Island Daze (or, Fear and Self-Loathing in Hawaii)

“Loaded like a freight train – flyin’ like an aeroplane –

Feelin’ like a space brain one more time tonight … “

- Guns N’ Roses, “Nightrain”

Starting this post proved much harder than I thought; over the past several days, I’ve been drifting through a narcotic and alcohol induced haze that’s made it difficult to put coherent thoughts together in my head, much less typing them out cleanly on a blank page. I have no idea how Hunter S. Thompson ever did it so successfully.

That’s my way of fair warning that I’m not sure where this is gonna go – but my goal is to give a brief overview of my vacation, as well as an update on my training situation that was very much unexpected.

First, as a point of clarification, the beach views from the previous post were from the island of Kauai, at Poipu Beach on the south shore. Our family last vacationed there eight years (and two fewer kids) ago, and came back with nothing but amazing memories … in some ways, it seemed sad that it took us eight years to go back.

The last time I was there, I spent hours running through sugar fields, across ocean cliffs, and deep into forest trails, saturating my shoes and clothes with enough of Kauai’s infamous red dirt to leave permanent reminders of what an ideal running vacation the island can be. This time, I didn’t have any serious training plans, but I packed my running shoes in hopes of taking one or two mornings to revisit some of those places I recalled so fondly.

My primary goal was to spend a lot of time in the water – either snorkeling, bodysurfing or boogie boarding, or doing some open water swimming to maintain my stroke until I returned home and started racing in the pool again.

Remember my earlier declaration of wanting to swim a one-minute 100-yard freestyle? I wrote that post two days before leaving for vacation, and put it on the shelf to be published here the following week. The next day, I was curious to see just how close I was to this goal, so before my regular workout, I swam an all-out 100 – alone, self-timed, from a push start off the wall – in 1:04. I figured if I could just stay close to that level of fitness and get in one or two days of stroke practice while I was away, I’d return home and successfully break through the one-minute barrier within a few weeks. The pieces of my plan were falling perfectly into place.

Four days later, I found myself in an emergency room in the town of Lihue, after cracking my rib cage in a surfing accident.

My kids and I were using boogie boards in the relatively shallow surf, and everything was going well until I got caught on the top curl of a large wave, then slammed downward as the wave crashed. My chest hit the sand first, and my legs were bent up behind me like a scorpion, with the force of the water driving them further downward. Basically, I was folded in half in the wrong direction; the pain was immediate, and the most severe I’ve felt in a very long time.

(In fact, even as I typed the above paragraph, I stopped to shudder a couple of times. I’m still having some minor flashback problems.)

For a few seconds, as I drifted in the whitewash, I wasn’t able to feel or move my legs, and briefly considered the fact that I might be paralyzed. Needless to say, I was absolutely terrified. Eventually I realized that everything was still intact, but I simply had too much pain to move, and it felt excruciating to breathe – so I just grabbed onto my board and drifted closer to shore on the next couple of waves, until I could place my knees on the sand and crawl onto the beach.

Predictably, within about ten minutes, I went from thinking I was paralyzed, to wondering if I could just walk it off and get back to normal. However, for the rest of the day, I could barely stand upright … and it became obvious that walking it off wasn’t an option. Suddenly, my travel plans included a 30-minute drive across the island for an impromptu visit to the ER.

A chest x-ray showed that none of my ribs had punctured my lungs (hooray!), and I left the ER with a nice combination of meds at my disposal. Between Toradol, Percocet, prescription strength Motrin and Tylenol, I was able to manage the pain well enough to get through the next several days of (somewhat modified) activities. For the remainder of the week, I kept a steady supply of meds on hand, and was continually limping around our beach home and popping pills like Dr House.
You know what else has powerful analgesic properties? Very strong mai tais. They were available in abundant supply in Kauai, and I was sucking them down like a rock star.

(In fact, the whole drugs-and-alcohol theme tied in rather nicely with the book I was reading at the time: Watch You Bleed: The Saga of Guns N’ Roses. No matter how loaded up I was, I kept telling myself that those guys survived an awful lot more. That’s how bad things had become for me – I was justifying my behavior by comparing myself to Axl and Slash. I should probably write a whole post about this band and book someday; some of the stuff is absolutely mind-boggling.)

