3 bits of good news

Lots of good stuff, training-wise, today. Most importantly, I finally got that fundraising letter off to some people. It's always a bit weird asking for donations. Somehow, in the eighth grade, I was able to sell more magazines door-to-door than any other student. I'm not sure how I managed to do that, as that feat does not mesh with my current personality. Maybe I just wanted that top prize: a 3-foot cone of fluff, with dark sunglasses and a fedora, that could go about 0.05 mph and be controlled via remote-control and went by the name of SpaceMutt. The snake-oil salesman-type manager of this magazine drive somehow convinced all of us less-than-cool jr. high types (or at least he convinced my friends and me) that SpaceMutt was the niftiest thing ever, and that everybody wanted one. So I won the thing, and my friend Larry came in second ... and he used his magazine selling points to get another stupid SpaceMutt instead of something genuinely useful like a WalkMan or something. I think I still carry a bit of residual anger and resentment over being manipulated to trudge around my small hometown, hitting up my neighbors to buy magazines they didn't need. But come to think of it, this project was infinitely better than trudging around to those same neighbors trying to convince them that they needed to buy cheese and sausage and (blech) fruitcake to support the high school band. My inner geek, never fully obscured, is beginning to shine through brightly here, so I'd better get off of this tangent right about now. The upshot is, Donate Now, please. Thanks.

On to the other news - Michelle and I went swimming this evening, and I hit the 1500 yard target without much problem at all. This does not mean that these yards were covered quickly. I need to figure out the breathing issue - on the first lap or two, I'm actually pretty good and relatively fast, with fairly decent form; when I start to need to breathe regularly though, everything goes screwy. Does practice make perfect? We'll see.

Finally - my legs were pretty quiet today, even after yesterday's run. So maybe I can finally get back to the normal running routine and leave these crazy 30 minute stints behind me. Here's hoping. Thanks for reading!