Bees, Fat, and Bikes

A quarter of my front lawn is a low-water garden that has sagebrush, sage, prickly-pear cactus, agave, yarrow, and lavender. Once it flowered, that garden became more alive than any other patch I'd worked on. Tiny wasps, honey bees, and the occasional butterfly grazed on the sage, yarrow and lavender. The most frequent visitors were the bees.

I knew the beehive was nearby. I didn't know where it was until, too my dismay, I saw the neighbor's gardener spraying poison into the hollow of a tree in the strip next to the road. One the gardener had gone, I went to investigate. A pile of bee corpses lay in among the grass at the base of the tree.

This week, with the bees gone, the garden seemed static. It seemed lonely. The tiny wasps still came to feed on the yarrow, but, it wasn't the same.

I check out the garden early in the morning as I head out for my daily run or swim. Training for my supposed triathlon continues, and I'm beginning to see some improvements. Friday, I did a somewhat convincing three mile loop around the neighborhood, which was quite an achievement for me. My once-injured right ankle didn't cramp up, and I didn't feel so self-conscious that I cut the run short.

I have no concerns about the 18 mile bike ride in the Malibu Triathlon, and now I'm beginning to believe that the 4 mile run will turn out fine. Whether the half-mile swim is something I can be ready to do by September is still up in the air.

The hardest part of the training has been eating food. I need new muscle to survive the event, but, I'm paranoid about gaining fat. It is hard to ignore that feeling and keep shoving food down me gob. I must convince myself that, for now, I need to concentrate on what the body can do, and not how it looks.

Super Secret Plan: progress update

Okay, it was early March when I announced the super-secret plan and the 12 things I needed to accomplish to get there. Here is an update on my progress.

1. Bike 56 miles at pace -- I did the LA River Ride last weekend, and did 35 miles at a pretty good clip. 63% complete.

2. Run 13.1 miles at pace -- I've been doing a lot of walking to slowly build around my tweaked ankle and hip. Did a test run yesterday at 2.6 miles. Felt pretty good. 20% complete.

3. Swim 1.2 miles at pace -- Bought a book on swimming. Did one lap in a pool once. 3% complete.

4. Bench press 150 lb. -- No progress.
5. 10 pull ups -- No progress

6. Learn some Arabic -- Enrolled in Arabic 1 at UCLA. Classes begin July 10.

7. Learn some Chinese -- Santa Monica City College will have a class that starts in August.

8. Learn to box -- No progress
9. Get wicked tattoos -- No progress
10. Practice rock climbing -- No progress

11. Save $25,000 -- $3,400 so far. Need to save $1,400 a month to hit the goal by my 38th birthday. 13% complete.

12. Have sex with someone hot -- Alas, no progress

Total completion percentage: 8%.

Positives: I've been working the cardio pretty hard, getting about two hours in most days. The first major stumbling block was with the running: tweaked ankle and injured hip. I've been taking it very slow, low impact. Trying to do as much walking as possible. Limiting factor is not cardio fitness.

Negatives: Return of deadbeat brother. While I'd hoped to get rid of the TV and home computer to help me focus on SSP, presence of brother means we now have cable, cable internet, new XBox.

Also, having trouble doing cardio and going to the gym in the same day. Not doing any work on difficult goals 4 and 5.

My motivation is off-and-on. This is because I'm only focussing on the individual goals (like running) and not the social goals (like language). I need to get back with people again.

Memorial Day Weekend: Telescope Peak Hike, Death Valley

Wrapup: I had fun anyway. The view from Telescope was amazing, and Badwater looked cool. The hike was perhaps a bit brutal for the underprepared, and the Memorial Day traffic sucked.