My first instinct was write this post as an analogy to the Brady Bunch’s star-crossed trip to Hawaii – you know, the one where Bobby finds the bad luck tiki, Greg gets hurt in a surfing accident, Peter gets visited by a tarantula, and that creepy old guy holds the boys hostage in the cave. But even as I staggered through the remainder of our visit, I couldn’t really consider my accident a huge stroke of misfortune; there were just too many things to appreciate in Kauai.

Our kids had a great time boogie boarding and hiking and kayaking and snorkeling, and all three of them can not only pronounce humuhumunukunukuapua’a (Hawaii’s state fish, above), but they can identify them by their markings, and they saw them prominently, within arm’s reach, while exploring the tropical reefs of Poipu. They played under waterfalls and stood atop high cliffs and swung from ropes and jumped off rocks into a beautiful river. They attended a luau and took walks on the beach and fell in love with shave ice (an island delicacy – do NOT leave Kauai without trying some). In other words, they got to do what everyone wishes their kids could do.

Best of all - thanks to modern pharmaceuticals - I was able to accompany them for almost all of it. And remember, at one point I thought I had become a paraplegic … so to complain about being in pain during all of the above activities seems awfully trivial.

Of course, my training plans are completely on hold. I didn’t even attempt any running until yesterday, where I managed about 15 minutes of shuffling before calling it quits (I still have pain when taking deep breaths). Swimming is obviously off the table until I can raise my arms over my head again – although I might see if I can tolerate some modified activity in the pool, and hopefully work out some soreness that way (besides, it would be a shame to lose my Hawaiian tan so quickly). Obviously, my 100-yard goal is indefinitely postponed – maybe for a month, maybe for a year … we’ll see how it goes.

The other upside is that I’ve got some extra time on my hands, so maybe I can catch up on some of those blog posts I’ve been meaning to write – although I think I’ll wait until my narcotic (well, technically opioid, but that's splitting hairs) prescriptions run out. It may not seem like much, but this post was kind of exhausting.

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A Brief Escape

You'll have to forgive me the lackadaisical pattern of publishing posts or returning e-mails lately; my mind has been preoccupied here:

Truth be told, my mind is frequently preoccupied with scenes like the one above; however, this time, my body was right there as well. Our family took advantage of an early autumn school vacation to catch ourselves a little bit of aloha. The week didn't go exactly as planned (which seems to be a theme of mine with major events this year), but it's probably true that even the worst days in the islands are better than most days at home.

I'll begin to catch up with an update post in the next few days, and jump back into normal programming by the end of the week. Thanks for your patience.

(Bonus points if you can identify the beach. No, it's not Kona ... )

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Another Crazy (and Mostly Meaningless) Endeavor Involving the Number 100

The last time I swam competitively - at least, the last time I did so in a pool – was as a high school senior.

I was what you’d call a solid member of the team: my times weren’t especially spectacular, but I could usually score a handful of points at dual meets, and every now and then - depending on who else showed up - I would win some races outright. I was very close to qualifying for the state meet in a couple of events, but came up a couple of tenths (in the 50 free) or seconds (in the 100 back) short of earning such a distinction.

For the most part, I don’t recall any of my PRs from those races, or the exact goal times I was aiming for in various events. There was, however, one notable exception to this opaque recollection: I remember that breaking one minute in the 100-yard freestyle was pretty badass.

I was able to accomplish the feat a handful of times – but not very often, and always by a narrow margin. I probably broke a minute less than ten times, and never by more than 2 seconds. I can’t precisely tell you my fastest time - but I definitely haven’t forgotten the feeling of climbing out of the pool and looking over the timer’s shoulder as he left the minute column blank while writing my time down on the card. Some memories just stay with you.

Now, almost 20 years after they transpired, those memories have been triggered with increasing frequency during my afternoon swim workouts over the past few weeks. And there’s a little voice in the back of my head that wonders, with increasing curiosity, if those feelings are something I could capture once again in my compulsive adulthood.

