Pictures!

I've been trying to scrape together some cash to repair my digital camera or to buy a new one, but every time I do something comes up that I need to spend money on. Thankfully, I've figured out how to e-mail pics from my camera on my phone to myself and upload them to my blog. The quality is so-so, but at least it's something to look at instead of boring text.

This pic is of the imfamous Torrey Pines climb that I climbed as part of my ride today. If you look towards the left of the picture, you can see where it starts to get steep; it gets worse farther up. My favorite thing to do is blow by people riding carbon bikes on my aluminum hunk of junk I bought for $700. Hehe.

PCH is to the left, off screen and the beach is to the right of the picture, where I lifeguard for the State Park system in the summer. You can climb the hill via PCH where it's longer and less steep, but REAL cyclists ride the inside road. Kidding! The inside is steeper, though.

Later...

Lagging...

I need to make sure I start posting more than once a month. I swear I'll try to post at least once a week so these posts don't get so friggin' long.

I'm well into the Winter quarter here at UCSD and things are as expected: hectic. That's what I get for trying to take a full load of clases and train at a high level for triathlon all at the same time.

Thankfully, my swim is FINALLY starting to come around. I had a few breakthrough sessions recently and my "feel" for the water is improving rapidly as is my pacing. As an example, I dropped 12 seconds off my threshold pace in one week. I'm pretty excited.

On a personal note, my Grandfather on my Dad's side moved out of his house and into a "Senior Living" apartment complex so he could be near my Granmother, who's currently in a nursing home due to a degenerating vertebral column. too many years of inactivity and your body just starts to deteriorate. I'm touched by his commitment to her after all those years of marriage. We'd all be lucky find someone that cares for us that much.

Anyway, off to P-Chem (Thermodynamics) . Ugh...

Happy New Year!!

I've been spending the Holidays at Mom and Dad's in Orange County, CA. As much as I LOVE Mom's cooking (Italian and Hungarian heritage) staying here presents unique training challenges since I can't use my favorite routes for running and cycling and I'm using the pool my g/f works at, which is free but an hour drive. The sacrifices we make...

I went with my Dad to the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace, which turned out to be very interesting. I knew he had been a very influential Politician and President, but I was shocked to find out how much of our current policies were his ideas. Simply an amazing man.

As for my training, my swimming is really starting to come along. I'm still agonizingly slow, but my technique is starting to look much better, my "feel"is coming around, my left turn is gone and I think I'm going to be MUCH faster once my muscles get used to the new stroke. SWEET!

Christmas - I got a couple really cool gifts that I'm goin to ber getting a lot of use out of. My g/f's parent's got me a swim workout book so I don't have to make up my own workouts any more. That should save me some time. Mom and Dad gave me a new MP3 player with 2 gigs of music: enough for 15 HOURS of music. My last one only held 3 hours of music, the new one will be much better for rides longer than 3 hours. The gold medal for the best Xmas gift goes to my g/f, who gave me a body fat scale. Now I can keep an eye on my body composition and lean myself out. Less fat = free speed.

On a non training note, I got tapped for Jury Duty last week. The "new" method allows you to call in instead of showing up and sitting at the courthouse all day, but you have to call in for a WEEK! I'm not sure that the new method is any better than the old one...

I'll be heading back to San Diego tomorrow afternoon and getting back to the chaos of juggling school and training. Suck.

Happy Stuff!! My younger sister got engaged! She and her b/f have been together for several years and own a condo. We knew they'd get married eventually, but it's nice to see her so happy and excited.

See ya.
E