in other news

I was minding my own business, sitting on my bike at an intersection in Santa Monica waiting for the light to change when I heard a "Hey, brother!" from my left and turned to see a middle-aged black guy approaching. I did one of those raised eyebrows "you talking to me?" looks behind me but, no, he seemed to be talking to me. "Say, say, say..." he was calling as he walked straight up to me. He had long-ish greying hair, and was dressed in a style one might call eclectic - lots of interesting layers with a t-shirt that said something funny on it that I can't remember. He had one of those bluetooth things in his ear - the handy signifier of 'not crazy-on the phone' that you look for when you see someone walking along talking to themselves. But this guy wasn't talking to himself, he appeared to be talking directly to me. "Say!", he said when he got up next to me. "Who was that gal that, uhh, played June Carter, you know, with Joaquin Phoenix in, in that movie, you know?" Reese Witherspoon, I said, happy that I hadn't caved under the pressure. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah! That's the one! Thanks, bro'!" And off he went, apparently satisfied.

In other news, I ran the entire length of the 22 mile Marvin Braude Bike Trail last Saturday. I started at the north end, thinking how nice it would be to enjoy a gentle tailwind for 3+ hours. However, Mother Nature, always the sadist, was gently blowing from the south that day, the only time I've ever seen that happen. It wasn't much; just enough to continually remind me how much I loathe the wind. I didn't let it slow me down much, though, and finished in 3:06:13, almost 3 minutes ahead of schedule. 3 minutes sounds like a lot but at that distance it's less than 10 seconds per mile. One thought I'm sure I'll keep in my head on race day will be the old adage: "that shit adds up".
























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blown away

"You're so skinny you're gonna blow away."

I've heard this dire warning my entire life. Depending on my age, I've either considered it an insult or a compliment. Yesterday, I considered it prophetic.

I was scheduled to run 19 miles along a newly charted route I developed to avoid the Bataan/Marina del Rey Death March. As I set out I probably should have paid closer attention to the blown-over garbage cans and the palm fronds littering the ground and raining down like mortar shells. "Aw, it's not that bad. Don't be a wuss", I said to myself as I ran the first three miles along the somewhat-wind-protected Palisades Park high above Santa Monica Beach. I turned onto the pier and as I descended I soon realized the hell that awaited. A few weeks ago I wrote a whiny blog about a windy day during which I ran 13 miles. At the time I thought conditions were pretty bad but yesterday made that other day look like a stroll during a pleasant breeze.

The wind was blowing so hard and so constant that the bike path was being swallowed beneath dunes before my very eyes like some isolated road in the Sahara. Not content to simply drown out my iPod, it literally blew the earbuds out of my ears. The windblown sand didn't just sting my legs, it sandblasted all my exposed parts to a dull sheen. I ran with both eyes squeezed shut save for a watery slit through which I tried to monitor the navigable portion of the concrete. My shoes and socks and ears and nose filled with sand and I felt certain I was developing the sand-based equivalent of black lung disease. Sand-colored lung disease? All the while the wind roared. I struggled to maintain a forward motion, leaning impossibly far into the wall of wind like a cartoon character, thinking, "Huh. Maybe I should do this run tomorrow."

I stuck with it. As I reached the northernmost end of the bike path, my theory was that the upcoming seven southbound miles would be so wind-aided that I'd literally sail along and more than make up for my northbound glacial pace. I was wrong. I quickly learned that the evil wind does not giveth, it only taketh away. One can only run so fast, even with a sadistic Mother Nature shoving hard from behind.

The last two southbound miles head down the alley behind the beachfront homes of the marina. Here the air was calmer and just as I started to enjoy the respite I got to the first cross-street which leads directly out to the beach... and was blasted from the side with a Cheney-esque face-full of what felt like buckshot. "Jesus!" I yelled as I fought to stay on my feet. This went on for 20+ blocks and was repeated for the benefit of the other side of my face northbound 10 minutes later, after I had reached my turnaround point and visual bleakness zenith, the tip of the marina breakwater.

I must have set some sort of record for self pity during those last 5 miles. My legs hurt. Bad. I was exhausted to the point that I couldn't even muster up my usual expletive rant. I was dumbfounded by the thought that I would have to run an additional ONE HOUR! to actually complete a marathon. And I was covered head to toe in caked-on sand and debris. More than anything I wanted to stop running. "Just stop, lay down, and sleep forever...", a little voice in my head suggested. "Don't mind if I do!", I responded heartily. "Wait!", another voice pleaded. "If you stop, you're accepting failure! You can't do that, man!" "Good point.", I admitted. Still another voice said calmly, "Just distract yourself with really, really, really pleasant thoughts for the rest of this godforsaken run." And that's exactly what I did.

Interesting Sight o' the Day: absolutely nothing.