In other words … I’d like to break the one minute mark in the 100-yard freestyle again.

As recently as two months ago, such a thought would have seemed preposterous. All of my swimming over the past several years has been in the context of triathlon training, with emphasis on long sets, energy conservation, and general conditioning. My speed has gradually increased, but not to the point where I’d ever consider myself a fast sprinter. However, a few surprising developments lately made me reevaluate things, and planted the question of what might be possible.

The first surprise was that, beginning in mid-September, I felt like I was just flying through the water during routine workouts. I finished sets ahead of people I normally trailed, and maintained a smooth stroke throughout our typical 2500-yard sessions. At first I figured that everyone else was getting slower – but the clock kept showing split times that were 10 seconds faster per 200 yards, 5 seconds per 100, and 2 or 3 seconds per 50.

(Of course, I immediately double-checked the accuracy of the pool clock with three different watches. Sometimes I’m far too cynical for my own good.)

Periodically, near the end of workouts, our final sets include 50-yard sprints - and on rare occasion, we’ll take an extra few seconds of rest so we can really blast them. Even rarer is when the lifeguard strolls over to watch us with a stopwatch in hand – but that’s just what happened one day a couple of weeks ago.

He sat on a diving block and called out the finish times as six of us crashed into the wall one after the other. I didn’t quite hear him with the water in my ears, so we had this exchange:

Me: What was my time?

Lifeguard: I got you at 29-high.

As in, under 30 seconds. Now, I’m no mathematician ... but I know that 50 yards is half of a hundred, and 30 seconds is half of a minute.

(I’m also aware that doing the second 50 yards in the same amount of time will be about 10 times more difficult than the first 50 – but that’s the kind of math I don’t like thinking about right now.)

Incidentally, this was from a push start off the wall, at the tail end of a workout. My first reaction was, what the heck is going on? That kind of speed was a complete shock to me. I wondered if somebody might ask me to pee in a cup after I got out of the pool – and what’s worse, I wasn’t sure I’d pass. Maybe my most recent box of green tea bags had been inadvertently laced with EPO or something. The whole situation just seemed weird.

It took me far longer than it should have to figure out the real cause of my newfound speed: namely, I was enjoying the benefits of dedicated swim training.

For the nine months prior to September, just about every day I got in the pool, I had already gone for a run that morning, or done some monster workout the day before. In the midst of running up to 90 miles per week, my body was in a chronic state of exhaustion, where my main goal was simply to make it through a swim workout without getting lapped.

After my final race this season, I took a full week of rest, and almost two weeks off from running. Even now, I’m only doing a two or three easy runs per week – which leaves me with more energy available to pour into my swim workouts. (To recap: exhaustion makes you slow; focused training and rest make you fast – let’s file this one under “obvious”.)

So now I’ve got some time to focus on swimming and chasing down my own Ghost of Swim Meets Past, but there’s a limited window of opportunity to catch him. My pool closes for four weeks near the end of the year - and by the time January rolls around, I’ll be back to the grind of high-mileage running, sleep deprivation, and general fatigue that prevented me from being a faster swimmer for the majority of 2008.

All of which leaves about 10 weeks for me to reel in that goofball high school kid from 20 years ago. It sounds like a fairly tall order, but I have a feeling that I’m close enough to knock this one out in that time frame. Whether or not I ever catch him, one thing is certain: it will sure be interesting to try.

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Poster Dilemma

Less than 24 hours after Haile Gebrselassie’s mind-boggling world record 2:03:59 marathon performance last Sunday, one of my friends sent me the following e-mail:

You’re going to need a new poster for [my son].




It was a reference to an article I had written for my old website several years ago - after receiving a poster of then-world record holder Paul Tergat – full of philosophical wrangling about the simple act of hanging a poster in my young son’s bedroom. And since I’m somewhat in slacker mode lately when it comes to posting, this seemed like an opportune time to republish the article here on my blog.

If nothing else, it’s a good reminder that blogging didn’t make me crazy; I was pretty far down that road a long time ago. Just in case you were wondering.

**

"Poster Dilemma" October 2003

In April 2002, Khalid Khannouchi set the marathon world record by running 2:05:38 at the London Marathon.

