todd

Giro di Peninsula ride this weekend

For those of you who enjoy cycling, the Giro di Peninsula ride is this weekend.

I'm doing the 100K ride with Tammy and some friends from the GGTC. It looks like a beautiful course, and the ride involves lots of EATING too-- woo! [Post-ride note: The ride went really well, was a lot of fun (we had maybe eight people riding together in our little group). The food wasn't all that great-- lots of carbs at rest stops along the way, including cookies and PB sandwiches. But the food at the end was only one notch above the usual Iceberg-lettuce-and-spaghetti lunch they serve at races.]

I'm a mishmash

I've been having fun looking up my family tree. Here are some of the exciting names I've found in my tree at the great-great grandparent level:

TSOUHLARKIS
BOUDIE
PARISNUS
DUNNE
STROHAUER
BISHOP
MARAKIS
DOUGLAS
LAPIERRE

Mystery illness

I don't get sick very often these days. In fact, I think the last time I was sick was maybe 18 months ago. So perhaps it's not too surprising that when I do get sick, it takes me a little while to figure it out. Ready? Let's play "name that illness"!
Symptoms (in order of appearance):

• Scratchy burny throat
• Hard to swallow
• Ears popping frequently
• Feels like maybe there's a mountain of snot glued to my sinus passages, but nothing's coming out.

At first I thought it was allergies, but now I'm not so sure. I took some Claritin and then some Benadryl and neither seemed to help.

First Alcatraz Swim

Last night I got a call from my tri coach saying that, at the last minute, two people had bailed out of an Alcatraz swim clinic scheduled for this morning-- would we want to go? So Tammy and I both signed up for the 6:15am swim this morning.

What can I say? It was amazing. After a brief discussion of the currents and landmarks to sight in the bay, we were off in a zodiak with four experienced guide swimmers. A couple minutes later, we plopped in the water next to Alcatraz and started swimming toward Aquatic Park.

The currents are intense. One minute you're sighting on/aiming your body toward Aquatic Park (the tall apartment buildings behind it, actually), and the next minute you find yourself looking straight at the Fort Mason piers. Then you blink and suddenly the SF Yacht Club is directly in front of you. The tide charts listed the current at about 3.8 knots ebb, which is about as fast as it gets out there, and you could definitely feel it.

As we got closer to shore near Crissy Field, we hit a reverse current and had to fight for about fifteen minutes to get from the the outer buoys/pylons to the beach. It's amazing how, within a few yards, the current completely flipped.

Afterwards, the experienced swimmers were telling us that those were some of the strongest currents they'd ever experienced, and one guy had done something like 400 Alcatraz swims. So our Alcatraz Challenge race in July should be easy by comparison!