It Was a Good Day

"Today I didn't even have to use my A.K. ...
I gotta say it was a good day."
- Ice Cube, "It Was a Good Day"

When I was a senior in high school, most of my fellow students wanted our prom theme to be "Changes" by David Bowie. Sadly, our milquetoast student council thought Bowie was too "edgy", and - to their eternal shame - they selected "The Time of My Life," keeping with the Dirty Dancing mania of the late 1980s.

It was a horrible choice. Yet they stuck to the theme, and that song was the final one our senior class heard collectively. To this day, I'm still embarrassed to say that I danced to it.

I bring this up only because it ties in nicely with the prom analogy I used in the triathlon preview. Because I literally had one of the best times ever at this race.

My finishing time was 4:51, almost nine full minutes faster than my best-case scenario from earlier in the week. I'm not sure of the numbers, but I think I was 8th in my age group, and somewhere in the 40s overall. And for the most part, I felt fantastic.

I'll post a longer report soon - either sometime Monday (possibly) or Tuesday (more likely). But if you're checking in on me, for now just know that I had the time of my life at the Kahuna prom.

But if you think I'm using an intro quote from that song, you're crazy. Ice Cube is a much cooler way to roll.

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Big Kahuna Preview

“Strike us like matches…’cause everyone deserves the flames…
We only do it for the scars and stories, not the fame … “
- Fall Out Boy, “Champagne for My Real Friends, Real Pain for My Sham Friends”

Remember how I said that triathlon training is a lot like dating Shakira? Well, over the last few months I’ve seen an amazing amount of action at all hours of the day. It’s been more than I could take at times. Borderline unhealthy, honestly. I’ve been sleep deprived and physically exhausted, and usually when I’m getting down to business in the morning, I still feel aches and soreness from the same activity the day before.

It’s been an absolute whirlwind, and an absolute blast. God help me, but I think I’m falling in love with the girl.

This weekend the relationship comes to its apex at the Big Kahuna Triathlon, a half-Ironman distance event in Santa Cruz, CA. It’s my last race of the year, so there will inevitably be a letdown of sorts when it’s all said and done.

In that regard, race day is a bit like the senior prom: it’s the defining moment of a memorable courtship. You look forward to it for weeks, imagining how perfect everything’s going to be. It’s an emotional high water mark, and you desperately try to absorb as many feelings and memories as possible, so when summer vacation comes and you go your separate ways, you’ll still remember all the good times you shared. (That’s right … I’m taking Shakira to the prom. The analogies fly fast and crazy around here sometimes.)

But above all else, the prom is one heck of a party. And that’s my primary approach to this race: I’m just in it for a good time.

Don’t get me wrong - I’m definitely going to have my eye on the clock. I’ll race as fast as I’m able to, but since this is my first time at Kahuna, I have absolutely no expectations about my finishing time. Of course, that doesn’t mean I’m not pondering it with every waking minute.

Here then is a rough prediction of what I anticipate at this weekend’s race, broken down by discipline, with some workout details to back up my estimates. But keep in mind, above all else … do I need to keep saying this? … that I’m an idiot. Don’t be surprised if these estimates turn out in hindsight to be wildly inaccurate.

Part 1 – Swim 1.2 miles

Historically, this is the hardest aspect to predict, because I’m always unsure of how much carryover the pool training has to open water racing. On one hand, ocean swimming is much harder because of the waves, the chop and swell, poor visibility, and contact from other swimmers. On the other, I’ll be more buoyant with my wetsuit, and the adrenaline of race day might help me go faster. Not to mention, I’m going to draft behind as many pairs of feet as I can find.

It’s nearly impossible to gauge my speed on the few ocean swims I’ve done this summer. I’ve swum in the pool about three days per week, and one day per week I’ve timed a 2000 meter “cruising” piece that usually ends up between 36 and 37 minutes. So let’s guess this number at 38 just to be conservative.

My main goals for the swim are to stay relaxed, use my upper body as much as possible, and avoid going anaerobic at all costs. If I exit the water in the middle of the pack, I’m OK with that – because I tend to get stronger as the race goes on.

Transition Area 1

T1 includes a run from the ocean to a nearby park which is the main staging area. Looking at last year’s results, T1 times range anywhere from 4 to 11 minutes, and the average is somewhere in the 5-minute range.

I’m traditionally a slow transitioner – I’ll take the extra few seconds to put on socks and lace up my shoes so that I’m more comfortable on the course. So let’s guess 6 to 7 minutes for this transition, and anything below that is a bonus.