Shortly after that race, at the Big Sur Marathon expo, the folks at the New Balance booth gave away free Khannouchi posters, emblazoned with his race time and the words “world record holder.” I grabbed one as an afterthought, thinking maybe I’d hang it in the back of my closet – someplace I could briefly glance for a small dose of inspiration when I grabbed my running shoes each morning, but would otherwise remain unobtrusive.

The poster never made it to my closet.

As is our custom with every marathon, my kids sat down with me when I came home after the expo and emptied out my goody bag, searching for energy bar samples, stickers, or anything else that catches their eye. My then-four-year-old son asked about the Khannouchi poster, and seemed genuinely impressed when I told him that this was the fastest marathon runner in the world. He asked if he could tape the poster up onto his wall, and I just couldn’t refuse.

Thereafter, almost every night as we got ready for bath time, he talked about the poster, and the runner who was even faster than Daddy, and faster than anyone in the world. He actually learned to pronounce “Khalid Khannouchi” better than most adults, and started recognizing other pictures of Khannouchi from running magazines around the house. Even his two-year-old sister began to talk to the picture of “Anoochi” when playing in her brother’s room. (Some families have Tiger Woods, others have Kobe Bryant; ours has skinny marathoners as role models. Read into that what you will.)

And then this September, Paul Tergat goes and breaks the marathon world record - and our whole bedtime routine is thrown into disarray.

First, a couple points of clarification: Tergat didn’t just break the world record, but smashed through it by almost a full minute - an improvement of the same mind-boggling proportion as Michael Johnson’s demolition of the 200m record at the Atlanta Olympics. Not only that, but the man who came in second place, Sammy Korir, also ran faster than Khannouchi’s previous WR time.

In just one day, the marathoning world got turned on its ear (however unbeknownst, it seems, to mass media – but that’s another story), a Kenyan runner staked his claim as the best endurance runner in history (a strong argument can be made, with Tergat’s multiple world XC championships and medals at world track championships) [**2008 update: in light of his recent feats, I’d still go with Gebrselassie], and now I’m facing a dilemma as to what to do with that Khannouchi poster.

If I leave the poster up, do I sit my son down and explain that Khannouchi isn’t the fastest marathoner in the world anymore? If so, do we now try to get a Paul Tergat poster also, to place on the wall slightly ahead of Khannouchi’s? Should I teach my children Paul Tergat’s name, and pick pictures from magazines so they can identify him? And do we look for a Sammy Korir poster also, to place in the middle of the other two? How long would we keep this process up? If enough people run faster than Khannouchi’s time, we would run out of wall space to hang everyone’s poster. Can we just cross out the inscription on the poster, and correct my kids whenever they talk to the “fastest marathoner”, reminding them that Khannouchi is now only the third fastest? The day-to-day details could get confusingly murky.

On the other hand, it seems downright cold-hearted to take the poster down. Imagine the negative messages would that send my kids: if you are not the best, you don’t command our recognition or respect. Once your achievement has been eclipsed, our admiration for you immediately shifts onto someone else, forgetting all the hard work and perseverance that helped you set the record in the first place.

After all, it’s not like Khannouchi was involved in a sex scandal with an intern; somebody (well, 2 somebodies) just ran faster than he did. If that were the standard for keeping photographs in sight, my house would be filled with pictures of all my speedy training partners instead of me and my wife and kids.

Plus, the poster is now part of the decoration in my son’s room, just as much as the painted giraffe on his wall, or the stuffed rhinoceros on his bed. Removing the poster for such an arbitrary reason would be unfathomable to him.

The simplest solution, of course, is for Khalid to break the world record again. The poster would stay up by itself, without modification, and the distinction would again be quite simple- Khalid Khannouchi, world’s fastest marathon runner. I realize that is a tall order to ask of someone, and may take many months or even years to come to fruition – if it ever does at all.

In the meantime, if anyone knows where I can get a Paul Tergat poster, I might be interested in buying one. I’ll make up my mind what to do with it later.

