Why I Race
Lots of triathlon blogs out there by people looking to prove to themselves that they can do something cool. Well, shit, yeah, if you devote practically your whole life to doing an Ironman (but not a lower-case-I iron-distance tri, no, it has to be the trademarked o-fish-ul one), you ought to be able to. 'Specially in the might-as-well-be-walking time of 16 hours.

Look, I know how therapeutic athletics can be. Explore the catacombs of this very blog and you'll find instances of the author drawing inspiration from some pathetic success (or even failure!). But to a tiresome degree, the tri-blogger community that has emerged is beginning to feel like a sprawling, voracious, pop-psych-spewing self-help-best-seller-hypnotized group. You see this, too, with Team in Training, and with the advocates of fat people "running" a marathon in six hours to feel good about themselves. It's depressingly common stuff.

Fine, fine, feel good about yourself. But I'm in this for the sport, and the sport is to go as fast as possible, and though I'm slow, my times matter to me, matter a lot. Just finishing is not what it's about. To me.

Saturday Brick
Up Veeder, back through Yountville, then down Solano and California to home. Thirty miles, a nice mix of climbing and flats. Then off the bike and into the Asics. I was surprised to see, after a tenth of a mile or so, that my pace was around 7 min/mile. Hmm. So, though I really didn't need to or want to and I really shouldn't have -- I'd done a hard run last Sunday, and my legs were still kinda sore -- I went hard. Did 2.5 miles at 6:30 pace.

Post work-out thought: Yeah, my legs were wonky from the bike ride when the run started ... but I was fast from the get-go. Whaddup there? A lesson, I think, in the value of a great warm-up before a running race.

Gas Prices
This has not been a place for rants, but I've had it! I can't take anymore of the bellyaching about gas prices! Today, it was the old guys at the gym, who probably drive about two and a quarter miles a day, who were griping endlessly.

I'll believe people are really bent about gas prices when they: (1) dump their gigantic SUVs (the parking lot at Niko's school is still jammed with Rovers, Yukons, Explorers and the like); (2) drive slower on the freeway (the estimate is that for every mile an hour over 55, up to 65 mph, your fuel economy dips 1 percent -- and after you pass 65, it's even worse); (3) walk, ride the bike or simply forego the trip.

Until then, I don't want to hear it.

Wouldn't You Know It
We spend three days in Portland looking for houses -- the move will come in mid-June -- and already those Seybold boys have Niko playing hockey. (That's Nic stalking the lad here.)