There’s a group of students that frequents the track on a similar schedule to my own. They normally walk the outer lanes in pairs and a few of them have faculty chaperones. I run by and they wave, I wave back, we make funny faces at each other as I pass, exchange a “hello!” or sometimes just make weird noises and grunts at each other. Everyone seems pleased with these interactions. These are the special education kids, and they’re the only high school students I know who actually think I’m cool.

The other high school students I see regularly are the kids at swim practice. “Cool” is not a word that any of them would use to describe me. Saturday I was introduced to a new kid. “This is Ben, he’s really old, kind of funny, and he has lots of hair.” As far as I can tell there are only two people on the team that look up to me. One who goes to the same high school I went to and was recently accepted to Columbia University (he’s obviously destined for greatness) and one who aspires to be a triathlete (also a very smart kid). But alas, looking up to me just reinforces the “really old” descriptor, and further separates me from the coveted “cool” status that I lacked even when I was myself a 17 year old high school student with more pimples than brains. Maybe someday I’ll teach physics and the kids will call me “cool” because I show them a proof that their least favorite teacher falls from the roof at the same rate as the rival school’s mascot.

Anyway, back to the Special Ed kids that actually like me…

Last week I showed up at the track to find my favorite group of students riding tricycles around the track in lane one, and one of their teachers walking around bouncing a basketball in lane one as well. This got me a little irritated. I mean, it’s not the students’ fault, they have no idea that they’re not supposed to be walking in the inside lane, let alone riding bikes!! I made a mental note that the school must be informed of this disgraceful use of our community’s brand new all-weather track, then began warming up in the outside lanes. I was running the opposite direction as the tricyclists, and at about the same speed, so I saw each of them twice a lap. One kid, who was riding by when I rolled up on my shiny Beyond Fabrications speed machine, took an immediate liking to me. As I ran by the first time he waved at me with googlie eyes – I waved back enthusiastically and said “HI!!!”. The second time he blew me a kiss – I waved back again, wondering if I had been too enthusiastic. The third time he waved, blew a kiss, shouted “HELLOO!!” AND gave me the googlie eyes – I definitely had been too enthusiastic, I responded with a mere “hi” and smiled. After that he had to give up his trike to let one of the other students have a turn, and then his PE period was over so he and the others all left. I’m guessing if he were to introduce me to a new kid it would have sounded something like this: “This is Ben, he’s really fast and awesome, and has the sweetest bike that anyone has ever seen, and his afro looks awesome ‘cause he is the COOLEST!!!”

I may never be as cool to any high school kid again, and we didn’t even got to say “BYEEE!!!”

Things are heating up in Seattle, which means it’s time for shutoff valves to stop working on our furnaces. See, in the middle of winter is when the furnace stops working, and when it’s 70 outside, that’s when the heater decides not to turn off anymore – which is exactly what is happening.

My parent’s house has floor heat, where hot water flows under the floorboards and heats the room from the bottom. It’s supposed to be really efficient, but I’m wondering how efficient it is if I have to open all my windows to cool off. I turned the thermostat to ‘”off” about three months ago, but the floor in my room is still so warm that my swim bag radiates heat when I pick it up in the morning. I finally got my dad to agree that ‘tis the season to turn off the boiler entirely, so hopefully that will solve the problem of nighttime sweating, tossing, turning, sweating, and morning dehydration. Plus the utility bill should be a bit smaller.

Turns out the problem is not isolated to home either. This morning I slept in until 5:30am and went with Courtenay to swim at Juanita lap swim. The pool was about 95 degrees, and it felt like swimming in jello. I decided to work on technique, but my muslces were so relaxed that I couldn’t actually get myself into proper form. I floated slowly for about 25 minutes, during which time I found it annoying that other lap swimmers had the nerve to swim faster than 5min per 25 yard pace. This finally ended when I saw Courtenay exit the pool, at which point I jumped at the excuse to leave, got my $3 (which – along with a ride to the pool – I had mooched off Courtenay) back from the lifeguard, and booked it home for some cold water and breakfast.

Two hours later, I’m still burning up from that swim. I may go run topless in 60 degree weather, or swim in Lake Washington, where the water is a pleasant 46 degrees.

Today a cyclist rode by and said, “You’re on the wrong side of the path, moron.” Which is pretty ridiculous, I mean, look at what I was wearing! Would a moron have this kind of fashion sense?

I should explain why I run on the left. When I’m running on the Burke Gilman Trail by my house in Seattle, I always run on the lake side of the trail. This is because there is a dirt path there and I don’t have to run on the paved part with the cyclists. The problem is for the first two miles the dirt path is narrow and sometimes disappears for 10 or 20 meters. I’m not going to go all the way across to the other side for 5 seconds when the dirt path disappears, and then go all the way back across to the path when it reappears, just to appease some “everyone stay to the right on the pavement” moron cyclist crap.

As you can see from what I was told today, some cyclists get really mad that I would have the nerve to run on the left side of the road. Since it’s my blog and I get the final word, I want to point out to the cyclists calling me a moron: my bike is nicer than yours, and I can ride it faster too.