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The Running-While-Injured Life

At the conclusion of my 2008 race season, I spent a fair amount of time pondering the sports of ultrarunning and triathlon. My plan is to distill these thoughts into a post next month comparing the relative degrees of difficulty between an ironman triathlon and a 100-mile ultra, both in terms of pre-race training and race performance.

Unfortunately, the official post is going to take me a while - so in the meantime, I’ve got a couple of somewhat related items on a similar theme:

* First, I think I’ve got myself a new hero, in the form of a guy named Graham Cooper. Ultrarunners should recognize his name as the winner of the 2006 Western States Endurance Run. He was primed to reclaim his title this past summer, until the wildfires ruined everyone’s plans. While many people (like, um … me) moped and then scrambled for a substitute 100-miler, Cooper smoothly shifted gears and entered Ironman Canada instead.

Check that – he didn’t just enter, he smoked the course and earned a slot to compete in the Ironman World Championship at Kona on October 11th. (Thanks to Scott Dunlap for the legwork on this info). There are literally thousands of extremely talented, dedicated amateur triathletes who work their whole lives to earn a slot to Kona; to think that Cooper did it as a rebound race is absolutely stunning.

I used to have this theory that somebody could participate in both ultrarunning and long-distance triathlon, but that it was next to impossible to perform well in both sports simultaneously. Now Cooper comes along and proves – as if there was any doubt left anymore – that I’m simply an idiot.

So to all of you ultrarunners who claim that you don’t know the first thing about triathlon, and can’t relate to any of the type-A obsessives who populate the triathlete ranks, now you’ve officially got someone to root for at Kona next weekend. And I’ll be cheering for Graham Cooper right along with you.


* One of the training advantages triathletes enjoy over runners is the ability to vary their training based on how their body is feeling. If your legs are fried from a hard tempo run, you spend a couple of days in the pool focused on upper body technique. When your neck and low back are sore from being in an aero position on the bike for six hours, you do an easy run the next day. You’re always building fitness, but having several different means to do so decreases the strain on any particular area of the body.

Dedicated runners, on the other hand, don’t have that luxury. Consequently, they’re much less willing to wait a couple of days until a problem area resolves, and more likely to train with persistent aches and soreness. Inevitably, many of those aches become injuries of varying severity – but that usually doesn’t stop a hardcore runner from doing the activity he or she loves.

That was the premise behind last week’s Monterey Herald column, which follows below:

**
Running Life 9/25/08 “The Running-While-Injured Life”


We typically utilize this space describing all of the benefits of running – however, sometimes it might be possible to have too much of a good thing.

Many avid runners become so hooked on the sport that it often consumes their thoughts. Sure, a hardcore runner may appear alert and attentive on the surface - but it’s a good bet that internally, that otherwise normal-appearing person is completely preoccupied with all manner of details pertaining to his or her running.

They’ll spend countless waking hours thinking about how many miles they logged today, what their average time for the run was, when and where their next run will be, how many miles they’ve run this week, how much longer it will be until they need a new pair of shoes, which running clothes they need to buy once the weather changes, how much fluid they should be consuming during the day, when their next race is going to be, and whether or not one of those nagging sore areas is going to turn into an injury.

That last point is a critical one – because when a runner develops physical problems, all other concerns get pushed to the back burner. Runners are notorious for having tunnel vision when it comes to focusing on (and worrying about) anything that prevents them from doing the activity they love. Unfortunately, injuries are an all too common occurrence among this crowd.

For example, here’s a typical conversation that might take place between any of our group of friends who cross paths in their everyday (non-running) lives. Let’s say they meet unexpectedly on Alvarado Street this week. They certainly have a wide variety of discussion topics to mull over: the economy, the presidential election, the war, career changes, or family developments.

Despite all of that, it’s a virtual certainty that the conversation would unfold something like this:

Joe: “Hi Susie, haven’t seen you for awhile. How are you doing?”

Susie: “Good to see you Joe. I’m OK but I’ve hardly been running at all. My piriformis problem just isn’t going away. I’ve been stretching, doing ice massage, and taking Advil. I’m even going to Bikram yoga a few times a week, which helps for a few hours, but by the next morning it’s bothering me again.”

