Last weekend we had a meet in Hillsboro… our last meet before State. This was possibly the smallest meet I’ve ever been to; our session was just for 15 and overs, so it ended up being smaller than a high school meet!
I’m not going to go into detail about all my races, but I will say that my main focus was the 200 fly. I’m desperately trying to get my Sr. Sectional time, which is a 2:01 — I had a 2:08.
As I had expected, the 200 fly turned out to be the most empty race; it consisted of Mac McDonald, Austin Ringquist (both from Hillsboro), and myself. I took 2nd, but I got a 2:07.30, which is a best time for me by a second. My first 100 split was 59.4, which is the fastest I’ve ever gone out in a 200 fly. Kate said if my first 100 had been half a second slower I might have been able to go a 2:05… oh well. I can’t wait till State!
For my own benefit, though I will allow you to watch it, here’s a video of my 200 fly (I’m in lane 2):
And check out Hillsboro’s outdoor long course warmup pool: you couldn’t see more than 5 feet above the water, but below you could see all 50 meters.
It was a cold day… The early morning sky was gray, and frozen ground crunched beneath feet. It was the start of the bike racing season!
We showed up at Portland International Raceway last Sunday for the first race of the year, a Kermesse. It was a 45 minute race of about 16 miles (for me), around what seemed to be the maintenance roads of the car-racing course. It also included about 1/3 mile of cyclocrossesque gravel, which was, to say the least, abundant in potholes.
Besides an eleven-year-old, I was the only one racing in my category. Luckily(?) though, they let us start with the 35+ B Masters. So I set my mind to staying with them as long as I could.
At first I was thinking, “They’re only going 20mph… I can keep up with these guys!”. Then we came to the gravel, where they… didn’t slow down. A few miles later, we came to a long gradual hill, on which they also refused to go under 20mph. But I somehow stuck with them for the rest of that lap, and then another lap after that. However, by the time we came to that hill the second time, the last of my sprinting muscles had been spread over the road like butter, with nothing left for me to catch up. But before I dropped 4mph due to the lack of pull, I checked my average speed: 20mph.
I don’t mean to sound arrogant, but I’m happy with myself for hanging with the B Masters for two laps, considering I hadn’t ridden a bike in two months. I can’t wait till the next race — hopefully there will be… people!
EXTRA: Check out the winner’s prize: possibly The World’s Worst Trophy.
On Thursday we had a high school meet against Sprague, and beat them for possibly the first time (that I can remember). I swam the 200 IM and 100 fly, which was an epic race between myself and Emiliano. I could see we were trading off the lead at each wall, but at the end I got a 58.26 and he got 58.82. We both had been waiting for that race all season.
Afterwards some of us went out to dinner at Red Robin, where (surprise!) we also saw Sammi and some of her friends.
After a while, somebody joked that we should go bowling, but then somebody else said, “Sure!”. Well, Shawn had a car and a few empty seats, so while about four people went home, the rest of us extended the post-meet party a little longer at Firebird Lanes. This is how it was meant to be… don’t go to school, but party with the school kids at night.
Last thursday I took the bus with my high school swim team to Oregon City for a meet. I had forgotten how fun “charter bus meets” are… It’s like throwing a bunch of people with high metabolisms in a small room that moves for an hour and seeing what happens.
I swam the 200 IM, 400 free, and two relays. I got clobbered in the 200 IM by a club swimmer from Canby (Oregon City’s only club swimmer), but I sort of pwn3d in the 400. Unfortunately, I don’t know what any of my times meant because it was a short course meters pool.
The whole way back a few geeks and I were talking about Weird Al, Networking, and Leopard vs. Vista on a bus full of people. I’d like to mention that doing so takes guts. But nobody complained, so I guess it’s just more evidence that we geeks are taking over the world!
Et nunc tempus est ut ingenium meum nimis demonstro. Primum, dicere volo si hoc legire potis, adsumendum est te aut nimius tempo aut nimius doctrina habere. Enim hoc scribo propter lassitudum et inopiam rerum aliorum scribere. Sed heu, nihil habeo de quo sermere! Ergo faciam te hac insania durere. Sed diu non erit, quod nunc copia verbi mei minuet.
Ita, gratias ago propter audientem tuum, et volo non plurem tempum consumeristi hoc legentem quam consumerui hoc scribentem. Vale!
I have now successfully transfered all the posts from my old Typo blog to here. It was a harsh and dangerous journey, leading more than a hundred data-bearing elephants over snowy mountains, across deep valleys, and through sketchy web servers. We even had to battle the dreaded Windows Blue Screens who sought to capture the data and destroy it.
But though the march was treacherous and the interwebs slow, we managed to pull through and finally arrive at this place of safety we call WordPress.
Thus, here shalt the data remain for ever after. (Until I switch to ANOTHER blog!)
I’ve already said that I didn’t get sick at all while I was in the Philippines. But that’s not true. I caught a fever. No, not that kind of fever…
Guitar fever!!!
It all started with this…
But it ended with — wait, it didn’t end with, it increased with this:
That’s right: I bought myself an Epiphone guitar for Christmas. And let me tell you, the day it arrived I had things to do, but I hardly got any of them done. Because I’m having FUN.
