Man in the Arena

March Showers Bring Wildflower

Jesse@Active — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 00:34:44 GMT

Is it possible to get Honorable Mention in a competition that doesn't exist except within yourself? I attempted to do the B-Fit B-Day Challenge last week since my 27th birthday was on the 16th.

The Challenge called for a 2-mile swim, 27-mile bike and 7-mile run. I did the swim on Saturday morning with Carrie and Toby.

We did a Shores-to-Cove-to-Shores swim in La Jolla. After starting the excursion by passing a seal funeral (several seals surrounding one that didn't seem to be moving. A funeral was our best guess.), crawling over a veritable island of seaweed, and then rolling with 10 to 12-foot waves, we made it back to shore for my first open water swim of the year.

Tuesday, I biked in to work and then biked home for a total of 34.6 miles. But then came fulfilling the run portion...

I don't like that part. I ran for about 38 minutes on Thursday, but that's it. At my pace, that's about 3.8 miles.

So I didn't even make it to bronze level in the Challenge. I guess there's always next year. The real worry is Wildflower. I need to start doing some long jaunts if I'm going to have the stamina to do the 10K at the end of the race. It's hilly, could be hot, and will definitely be hard.

Oh, and I have to beat Luke. Otherwise, it's going to be a loooong drive home...

I Saw, I Swam, I Swimmed Again

Jesse@Active — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 05:27:00 GMT

I began as a competitive swimmer in high school, mainly to stay in shape for baseball season (and because I had been cut from the eighth-grade basketball team). My first year was a little dicey--my goggles fell off every time I jumped off the blocks, I rarely did flip turns and wearing a Speedo wasn't exactly making me any cooler to non-swimmers. But the end-of-season championship meet evaporated any trepidations I had about joining the team the following year. The two-and-a-half-day event was so much fun, I couldn't wait to do it again.

The energy, excitement and intensity becomes so palpable at meets like that. In college it was even better. We got to travel to the meet and stay in hotels! It was a little tough finding that big-meet experience after graduation. While working in Boston I joined a Masters team, but as work ate into training time and my teammates seemed less inclined to actually race, I suppose I just went through a withdrawal period.

Sunday, I started to find that feeling again. The La Jolla Cove Ten-Mile Relay was as much fun as it was a challenge (our two-man/one-woman team finished in approximately four hours and 35 minutes). The fun started, like all good sporting events, early in the morning...

The excitement was present from the beginning. However, rather than people going for PR's or faster splits, the energy seemed derived from the challenge. From first-timers to solo swimmers, everybody seemed poised to give it their all for the sake of getting around two buoys just so they could get back in again.

Swimming, resting, staying warm, stretching, refueling, cheering on teammates, then swimming again. It had the elements of high school championship meets all over again. By the end (that's Carrie finishing up the final lap in the light blue cap, below), our team was sore, tired but loving life.

I realized that's the key to finding the joy in continuing to compete. Capturing what made me fall in love with doing sports as a kid is what's going to make me keep loving to do them now. I can tell you right now, it didn't involve checking fantasy stats online or counting calories. More like getting dirty and eating orange slices after practice. Can't wait to do it again...

And now to Brick Tamland with weather...

Jesse@Active — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 18:30:00 GMT

Tomorrow, my team Sea Nettle Sandwich will compete in the open water La Jolla Cove Ten-Mile Relay swim. The three of us--myself, Active's own Energizer Bunny Toby Guillette, and Miss "Last-year-I-did-the-race-solo" Carrie Smith--have been a little concerned with the fact that we signed up as "skins." No wetsuits for us. The air temp should be around 60 degrees F for the 7 a.m. start, but the real worry is the water quality.

Today marked San Diego's first rainfall in 150 days. It doesn't take much to predict weather out here (and based on what I've seen, newscasts here haven't progressed all that far from the Anchorman days). But once it rains, people are warned not to go swimming for a least a day. The water washes away all the grime, oils and other bad stuff that collects in the ground, on the roads, and in gutters and drains, funneling it into the ocean. Local surfers and swimmers have recounted to me how they've gotten sick from going in the water after a rainfall.

Despite our governor's leanings toward environmentalism, it seems California still has a ways to go. As for me and my team, I'm hopeful that because the race is in the Cove, the water won't be as affected as if it were off a beach. If the worst part of the swim is the water temp, I'll take it. This will be a marathon swim for me, three laps of one mile each (Toby and I have stuck Carrie with an extra fourth lap). If we each average a half hour per lap, the event should take us five hours. I'm thinking it will be just like championship meets from high school and college, only without the high-pitched screaming.