Bike – 56 miles

The bike course goes out-and-back to the north on Highway 1, with a few gentle hills but no major climbs. There’s typically a headwind going north, which would become a tailwind on the return.

On training rides I usually average just over 20 mph on rolling terrain. Assuming ordinary wind conditions, I’m hoping to push that average closer to 21mph on race day. But to be conservative again, I’ll estimate a 20.5 mph average which would have me on the bike for 2 hours and 44 minutes.

Transition Area 2

Last year’s T2 times are much faster than T1: under 1 minute in some cases, with the average between 2 and 3 minutes. Knowing me, I’ll be closer to three.

Run – 13.1 miles

The run course is also fairly flat, but includes a couple of beach crossings, and a series of turns on the coastal recreation trail. Although I know my legs won’t be feeling very snappy at this point in the race, I’m hoping the run segment is where I’ll find my comfort zone.

I’ve done bike/run brick workouts and hit 6:40 pace for a few miles, but on race day I anticipate this will be closer to the 6:50-7:00 minute per mile range. Taken alone, I can bust through a half-marathon in 83-85 minutes. Optimistically, during the tri I’m hoping to get close to 90 minutes for the run segment, but I wouldn’t be shocked if it’s more like 95 minutes instead.

So where does that put me overall? Using the above estimates, I could be anywhere from 5 hours to 5:15 or more.

Now here’s a big disclaimer: about 650 words ago, I said I was just doing this race for fun. But if I come out of T1 ahead of schedule, or have stronger bike legs than I guessed, I may be knocking on the door of sub-5 hours heading into the half-marathon.

And if that’s the case, I’ll kick fun to the curb in a heartbeat, and bring on the pain.

One of my easily predictable traits is that if I’m close to a milestone time in a race, I’ll battle all the way to the finish, regardless of the physical toll it takes.

I drive myself insane this way sometimes - but as much as I try to ignore the clock and enjoy the last miles of a race, I frequently end up inflicting horrible agony and misery upon myself just to shave a minute or two off my finish time. So it’s 100% reliable that I’ll turn the run into a sufferfest if the conditions are right.

Whether or not that trait of mine is an admirable one is open to question. Whether it ultimately makes my race experience satisfying or disappointing may depend on how successful I am in reaching the goal.

But in either case - if it comes down to that – I’m sure I’ll have a lot of scars and stories from the race to share next week.

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New Predator in Town

With my triathlon less than one week away, it’s time to cool the jets and taper down a bit before race day.

Since I’m not doing much in the way of actual training, you’d think I’d have more time for blogging – but I’m trying to resist the urge to go that route. I think I’ve finally hit a happy medium where “more free time” doesn’t automatically translate into “spend an insane number of hours blogging.” And hey, it only took me 10 months – a relative blink of an eye compared to other lessons I’ve learned.

Anyway, I’ve got a triathlon preview on tap for Thursday. Until then, here’s one more (generally unrelated) post to share for the week…

***
Today’s post centers on a noteworthy new denizen of the Monterey Peninsula. He’s 5-foot-8, 104 pounds, and happens to be one hell of a swimmer. Unfortunately, he would make a terrible training partner, on account of his troublesome predilection for chewing your arms or legs off.

That’s because he’s a great white shark.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium has a working arrangement with several commercial fishing companies, such that they are alerted whenever a young great white is inadvertently ensnared in fishing lines. If the shark can then thrive in a 4-million gallon containment pen in the open ocean, the Aquarium uses a life support transport vehicle to bring the shark to its Outer Bay exhibit showcasing pelagic fish.

It’s all done very responsibly. Marine biologists and Aquarium shark experts monitor the operation, and if the shark demonstrates any signs of stress or failure to thrive, they tag and release it immediately. Meanwhile, they study the great white closely; for obvious reasons, it’s one of the lesser-studied species among all animals. Keeping a great white in captivity, however briefly, also gives them a platform to educate the public about how threatened this powerful animal has become.

They’ve been successful once before. From September 2004 to March 2005, a baby female great white resided at our Aquarium for 198 days. She coexisted with her tankmates reasonably well before her hunting instincts developed. Then suddenly, over the span of two weeks, two soupfin sharks turned up dead, and the great white was released to the ocean three days later.