Runs for the week:

Tuesday: 5 miles

Thursday: 8 miles

Saturday: 19 miles, 2:54:05

Runs for last week:

Tuesday: 4.25 miles

Wednesday: 7.5 miles

Friday: 5 miles

Sunday: 18 miles, 2:41:03

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pedestrian drift

When I was a sophomore in college I began seeing the number 222 with an alarming frequency. A car would cut me off and 222 would be part of the license plate; I'd glance down at the odometer and it would be rolling over to 222; I'd look in the mirror at my clock radio and would see "22:2" when it was really 5:55 in the afternoon; I'd randomly open a book to page 222; I'd buy something and my change would be $2.22, etc. At 2:22pm on February 2, 1983 I was in the first group of people allowed on the observation deck of the University of Texas tower since August 1, 1966. I even made a phone-friend in California by dialing random 1-800 numbers that began with 222 until someone answered and agreed to have a conversation with me (a story worthy of its own blog, by the way). There are many other equally freaky examples. This 222 thing went on and on and I began to obsess about it, wondering what it meant, trying to glean meaning from each occurance, knowing deep down that it meant nothing but wishing that it did.

My friend, Karl, who at that time was an even bigger skeptic than I was, said it was simply a case of specific sensitivity. He concluded that I saw all three-digit numbers with the same randomness but I noticed 222 more because I was tuned in to it and was looking for it because, hey, let's face it, it was a cool story to tell chicks. He was probably right. Just like he was right to poke fun at our other roommate, Al's, dabbling with tarot cards. Al had a voice like Damone in Fast Times at Ridgemont High and was the only Chinese rockabilly devotee I've ever met. He enjoyed giving people tarot 'readings' and would explain each card's significance in his nasally drawling monotone. Karl, not one to sit idly by while someone else had their fate divined based on a few fancy cards, once drew a plan view diagram of a freshly delivered Domino's pizza and labeled the various bits of cheese and slices of pepperoni with their respective social and destiny significances. He claimed it was just as valid a fortune-telling method, although admittedly not quite as well known.

Karl's days of skepticism are over but mine aren't. I prefer to give scientific explanations and good old-fashioned coincidence credit over ghosts, fate, luck, and divine intervention. However, I recognize man's limitations in understanding the inner workings of the universe and I'm truly open to evidence of what one might call The Supernatural (quantum mechanics aside). So far, the closest I've come to seeing something that consistently defies the known laws of nature is Pedestrian Drift.

Pedestrian Drift, simply stated, is:

The tendency of those being overtaken to drift into the path of the overtaker.

This only applies to those unaware of their about-to-be-overtaken status - people who see you coming and get in your way are just assholes. The mode of locomotion of both the overtaker and the overtaken doesn't matter either; Pedestrian Drift will occur if one is walking, jogging, biking, skateboarding, being pushed in a stroller or wheelchair, or zipping along on a Rascal. This mysterious and very real Force of Nature affects all - the quick and the slow, the smart and the stupid, the old, the young, and the restless.

Here's a typical example: Let's say you're walking down the sidewalk. You're in a bit of a hurry because you're heading to lunch and you're friggin' starving, man! Ahead of you is a group of, say, German tourists ambling along in the same direction, marveling at the topiary dinosaurs and the homeless guy that belts out the opening bars of DAY-O constantly. As you approach them from behind you see a bigger gap on the right and make for it, only to find the rightmost German suddenly angling out and cutting you off for no apparent reason. "Goddamn Germans!" you say to yourself. Wrong! Blame the First Law of Pedestrian Drift:

1. The path of the overtaker causes the drift of the overtaken.

Another example: Just the other night I was dropping off some movies at Blockbuster because I'm too stupid to get on the Netflix bandwagon. I parked around back, dropped the movies in the slot, and was walking back to my car, my mind a completely blank and numb void which is typical these days. I neared the corner of the building and got two steps into my turn into the parking lot when I heard, "Excuse me!" from the girl on the bike I had just Pedestrian Drifted into the wall. "Goddamn doddering old people!" she thought as she rode away.

She was wrong to blame my doddering oldness; I had a perfectly legitimate reason for altering my path. She was simply a victim of the Second Law of Pedestrian Drift:

2. The path of the overtaken causes the path of the overtaker.

Now, you may be thinking to yourself, "Holy crap! I'm doomed to a lifetime of running into the slow-ass people ahead of me!" Not true! There is something you can do about it. It's a technique called "slinging" but it takes some practice. It's a bit like a head fake in basketball but involves much more mental control. Here's how it works: initiate your path around the person you're overtaking truly believing that's the direction you'll go, then suddenly change your mind and go the other way around. Their drift will be inexorably started in the first direction and voila! you're on your merry way. The key is committing to that first path choice - Pedestrian Drift can tell when you're faking it.

Some of you may say, "Eureka! Finally a cogent and concise explanation of a phenomena I've been subconsciously aware of my entire life!" Others may say, "Pure and utter horseshit!" Regardless, Pedestrian Drift is, no doubt, something you'll probably start to notice a lot more now - now that you're tuned in to it and are looking for it.

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