Saturday, April 5, 2008

man it feels good to be a gangsta

i mean a cyclist...with your fellow riders. this week, i was able to get my first taste of "hills" in austin. in terms of endurance, these have nothing on tantalus...unless you start doing repeats. at this point, the hills here might become harder. the longest hill we went up was probably half a mile, but it was respectably steep. the hills here are named based on roads they're on and this week we took on lost creek, red bud, courtyard and ladera norte. it feels nice to be doing hard workouts on the bike...although i think i should probably be taking it easy the next couple weeks. this past week was my last high mileage week before boston (april 21). my goal for that race is just to qualify for the 2009 race. i will be starting in the first heat this year, which is the first time i've had that opportunity. my qualifying time this year is about 4 minutes faster than last year's qualifying time. this could explain the bump up, but i actually wonder if the field is just slower this year. the marathon olympic trials will be held sunday, the day before the boston marathon, in boston, and i'm hoping to get to see at least part of that race.

my parents called me the other day and informed me that they were "stuck" in hawaii because the airline they flew out there on had shutdown. my response to this was tough life, but i think i was a little jealous...and a lot homesick when they said that. i think most of the time i'm so busy here i don't think about what is not here, but lately i had been missing the ocean rather acutely. and it wasn't just beach, which was interesting. i've been longing for blue water. for those who have never been out to sea, there is a distinct difference between the coast and open water. it feels different and it smells different and it really just has a life of its own. so i've been wanting to be out at sea, which is interesting. my last oceanography paper is finally headed to print. it had been accepted late last summer, but it's in a special volume of a journal...which means we've been waiting on the reviews and revisions for all the other papers in the journal as well. i've recently started getting emails from the copy editors, which means the volume is really headed to press at this point.

on another completely unrelated note, i'm going to my first nhl game tomorrow in dallas. the stars are playing the sharks, i believe. i'll do my best not to get into too many fights.

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