Hard Core Kung-Fu Traning

So, it's 8:17pm and we're watching SpongeBob. I'm not quite sure why we're watching the Sponge. It's just..........on.

This weekend we had a "heat wave" here in the Seattle area. Watch out! Hot temps are a' flarin'! COME ON. We've had temps above 85 for like 2 or 3 days in a row. That is so NOT a heat wave. Today, the old high temp record was 88 degrees. It was set back in 1987. We broke that record with a 90 degree tempurature. I guess I'm just used to weather extremes. Back east we routinely had stretches of 90 plus degree weather in summer with HIGH humidity. There wasn't even any humidity today. It was just hot. Northwesterners sure are weird. Can't wait to see what happens in winter around here....

Saturday, we ventured to the REI Flagship store to pick up a race packet for huzbend. The place was frickin' huge. Definitely worthy of "flagship" status. Not only did they have everything and anything that an outdoorsy type of person would want or need they also have, like, a 65 ft. tall freestanding indoor climbing wall. Impressive. Hey, did you know that the time on Mt. Everest is 45 minutes off of the world clock? I don't know if this is right. I can't seem to find anywhere online that says what time it is on top of Mt. Everest. But, they had swiss army clocks around the outside of the REI building marking the time at different natural wonders throughout the world. I'm just assuming they know what they're talking about.

Speaking of natural wonders, Mt. Rainier is awesome. Since it's been clear for the past couple of days, when you drive around on the highways you can see it looming in the distance. The thing is huge (about 14,000 ft high). It's really cool to be driving around on a 90 degree day and see this monolith in the distance completely covered in snow. Okay, so it's a active volcano. I can live with that as long as its pretty.

Sunday, huzbend and a team of 4 other guys competed in a 100 mile race. The race was split into 5 legs: 23 mile mtn. bike, 50 mile road cycle, 12 mile kayak, 13.5 mile run, 6 mile sprint. Huzbend, of course, did the 50 mile cycle. His team did pretty well coming in somewhere in the middle of the pack. The entire race took them 9 hours and 22 minutes to complete.

Huzbend was totally worthy of the polka dot King of Mountains jersey (Tour de France reference) he was wearin', in that he told me that he ate up those nasty northwest hills. Problem was that one of the spokes on his back wheel came loose during the ride. This caused the wheel to "come out of true" (that's cycle-speak for wobbly wheel). This, in turn, caused his back brake to rub on the rim and remain "on" throughout the race. Bummer. I guess it could be considered, like, hard core training. Like, kung-fu guys that train with wet gis so that when they take them off they can move that much faster. Yeah, just like that.

Anyways, watching these guys depressed me even more than the whole elliptical machine debackle. I mean, here they are pushing themselves hard for hours at a time, getting all dehydrated and sweaty. All I did was walk from one start/finish line, drive a few miles to the next start/finish line and then walk some more. You would have thought that I ran a damn marathon! I was all red-faced, tired, sweaty and grumpy.

Well, if I think about it along the kung-fu line, I should be able to kick major ass when I offload this extra 30 somethin' pounds. You just watch. Then I can train like Luke Skywalker did on Dagobah. I'll just carry baby around the swamp in a backpack doin' my flips and sprints and other Jedi madness. Ha-HA! Watch out world.

I think there's something wrong with me....