So it’s understood that the current address for this new shark is quite temporary. He’ll be released at the first sign of poor health or aggression. (On that note, here’s a quote from Saturday’s Monterey Herald attributed to an Aquarium veterinarian, describing when the white shark first entered the tank: “A hammerhead shark swimming in the opposite direction approached it, then turned around and split. It was remarkable how fast it went.” Um … hello? What did you expect? That same hammerhead was probably in the tank when the soupfins died last year.)

Knowing that their window of opportunity is limited, many locals will be flocking to see the shark over the next few weeks. My kids and I will be there, too. The great white is an awesome creature, and not many elementary school kids get the chance to see one up close.

Plus, after my recent ocean swims and the feedback regarding them, I have a secondary motive for observing the shark.

I’m thinking I might do some scientific investigation on behalf of triathletes out there. Remember how several people suggested that my bright yellow swim cap might attract sharks in the open water? Now’s my chance to put that theory to the test.

Maybe I’ll smuggle my cap into the Aquarium, put it on my head in front of the Outer Bay exhibit, and run laps back and forth in front of the tank – circling my arms in a mock swimming motion, of course - to see if I get any response. Would that be considered research? Can I apply for federal grant money?

After all, I might need some help to interpret my findings. I mean, sure - if the shark charges the glass, that’s an obvious cause-and-effect outcome. But would I have to repeat the process without a cap to establish a null hypothesis? Do I have to duplicate the experiment in a pink cap to compare the responses? How many other colors would I have to test and exclude?

And what if he ignores me? Is it because I’m not in his normal field of vision (the tank is above ground level, so the shark would be above me)? Or does it mean my starting premise is flawed? Does the shark have an awareness of his surroundings, and realize that he can’t reach me outside the tank? Or does he recognize that I’m simply an idiot, and not worth an extra second of his time? From a scientific standpoint, all of these conclusions appear equally valid.

Now that I think of it, there’s a reason I didn’t pursue a field in research after grad school. It’s a completely obsessive, often confusing, frequently frustrating, overwhelmingly time-consuming discipline that requires complete dedication to see small gains. And I’ve already got one of those.

I think I’ll just to stick to being a runner. But you can bet I'm still going to visit this shark.

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The Power of Two

Before today’s post, a couple of thoughts came to me while I was stretching in the gym and watching music videos after this morning’s track workout:

1) Apparently Justin Timberlake claims that he’s bringing sexy back. Which struck me as odd, since I didn’t realize sexy ever went out. I don’t recall anyone ever complaining, “You know, people just don’t respond to sexy things like they used to.” Then…

2) As if reading my mind, the very next video was Beyonce’s “Ring the Alarm.” And, um … wow. That girl just keeps bringing it.

Watching Beyonce and thinking of Justin, I wanted to paraphrase LL Cool J’s famous line: Don’t call it a comeback – sexy’s been here for years. Her name is Beyonce.

OK, that’s out of my system. Thanks for your patience. On with the post…

***
I’ve written before (like here and here) about my love-hate relationship with doing tempo runs.

When I’m targeting a specific race, there’s no better way to build my fitness than to spend 20-25 minutes dancing on the periphery of my lactic acid threshold. Done consistently, this run gradually increases my body’s tolerance to running at higher speeds, which in turn makes my race pace over a half-marathon or marathon feel easier by comparison.

It all makes perfect physiological sense. Unfortunately, it also hurts like mad.

My routine tempo run is a gently rolling 4-mile route through the one-road village of Carmel Valley. In all the years I’ve lived here, I had always done the run by myself. It wasn’t for lack of trying to find partners – but let’s just say it’s not easy to recruit someone to a workout that makes you feel like throwing up if you’re inadequately prepared. People are surprisingly sensible sometimes.

Then two weeks ago, I had myself a taker.

One of the newer guys in our running group is a formerly blazing-fast 10K runner who is working his way back into shape for a possible marathon attempt next spring. We also happen to live in the same neighborhood – so it’s convenient for us to get together in the early mornings.

At least, that’s what I told him. I didn’t mention the possible throwing up part.

10 days ago, as we did our warmup jog to the start line, he asked how fast I typically do this workout. I replied – truthfully – that it usually takes me around 26 minutes, give or take 30 seconds either way. An average of 6:30 miles, with the first few miles faster and the last (mostly uphill) mile slower.

We took off from the line, running stride for stride at a pace that seemed slightly harder than usual, but not unbearable. As we hit the one-mile mark, I looked at my watch, saw the 5:46 split, and said “Whoa – we’re way too fast.”

