Saturday, May 22, 2004

This morning was the first official “Team in Training” triathlon run. It was at 8am which is a bit early for me (or anyone!) on a Saturday. There were about 35 people out there which I thought was pretty impressive, and after a bit of stretching we did a quick 30 min run. The group was trisected based on runnning experience, and I found myself with the “fast” runners. We began the run at about 9am and I was surprised how warm it was in LA, and consequently I had a bit of difficulty on what should have been a simple 3 mile run. Lesson learned that hills and temperature make a huge difference.

The triathlon is Sept 12, which gives me plenty of time to train, but I am a little worried about work interfering with it. The running and swimming is going well, but I need to get a bike. After the practise I drove out to Santa Monica to check out bikes at a big chain bike store. On the way over I took the 101 Hollywood freeway and for the first time down here say the famous Hollywood sign. Santa Monica is only about 15 mins farther west. I’m interested in the Specialized Elite triple, but the store I went to was a bit too agressive and turned me off, so I ended up not buying a bike today.

I wandered around Santa Monica for a while then decided to walk down to the beach. I haven’t seen the Pacific since getting back from England. It really is a beautiful thing to see the endless ocean as the sun goes down. I sat for a while on the sand close to the waves, in complete peace. It was odd to think that the same crashing of the waves could have been obsevered a million years ago and my thoughts made me lose my sense of time.