Taigraphx has always been helpful to me, but today I had some outside feedback that confirmed that Taigraphx is the best graphic design company in the endurance sports market. Today was the race briefing and uniform check for the Mooloolaba World Cup (we race Sunday, which is Saturday night in the US – but more on that in a sec). The uniform check is where all the competitors show the uniform they will be wearing and the race officials measure every logo and its placement to make sure that it complies with the most recent of the ITU’s quite stringent uniform guidelines (if you really want to know it’s all in a pdf file here). They use little rectangles of the exact height and width allowed for logos and then take notes on any logos that do not conform. If the suit is deemed unfit, they make the athlete wear a blank suit with the ITU logo on it.

I was at the end of the line, so when by the time they checked me the officials had written a lengthy paragraph on every athlete’s uniform. Apparently nobody in front of me had passed each of the 10 stencil tests. My suit, however, was held up by the head official, shown to each of the other officials and referred to as “perfect.” She actually said, “This is perfect, the ITU logo on here is better than when we do it, this is how they should look.” I received a check, with no comments. It was like getting a term paper back with nothing but an A+.

For that prideful moment, I would like to thank Tai Blechta, my former roommate in Honolulu and the owner of Taigraphx, which is apparently the only graphic design company that can read a set of guidelines.

The race will be Saturday at 6pm Honolulu time, 9pm Pacific Daylight Time, and midnight in New York. It’s unclear if the World Cup series will be broadcast live this year, but I would recommend anyone interested in watching (or at least listening to the commentary) the race go to www.triathlon.org at those times to check out the live feed button.

Now, this isn’t the first time I’ve written about a new swim suit. A few weeks ago I wrote about a suit that Courtenay made for me from Splish that I nicknamed “Planet Unicorn” (left). It’s pink with unicorns all over it. At the time I was really excited because I figured it was so obviously weird that it would be a conversation starter (or at least give people the opportunity to poke fun at me). Not so. I’m renaming “Planet Unicorn” to “Anti-Social Suit” or ASS. In the past 5 weeks I have received zero comments about my unicorn laden suit. None. I may have caught a strange glance, but it seems the suit is actually too cool for school. I mean, people must be intimidated by how awesome I look. There’s just no other explanation, I refuse to believe that nobody would notice that I’m wearing a tiny pink brief with a dozen unicorns plastered neatly on my ASS. I’m curious to see the reaction in Seattle, where people already know me enough to say hello, but on this trip it seems the awesomeness of my ASS has actually made me unapproachable. Maybe before my next two month excursion Courtenay will help me make another Splish suit that isn’t quite as bodacious as my ASS.

This morning I went body surfing. The water here in Mooloolaba is really murky, which – I’m told – is from the cyclone that passed through here recently. The swell seems to be dying off because yesterday there were surfers getting barreled, but today was only about chest high. It’s a fast break and close to shore, which makes it really nice for body surfing. When the wave kicks up quickly you can catch it with minimal effort, and I managed to catch more than my fare share.

The beach culture here is somewhere in between Brazil and Hawaii. There’s more skin than Hawaii, but fewer people than Brazil. There are more sun tanners and fewer tans than either.

I caught a wave just outside a group of girls. I cut hard to the right in order to avoid landing on them, but one girl was sure I was going to hit her. She dove to the side but her bikini top didn’t get the memo in time and she came back to the surface topless. I tried to apologize, but for some reason she wouldn’t turn to face me. Maybe it’s an Australian thing.

Matt Chrabot and Kevin Collington were here when I got back form the beach, so the rest of the day was spent catching up on all the Olympic Training Center gossip (Basically a review of the latest YouTube videos to be included in daily OTC culture – something about a pork sandwich?). I still haven’t figured out which way to look at an intersection, and I’ve resolved to both wait for green lights and look in all directions (twice) before entering an intersection (regardless of what the signal says).

Kevin and I rode up the hill from the beach and took photos of  our conflicting nutrition sponsor cycling kits before he turned around (because he was out of energy) and left me to finish my ride alone.

(I’m sure having just gotten off a trans-pacific flight had nothing to do with Kevin turning back early)

Here are some things that should be more emphasized on travel brochures – or even mandatory reading to get through customs – when traveling to Australia for the first time.

[We’re staying right on the run course, this is the view from our lanai, which is fenced in.]

• They take customs seriously, so don’t try to save a cookie or sandwich from the plane for later (it will be taken), and clean the mud off your bike wheels because they really dislike it when you drag dirt into their country.
• Look right, left, right when crossing the street. This is because the cars to your right are the ones most likely to run you over first.
• When sitting in the front on the left side of the car, it’s okay not to have a steering wheel. Just relax and let the magic bus take you to where your going. (When the woman picking me up from the airport, Gale, found out that I had never been in a country where they drive on the left she exclaimed, “Oh my god, and with a woman driver too! This is going to be quite a scary drive for you.” I did what I normally do sitting in the front left – I fell right to sleep.)
• In the pool, you have to swim clockwise. Even on the easy hundreds and when doing backstroke. I’m a bit hard headed when it comes to this whole left side thing, which was helpful today when I collided head-on with another person in my lane.
• Even if you think you’ve gotten the hang of the left side thing, try not to fall into old habits. When you hear honking and see a woman’s middle finger – it means the same thing as at home – and you probably did something wrong.

[I haven’t taken any pictures outside yet, but I’ll leave you with a picture of the power adapter I jerry rigged when I realized that I had forgotten to bring one. Total cost: $1.00 (AUS) (for the outlet splitter that I destroyed) + 10cm of electrical tape.]