Readin' some Lance

I've been reading Lance Armstrong's autobiographies lately. I've never known exactly what to say when people ask why I run so much. Running is usually 90% miserable, so if I say, "I like it," I feel like I'm lying. I came across this quote yesterday and thought from now on I'll just adopt his words.

"The experience of suffering is like the experience of exploring, of finding something unexpected and revelatory. When you find the outermost thresholds of pain, or fear, or uncertainty, what you experience afterward is an expansive feeling, a widening of your capabilities." -Lance

Spandex cures most things

We had our own little testimony meeting on Sunday before we left AZ to come back to Provo. One of the girls expressed gratitude for being with the Tri Club--she vanquished loneliness by wearing spandex at 5:30 a.m. to train. I feel like we could all use more spandex.

So, let's talk about the swim for a bit. You know when you jump into cold water and you feel your lungs collapsing? Yeah, so do I. So, I couldn't breathe and resorted to breaststroke for 200m or so. Eventually, my lungs began to fully inflate, I caught my freestyle rhythm, and made up some ground. Next time I suppose I'll respect the stremf of arctic hydrogen dioxide before I get rocked. Felt like my lungs were the size of clementines.

Getting out of the water wasn't any easier than getting in. I was DIZZY. I had much trouble getting over to my bike. I really wish this could have been filmed. I was staggering like an MSU student on St. Patty's. I couldn't even kneel upright to get my wetsuit off. I kept toppling over. I just kicked out my last leg, grabbed some stuff, and hopped on my Felt. I checked my inventory, and well... Forgot my shot bloks. I still feel brand new to cycling, so I knew this would be bad. The bike course is rolly with a couple huge hills. I crapped out with ~5 miles left and came in 10 minutes behind my goal. BYU's top two finishers, Grand and Ed, eclipsed 60 mph on the huge downhill pictured below. The catch is if you go down something like that, chances are you also have to go up something like that. The run just felt awesome. I fueled up with shot bloks and collected roadkill.

Chasing geese and such

Delta, UT is home to a 10k that will make your wildest dreams come true. I podiumed for the first, and quite possibly the last, time ever. I came in 2nd overall, but first in my age group. The picture only shows about 100 people running but I'm pretty sure there were scores more that went unphotographed.

As is customary after any athletic event in Delta, UT, the local sociopaths dress for a dip in the lake. This is the "wild" part of the Wild Goose Chase, I guess. That chubby one and the one sporting the red long johns stayed in for like 10 minutes.

1 if by land, 2 if by sea, 3 if by Jimmer

Jimmer played his last game as a cougar last night. We're all coping in different ways. I'm eating more than usual. Some are sleeping with newspaper clippings of Jimmer (or just Jippings, for short). We knew this day would come, however, so it's probably best if we just reminisce on the foggy memories. Plus, now that we don't have to camp out for any more BYU games, I can start showering again. So that'll be nice. We all made sacrifices. First pic here shows the crew (Back: Bekah, Andrea, Dan; Front: Tenli, Tristram).

We call him Jimmer Junior: a white elephant nutcracker-turned-Jimmer-statue.

We crowd-surfed Cosmo. Grabbed his tail.

For the final home game vs. Wyoming the entire student section learned some choreography. Check it out here. You can see us at some parts. We're row 5 for this game, I think. The SDSU game we were victims of unpredictable changes in seating format, and despite being 80th in line we wound up on the 24th row. All other games we were row 11 or closer (row 2 for CSU). Camping out before the Utah game we made a vid for Jimmer. Check it out here.