Yesterday we had that big old 6.8 earthquake. That was crazy! I was just sleeping away when it sounded and felt like a big truck was coming in through my window. I immediately hopped in my closet-cum-shelter, curled in a ball, and wished the whole thing would end. It was cool, and then not so cool, as things were starting to really shake. Lucky I had my earthquake kit in the closet with me, and of course my ferrets. At last it ended, I checked the gas, the phone, and the lights — everything was in order. Then I called the swimming pool and asked if it was ok to swim. You can take the kid from California, but not the California from the kid. The pool was open, and I resumed life as normal.
The night before the earthquake it was Fat Tuesday in Seattle. I rode my bike down to Pioneer Square to check it out with my new digital camera. The mountain bike is a good way to observe — I could move past the police and into the crowd and out again in seconds. I saw a lot of urban gang violence and general mayhem. When I got a flat tire from all the glass, I took that as a sign to go home. The police fired several volleys of tear gas and scattered everybody. What's funny — or not really funny — is that more people were taken to the hospital from the riots than from the earthquake. What a crazy few days.
This is the first weekend since the big quake, and it's easy to see that people are still on edge. I have noticed that people are drinking more and are quick to anger — simple post-traumatic stress disorder. I hope to avoid this by just maintaining the routine I had before.
I have to walk home a different way from work these days. The reason is because there are some potentially hostile crack dealers that control a part of my old route. They think I am a cop, or something worse. Rather than cause trouble, I just decided to change my walk home — the block will be torn down in a few weeks anyway.
My new route has some interesting things along the way. I helped some elderly drunk gentlemen get home and prevented their probable rolling by local gangsters. One of the old men started having some sort of flashback whereby he started thinking I was a Nazi from WWII. That was a little strange, but anything is possible these days. I still helped the men home and went about my day.
A perfect day to play outside, and that's just what I did. Nothing but sun here in Seattle. I went looking for one of the local Geocaches — took the bike out and had fun locating it. It wasn't as hard as I had thought. I took a Bug's Life toy and left a dollar. On the horizon: my first race this Saturday up in Vancouver, BC.
Just back from Vancouver for my first triathlon of the season. It was a good race and I did quite well. The swimming was the easiest part (800M) — I am quite efficient. Then a 250M run to the bike transition, shoes on, 15 miles on the bike. That was ok, but my mountain bike lost me some time against everyone else's road bikes. Then I ran two laps of the central campus and took the finish line with a 100-metre sprint. Total: about 1 hour 40 minutes. Not bad, but still lots of room for improvement.
After the race I went geocaching in Pacific Spirit Park at UBC. The day before, I had looked for a cache in the Skagit River Delta — that failed as it was getting dark and my coordinates were off. Wound up way out in the river slough surrounded by millions of large birds that kind of looked dangerous.
The race data is in. Time: 1:41:56 — 186th out of 454 people. Top 25% in the swim at 15:08 for 800M. The cycling was the weak point at 59th percentile — mostly economic and technological, as everybody else had a better bike. The run was in the top third at 31:40 for 5K.
Lessons learned: sports drinks on the bike, smoother transitions, and I need a road bike. The mountain bike uses all your leg muscles including the ones you need to run with, while a triathlon bike uses more quads and less hamstrings so you can save energy for the run. It's all about how you budget your energy. Back to training.
Today is the real Ides of March, so I was extra cautious. I don't think I have too many people out to get me — though the construction crew outside comes close. They have jackhammers ripping up the street about 10 feet from my house. Optimal use hours: 7pm to 5am. The jackhammer sounds like anti-aircraft fire and gives me CNN flashbacks. Still, it's to be expected when you live downtown in a major city. Maybe I had better make that couch cushion fort and hide in the closet.
Today was the race. A 5K run, working on fast sprints. Good day for it.
A little tired from playing outside. I was able to do a 3,000-metre swim and a pretty good 25-mile mountain bike ride on some good hills. Needless to say, I feel a little worked.
Just waiting for MIR to fall from the sky. I know exactly what time it is. Fortunately, that thing is as far away from me as mathematically possible on this planet. Still, there are some of our ships out there in the fishing zone.
Nothing much to report. Training has been good, and work has been normal — I guess that would be a good thing. In the news, there was a large solar flare that reached the earth. It disrupted my Rugby game for a few minutes, but then everything went back to normal. There were some pretty good aurora sightings out there, but this being Seattle, viewing wasn't an option.