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Santa Ana Winds

Spent yesterday relaxing with my wife, watching movies on HBO while poring over cross-country stats from races around California. My team had a bye weekend, and it was nice using the time to recharge and gird for the coming weeks of racing. The championship races are almost upon us. Now is the time to look for the details in the training program, tweaking and fine-tuning in order to get the very best taper out of everyone.

Iron Week

I've fallen far out of the triathlon world, so far out, in fact, that it's hard to remember a time when I stressed about making it to a master's swim workout each morning. But I think this is Ironman week. At least that's what their website says. This means that Babbitt is winging over to Kona, for his annual week of Hawaiian living. The hotels and restaurants will be transformed into a subset of the triathlon culture for the next seven days, and the actual race day itself will be its usual transcendent mixture of pain and triumph.

Central Park

Sitting on a bench in Central Park, just off the marathon course. It's a beautiful September morning, almost cool enough to wear a sweater. I just took the train up from Baltimore, and had planned on going for a run as soon as I got to New York. But the hotel didn't have my room ready and I'm too lazy to find a health club to shower and change before my lunch meeting. So today's run will be in the afternoon. In the meantime, I sit here and write.

Prevention and Cure

Marty waxes poetic about ice baths and recovery. 

Fading Into Anonymity

In watching the Track and Field Olympic Trials this past week, I was constantly struck by the inordinate amount of attention dedicated to the sprint events. Tyson Gay's cramp in the 200 received more air time than the Men's 10,000 meter final, Alyson Felix's desperate desire to qualify in the 200 after failing in the 100 was treated as a national emergency, and NBC just couldn't get enough of those sprint heats, showing every last one of them ad infinitum.