, by doing something I’m passionate about and which I enjoy, I am, in fact, not wasting my life at all. In my head I had even thought of what I would tell the reporter who would inevitably ask me why I was spending my Sunday running in the rain, “I used to think the process was just a way of attaining the goal; that the struggle was what made the attainment of my goals worthwhile. But how can I separate my goal from the struggle? I love my long run. It’s all part of one big adventure. I may end up someplace I didn’t expect, I’m still going to have fun getting there.”

My dad calls my training a “drug addiction”, which is somewhat valid. Thing is, I like the addiction. Even if my legs feel like they could be used as sand bags to stop all the flooding in Washington.

Last summer I got irritated that every time I met somebody who read my blog they seemed to know all the current events of my life.  So I apologize if on occasion I am a little vague and unclear when mentioning why I am going to Incline Village to train in November or who is driving from Cali to Seattle with me.

  This suit may fill in the gaps. If you need more dirt, check out Courtenay’s blog – she’s a little less secretive.  I asked Courtenay if she would get me a suit from Splish, and she came up with this. Now, before she  orders it for me, she wants to know if I will actually wear it. I would say yes, just for the humor of it, but I swim on a team with high school kids! It’s hard enough to be “cool” around those kids without a heart and kisses. Maybe if it was blue and had a grumpy face and a “NO” symbol on the butt. The unicorn can stay. Unicorns totally kick ass.

This is the one I came up with to be her gift to me. Before the order goes through I need to know what you think. Hers or mine?

It crossed my mind that I should have a New Years Resolution. Aside from the obvious ones that I can’t possibly be expected to keep (e.g. be nice to lap swimmers, don’t make fun of blind people, read my workouts before I do them, etc.), I really couldn’t think of anything worth committing to.

Tomorrow my life starts again. Not that I have been dead, or have been doing nothing, but the normalities that tie my days into one huge knot of restless activity will be resuming. This includes biochemistry lectures, cycling classes, yoga, physical therapy, and let me not forget the 25 hours of swimming, biking, and running on my calendar for this week alone.

The biochemistry class and cycling class is nothing new. What is new, is that I will be teaching a cycling class at Herriott Sports Performance, I’m learning Spanish via Rosetta Stone and my brother-in-law is finally going with me to Toastmasters, so we can both become the great speakers of our time.

I’m trying to visit the IMA a bit less, as I’ve realized that the $2.00, plus 20-45 minutes (depending on traffic) for a bus ride each way, plus the expense of trying to find food or lug around enough food is actually costing me only slightly less than a monthly pass to the lap swim pool near my house. The key to getting in all these training hours is being able to recover, and it seems that every time I go to the IMA I end up being there all day.

One thing I have resolved to do (though I wouldn’t exactly call it a New Years Resolution) is to make the Institute of New Medicine a greater part of my support network. I am going to have them work with me in regards to planning my nutrition, acupuncture, general health, and preventative medicine. I said in a previous post that if there was one thing I would have spent more money on last year, it would have been Inewmed, and after going over my budget I was pretty happy to find I could do that with just a little extra frugality in other parts of my life (e.g. fewer Q’Doba Burrito trips from the IMA). Quite honestly, if you’re serious about your athletic performance and have the means to get to Inewmed there’s no reason not to get a free consultation to find out what they would do for you.

Alright, this is my rambler blog post. I’m done for now, but I’m going to be back on a regular blog schedule, so check back frequently. I’ll leave you with a picture of my dog, Teisha.

She’s 14, and so what if she’s a little overweight. That’s like 100 in human years.

Today I drove from Tiburon California to Kelso Washington, which is about 700 miles. It was a really long drive, and it got me about 130 miles from my home. I would have kept driving, but it started snowing. When semi’s started passing me aggressively, I decided I was not a macho man, and I should take advantage of the “lodging next right” sign. Now I’m in Kelso at the Comfort Inn and I’m tired and I’m hoping to make it home in time for afternoon swim practice tomorrow.

I promise to post pictures of fun stuff soon.