I eased off the pace and settled into a comfortable rhythm (at least, as comfortable as you can get on a tempo run) before struggling through the final mile. I crossed the finish line and stopped my watch to read 25:13.

Wait … what?

It was my best time of the year – including when I was peaking for the Big Sur Marathon last spring. There’s no way I should be running PR times lately, given how I’ve been dragging myself through two workouts per day for the past several weeks.

Thinking of it later that day, it seemed like a fluke thing that this great workout just popped out of me one day. Obviously I was happy with the time, although I didn’t think I’d be able to duplicate the effort. But in the meantime, I could think of myself as a faster runner – which is always nice.

So I was a bit reluctant to meet up with him this past Monday to do the same workout again. If my time was slower, that would confirm my fluke theory, and my suspicion that I wasn’t as fast as it appeared last week.

I also knew that we ran the first mile way too fast last week. This Monday, we purposely took the first mile a little slower – and still hit the split in 5:57.

For the rest of the run I felt fairly strong, and maintained a steady effort all the way to the finish. My final time was 25:15 – only two seconds slower than last week, at an effort that felt much more controlled. How about that.

While my training has certainly played a role in the faster times, the more obvious factor was that I had someone accompany me on these runs. Of course I already knew that training with somebody else makes you go faster, but these workouts illustrated just how dramatic the difference can be.

Here’s the strange part: the new guy wasn’t pushing me on these runs. Each week, he hung beside me for about 10 minutes before falling back to a slower pace. So it’s not like I was drafting him or straining to keep pace with him (although given his credentials, it won’t be long before he catches up).

Yet merely knowing he was on the same road at the same time, and doing the same workout, was enough to make me raise my game. It speaks to the power of having good running partners, and having some accountability for doing quality workouts.

It doesn't make me enjoy these tempo runs any better, though. Thank goodness I'm tapering next week.

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Super Mario Runners

(Administrative note: This turned into a somewhat strange post, and much longer than I thought it would be - although that shouldn't really surprise anyone by now. If you're looking for something more tangibly related to running, well ... have you checked out Complete Running yet? I hear they're doing some cool things over there. Otherwise, read on...)


For his eighth birthday, my son received a Game Boy Advance.

Actually, I should clarify that statement a bit to say that the package he unwrapped had his name on it. As far as who has spent the most time with the Game Boy, it’s pretty close between my son and me. But I’m sure he’ll probably catch up one of these days.

Seriously - I’m hooked on this thing. It’s one of the best presents I’ve - I mean he’s - ever received. (So much so, that I’m currently revising my own birthday list for this fall. Right now I’d definitely pick a Game Boy over a GPS. You think I’m kidding.)

My son and I spend a lot of time trading the game back and forth with a shared purpose: traveling through the seven kingdoms of the Mushroom World to free all the princesses and reclaim the magic wands that were captured by the evil king Bowser.

The object of our infatuation is Super Mario Brothers 4 – an updated version of the game that altered the video game landscape more than 15 years ago.

Prior to the original Mario Brothers, most video games were about scoring the most points, reaching the final destination the fastest, or shooting the most aliens/asteroids/bad guys, etc.

The premise of Super Mario Brothers is quite different: it’s designed as an Odyssean journey, with new adventures awaiting around every turn. Each of the seven kingdoms is divided into multiple levels, with each level requiring a different set of skills to advance through it. The levels become progressively more challenging, but in conquering the earlier levels you acquire the skills to handle the more difficult ones.



Some relics of traditional video games remain. Mario can collect gold coins along his journeys, worth 100 points each. There is a timer on the screen, counting down the time remaining to complete each level. But these are secondary concerns; it’s not necessary to score any points to complete a level, and the clock is almost never a factor in Mario’s success.

Additionally, when Mario exhausts his 5 allotted “lives”, a player can continue the game with the push of a button. You can play for as long as you desire, and when you want to take a break, you simply save your progress, and pick up from that point next time.

Eventually you’ll make it through all seven kingdoms (and right now we're in #3), but the point of the game isn’t to make it to the finish. In fact, the adventure is so lengthy that many players never complete it. Rather, the fun lies in experiencing each new challenge that is encountered at successive levels, and testing your ability at whatever stage of the journey you find yourself.

(You can see where all this is heading, right? … )

In these regards, the game is an awful lot like running. It presents different challenges to different people. Some people are more skilled and progress further than others. But regardless of our abilities, we all get the same satisfaction and enjoyment out of the activity.

