This morning I got up kind of early (although not as early as Danielle, who ran Roses to la Playa this morning) to get in a yoga work-out before we leave to go camping this weekend. Right at the start I noticed my lower back was incredibly tight. Initially I had trouble just touching my [...]

On Wednesday night I had an awesome bike ride home. I ended up working a bit late, so it was completely dark when I left. Getting out of Santa Barbara, was its usual self (which isn’t bad), but past Montecito I had an amazing moment. Chilly evening air rushing past me, the sky is clear [...]

After every swim, my nose is running for the next twelve hours. I’m not sure how, but my sinus system gets cleaned with chlorine every time. When I get out of the pool I even have a little trouble keeping my balance. Maybe the water gets in through my ears, in which case a cap [...]

I seem to be getting a lot better at running. I’ve been measuring my heart rate after each run (by timing how long 40 beats take), and it’s been about 160-something bpm after every run. Then just over a week ago I measured 139 bpm. I figured that couldn’t be right. But then after last [...]

I had this all written up, and then Firefox crashed. Anyway, I went for an ocean swim yesterday. Here are the highlights:
My wetsuit works. Swimming in the ocean sucks. It’s cold, there’s waves hitting you high, while rocks take you low. To top it off the water tastes even worse than pool water.

Here are seven little things I’ve enjoyed during the past week:

Monday: The powerful feeling of biking through the elements.
Tuesday: Swam 50 yards in just 1:03!
Wednesday: Yoga makes me wonderfully sore.
Thursday: What sounded like hundreds of frogs on my run, going quiet one by one as I pass them.
Friday: Biking flat and fast. What’s more fun [...]

On Saturday I went to swim in the ocean, just to get used to it. It turns out that the ocean is very cold in January and, worse, it’ll only be 2 degrees warmer in March. I braved the cold ocean wearing only a thick cap and a thin paddling shirt. I was out after [...]

My beautiful beach route has turned into an army-grade obstacle course. The dirt right after the train tracks has turned into slick mud. They put up a sand berm next to the beach that I need to claim. Then there are a million rocks on a beach that used to be smooth sand. It was [...]

It’s been raining on and off for the last two days. This afternoon, during a dry spell, I went out for my first bike ride of the year. It was gusty, which is fun, and I decided to do a slightly longer loop than planned. About two thirds into the climbing section of this loop [...]

He sees you when you’re sleeping.
He knows when you’re awake.
He knows when you’ve been bad or good,
So be good, for goodness’ sake.
I’m being good this Christmas (so far). I was going to find a pool yesterday and swim. I wimped out on that, but I did a yoga DVD last night. On top of that [...]