Joe: “That’s too bad. I haven’t been running much either. My left shin is really painful when I run, and hurts all day long afterward. I had an x-ray and MRI last week and there’s no stress fracture right now but the doc says it looks imminent if I keep running. I don’t think its shin splints. It could be compartment syndrome. I’m seeing my physical therapist but the progress seems really slow. Occasionally I’ll try the elliptical machine but it’s just too boring.”

Susie: “Yeah. It’s really frustrating…. Oh, look, there’s Ted.”

Ted: “What a coincidence. How are you guys? I’ve been decreasing my mileage because of some Achilles tendonitis. Luckily, it’s not a complete tear, but when I run it’s extremely painful. I’m also doing some pool running, but I don’t get the same endorphin high in the water. And I feel like everyone’s laughing at me when I’m wearing my swimsuit.

Joe: “Yeah, I hate it when that happens. My wife just had a knee operation for patellofemoral syndrome and did some pool running during her rehab. She’s favoring her right side a bit now, so her left plantar fascia is becoming a problem. She does ice massage and flexion exercises using toe curls and a towel. It takes about an hour a day - really a hassle.”

Ted: “Hey Susie … how is Dave doing?”

Susie: “He hasn’t been running a lot either. His right hip hurts and he aggravated his left illiotibial band because he was running funny to protect his hip. He’s going to both the physical therapist and chiropractor but he still has problems. He’s also trying myofascial release therapy and it seems to be helping a little.

Ted: “Wow, good luck to him for sure. Did you hear about Rod? He ran a race last month and right near the end he pulled a calf muscle. He had to beat someone in his age group so he gutted it out, but now he’s injured again. He’s doing intermittent heat and ice treatments. He also sees a massage therapist twice a week for really deep muscle work. Hope he gets better soon.”

Joe: “So … are we all running at the regular place tomorrow morning? 12 miles on the Wharf starting at 5AM?

Susie: “Sounds great to me. See you then.”

Ted: “Someone should call Rod and tell him – he’ll probably show up.”

Joe: “Yeah. It will be great to talk with everyone again!”

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On and On

"In times like these - and times like those -
What will be will be - and so it goes -
And it always goes on and on ... on and on it goes"
- Jack Johnson, "Times Like These" (click to play)

Get this widget Track details eSnips Social DNA

Today’s post is a quickie, which gives me space for a few administrative notes before we proceed …

* By all appearances, my short-lived Google Ads experiment has come to an end. Apparently, they don’t take very kindly to what they call “suspicious clicking”, and they don’t hesitate to pull the plug on any questionable conduct. It was a brief, torrid affair - and once they caught me cheating, they kicked me out of the house like an angry lover, and changed the locks to ensure that I’ll never darken their doorway again.

(Seriously - I can’t even log into my account page anymore. This is one hardcore grudge. I'm totally bummed.)

The lessons here are twofold, and the first one should be obvious: namely, that I’m an idiot. Second, and more important to others who may flirt with monetizing their website someday, is this: NOBODY messes with Google.

* I’ve been waiting about a month to post a certain video on my sidebar, but the production of it keeps getting delayed – so in the meantime, you’re getting a clip from the absolute best rock band out there today: Rise Against. They're releasing a new album in October, so if you want to know what kind of stuff I’ll be rocking to throughout the fall, the sidebar video (from their previous album) gives you a small sampling.

* This item may only make sense to one person … but if you happen to be reading my blog from the UC Davis campus, would you mind dropping me a quick e-mail (see my profile) to say hi? Otherwise, you’re starting to give me the creeps.

Sorry to be vague with that last one. On with the post …

**

Here we go again … :

In the aftermath of this year’s cancellation, I’m guessing that every single runner on the Western States start list had the same immediate thought that I did: we can still do the race next year, right?

It took less than 48 hours for the race committee to announce that every runner on the 2008 start list would be guaranteed a spot in the 2009 event. It took quite a bit longer for me to contemplate how I might train for this race again next year without the rest of my – and my family’s – life becoming quite as chaotic as it was this spring and summer. I’m still not sure that my strategy is 100% foolproof, but I guess we’ll wait and see how it goes.