Runners acquire skills from smaller tasks and apply them to larger ones. Very few people are prepared to run a marathon as their first race. 10Ks grow into half-marathons, marathons evolve into ultras, and 50 miles turns into 100 (and beyond). The levels are progressively more challenging, but it’s in doing the easier tasks that we develop the ability and resolve to take on the larger ones.

You can try to collect accomplishments in our sport, but in the grand scheme of things they really don’t matter. Mario can rescue the princesses with zero gold coins or 500 – very few players really keep track. In running, it’s great if you’re someone who accumulates medals or age group victories, but that doesn’t mean that others don’t get the same satisfaction from their efforts.

Similarly, you can worry about the time on the clock, but in many races – especially as the distances get longer - that’s a secondary concern. Does someone who finishes a 50K in 8 hours take away something less from the race than someone else who ran it in 6? In Mario’s world, as in ultras, you don’t get extra credit for rushing to the finish – you only have to make the cutoff time.

Above all else, the main point is to enjoy the process, because the journey is never really over. We can run as far as we want on any given day, only stopping when we decide to. The next time we lace up our shoes (whether it’s the next day or several months later), we continue our own adventure with all those previous experiences saved into memory. Do we really want there to be an end point? Or would we rather continually discover and explore new worlds as we travel along?

The game reminds me of running in another way, in that my son and I make a nice team. I’m good at figuring out the best path through each level, and he remembers the special tricks that Mario can use along the way. We have a lot of conversations like the following:

Me: I almost know my way through here. You stay on the floating log until the flying fish sails over your head, then you jump onto the spinning stick and land on the drain pipe. I just need to figure out how to get past the hatchet-throwing turtle.

Him: Did you get a magic flower from the mushroom house?

Me: No – I bumped the mystery box and got a raccoon suit, but I still get eaten by the fire-breathing plants.

Him: That’s because the raccoon suit only lets you knock bricks over with your tail. Get the flower suit, then you can throw fireballs at the turtles and plants, and swim through the quicksand.

Me: Cool. Then I just have to defeat the pipe-smoking warthog.

Him: Yeah … he’s tough.

Sometimes my wife thinks we’re speaking another language. But honestly, it all makes perfect sense if you know the game.

Playing the game with my son is a lot like having a good training partner: our strengths complement each other's weaknesses, we trade ideas to help each other get better, and we encourage each other to continue the journey.

Best of all, we enjoy each other’s company. No, we’re not getting exercise when we’re playing, and there are certainly more productive tasks we could be doing, but here’s the thing: we’re having fun. And he’s a kid. And – like everything else in life - as long as we maintain a reasonable balance, I’m not inclined to change anything.

Especially when there are still four more princesses out there for us to rescue.

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A Post About Nothing

Before I sat down to write this post, I had almost nothing to say.

48 hours between posts is usually enough time for one of the nebulous concepts bouncing around in my head to distinguish itself more prominently. Even when I don’t know for sure what I’m going to say, I at least have a pretty good idea what the topic of the next post will be.

The time I spend running is typically when I’ll play around with sentence structure and phrasing, so that when I finally sit down to write, my fingers can barely keep up with my thought process. It’s been a fairly reliable system, until this week.

On Wednesday night, I had no clue what to write about, but I figured something would come to me on Thursday. Unfortunately, neither the hour I spent on the track in the morning nor the time in the pool at lunch brought me any closer to a tangible idea.

I resigned myself to skipping today’s post altogether. So instead of opening my laptop last night, I flipped open my son’s Game Boy Advance – one of his birthday presents from last month.

Two hours later, I was still playing.

Then while running along darkened trails this morning, the idea came to me as clear as the rising daylight. By the time the sun was up, I knew what the next topic would be.

However, I have to get to work now, and I don’t have time to write the post. So you’ll have to wait until Monday. (In journalism, this is called a teaser).

Yes, it has something to do with the Game Boy. But for now, that’s all I’m gonna say.

***
On an unrelated note, I’m headed to the ocean after work today for another open-water swim.

Remember how some people told me that my yellow swim cap might attract sharks? And how I said that next time I would wear the old pink cap I had leftover from a previous triathlon? Well, I pulled out the pink cap last night … and it has a hole in it.

Which means I’ll be braving the waters in my sharkbait cap again tonight. So if you hear of any shark attacks on the news tomorrow, you can say you knew me before I got famous.

Also, on the plus side – I mean, if I DO get attacked – is that at least it would give me something interesting to write about.

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Back to School

Without question, the best athletic facilities in Monterey County belong to Hartnell Community College.

I’ve been running on their all-weather track for years. It’s ideal in several ways: conveniently close to my workplace, centrally located for my running partners, and accessible at all hours of the day (well, almost. We usually have to climb over the fence for our 5:30 AM workouts. Nobody from Hartnell security reads this, right?). Best of all, it’s available at absolutely no cost.

For the past few months, I’ve been using their Olympic-size outdoor pool for my swim workouts. It’s 50 meters long by 25 yards wide. We swim the long course without lane lines on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and short course on the other days.

During the summer, the swim program is organized by the local masters club, but once school starts, oversight of the pool returns to the college. The fall semester started this past Monday – three weeks before my triathlon.

I didn’t want to skip the last three weeks of swim training before the race. I’ve also decided that I’d like to continue swimming for cross-training throughout the year (because we can do that in California – lucky us) once the triathlon is finished.

So I utilized my only option to continue using the pool: I walked across campus to the registrar’s office, and enrolled in a 1.5-unit class – P.E. 134, Swim Fitness. I paid $43 to the cashier, and just like that, I became a student again. Hey, everybody … I’m goin’ to college!

Walking back to my car, I got a few “Hey”s and “Whassup”s from some of my fellow students, which led me to wonder: would I actually fit in here? Could I really pass as a student?

In a flash, I had another thought: how many people get a second chance at living the college life? Suddenly this new fitness endeavor seemed like my ticket to a lot of collateral benefits.

I considered all the ways my life might change now that I’m back on campus:

1. Chillin’: As an undergraduate at UCLA, I spent a lot of time in the student coffee house or the main outdoor plaza, just watching the girls go by (whoops … I meant world. Watching the world go by.). It’s a habit I reluctantly gave up once I acquired some of those so-called “important” things like a job and a family and hobbies. But hanging out in the courtyard yesterday, I realized that people watching was an activity for which I wouldn’t mind polishing my skills a bit.

2. Study groups: In every college movie, there’s one very cute, very smart girl who helps some dopey guy through a difficult class. Remember Tommy Lee's tutor at the University of Nebraska last summer? How do I go about requesting something like that for myself? I think a little individual attention while I’m in the pool might be just what I need to survive such rigorous coursework.

3. Partying: I wasn’t a fraternity guy in college, which at the time seemed like a mature, responsible decision. But part of me (that little guy with the devil’s horns) thinks I might have missed being a part of something special. You know, things like being publicly hazed, learning to drink from a gravity bong while standing on my head, or waking up on a stranger’s front lawn with somebody else’s underwear on – such moments must be precious.

I need to do some investigating on this one, but I’m wondering if there’s a nearby fraternity like the one in Old School that recruits folks of any age. That way, if I ever get the urge to run naked and drunk down the middle of the street at 2AM, I’ll have somebody to share the experience with. After all, you can’t put a price tag on those kind of memories.

4. Drugs: The only time I ever saw illegal drugs in person was at an undergrad party. Do college students nowadays get a discount on marijuana or ecstasy? Would I be assigned a drug dealer in addition to a career counselor? I thought I could look into this, and report my findings here, in the spirit of journalistic curiosity. (Then again, I just finished a whole series on drug use – that’s probably enough for the next year or so. Let’s move on.)

5. Speaking of discounts: Will my student ID get me cheaper meals or movie tickets anywhere in town? If so, I’m all over it. I mean, every couple bucks I save is like an extra GU packet or bottle of Gatorade. This class could potentially pay for itself after a couple of months.

Obviously, this swimming thing has opened a whole new realm of possibilities that I never imagined during all those years I was cluelessly running laps around the campus track. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this plan years ago.

However, there is one point of concern now that I’ve enrolled in a college class: getting grades.

I’m not quite sure how this works for elective classes yet. Am I going to be graded on my swimming now? Is there a final exam? Do I get credit for effort or improvement? Will the grading be done on a curve? Is there a pass/fail option? Should I tell the coach that I’ve already been running in the mornings when I’m swimming at lunch, so he can consider that in my evaluation? Do I get extra credit for also knowing how to bike and run?

I never had to worry about having my performance evaluated when I was merely a runner, and before I re-entered college. It’s enough to make a guy pretty nervous.

Thank goodness there’s a back to school mixer this weekend – because I just might need to blow off a little steam.

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