As far as this blog is concerned, there’s probably going to be a strong sense of déjà-vu every now and again, as my race schedule will look remarkably similar to the 2008 version you see on the sidebar – with the obvious hopeful exception that the Western States link will have an actual race report instead of a lamentation. I still believe the story has the ending I want it to have; it’s just taking me an extra year to get there.


"Somehow I know - it won't be the same -
Somehow I know - it will never be the same."
- Jack Johnson, "Times Like These"

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Pictures Worth Saving

Although it’s not surprising that endurance events have enjoyed soaring popularity in recent years, one development that continually baffles me is the prevalence of companies who specialize in race photography.

I’ve never understood how the math works out in favor of any of these companies turning a profit. Consider the sequence that has to occur for anyone to actually buy a race photo from a given event:

1) The photographer finds a scenic point of the course which also has optimal light conditions, then
2) Captures images of the athletes - in the middle of competition - that aren’t even a tiny bit unflattering to one of the most vain subsets of people you’ll ever encounter, then
3) Hopes that the athlete doesn’t already have a friend or family member taking race pictures, and that
4) The person loves the photo so much that he or she is willing to pay top dollar for it.

I mean … the chance of all of these things happening on a regular basis seems staggeringly low, doesn’t it? I suppose that’s why they have to charge so much per picture to try and break even. They’re certainly not making any money on me; in the past several years, I’ve purchased only one photo – and that was only because my son was in the picture with me. Otherwise, I’m a lost cause for the photo companies.

However, while I’m not one to shell out fifteen bucks for a 4”x6” race photo, I’m certainly not above doing a few screen grabs and turning it into a quick post. I may be cheap, but I’m also resourceful.

I’m also somewhat unorthodox, in that the following pictures are out of sequence. We’ll start with the run:

This is what I look like while struggling through a half-marathon after leaving my legs on the bike. I mean that almost literally – I had no legs during this run. If you don’t believe me, look at this next picture:

OK, this isn’t a race photo – it's a drawing of me, made by my 4-year-old daughter. She’s developed a fondness for sketching her family members, so I’ve got about 30 portraits of myself taped to walls and scattered on desktops and nightstands all over my house and office. This was drawn shortly after the race – and see? No legs. Of course, there are no ears or nose or arms, either – but that’s a separate issue.

Meanwhile, back to the triathlon …


I seem to have pretty decent luck with cycling pictures in triathlons, and this one is a good example. There’s nothing in particular to complain about, and I don’t look like a complete idiot. It’s a nice photo … but it’s not 15 dollars nice.

Actually, that isn’t even my favorite bike shot from the race – because I like this one better:


It’s closer up, I’m the only one in the picture, and – twice in a row! – I don’t look like an idiot. This might make a good profile pic someday, if I ever decide to update. Of course, I once declared that I’ll never change my profile pic, so that in cyberspace I can stay eternally young (just like I’m forever 25 years old on my current driver’s license photo), so I’ll have to mull that one over for a bit.

I said that the bike picture was my favorite from the race – but even that’s not the best self-photo I’ve seen over the last week. That would be this one:

That’s me, as seen by my 4-year-old. The letters say “Dad Mom”, but the picture is just me. Notice that I now have arms and legs, but as of yet, no feet. I honestly didn’t care about the lack of appendages – because you know what those little dot-looking things are? They’re hearts, because she loves me so much.

(I’ll pause for the “awwww ….”. Don’t act like you didn’t think it.)

Fortunately, I’m not the only one she loves. It occurs to me that I’ve never posted a photograph of my wife on this blog – so today, since I’m in a good mood, I’ll throw in a special treat: a picture of my beautiful bride:
Isn’t she a hottie? She’s tall, has heavenly long hair, and one eye about 10 times larger than the other. (All right … I’m kidding about the eye, but the other parts are true.) Notice all the hearts around her, as well. Needless to say, I consider myself a very lucky man.

Triathlon photos will come and go, but family portraits sketched by 4-year-olds are the things you grab onto and cherish. I’d gladly pay fifteen bucks for any one of these; thankfully, I’ve got a source who provides me with them for free.

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