Do you need a lift?

I went out to the lake this morning again, to swim a mile and run. I ended up running eight miles, but it was tough, especially the beginning, my legs feel very fatigued, so I think I'm going to take a day or two off from running.

In any case, as I was running a very funny memory came flooding back to me (Well, I guess it's funny now, in retrospect, but at the time it was just depressing). My first ever Half Ironman was last year on September 1st, the Umpqua Ultimate in Sutherlin, Oregon. And it was toughhhhh. Blazing hot and hilly, very hilly. I had a flat tire during the bike and didn't even notice (I thought it seemed awfully hard for a while) until 7 or 8 miles from the end at which point I decided to just ride it out (I don't know what I was thinking). On top of that, I ate nothing all day.

I thought there would be nutrition on the course, but nope. So I had my three Granola bars with me, one of which I dropped on the bike and sadly waved good-bye to saying 'I'll miss you sweet nectar of life, I'll miss you....'.

While I was on the run...ok, ok, while I was on the walk, I was at about mile 6 or 7 when an old woman slowed down on the road and said, 'do you need a lift young man?', to which I replied, 'errr, no thanks, I'm in a....race'. To which she said, 'oh, yes, I noticed other people running, but they were all moving much quicker than you, are you sure you're ok?', 'yes, yes, I'm fine, thank you'

And she drove off. Leaving in her wake a bitter, broken man. Seriously, what could be worse? Oh, that's right! Only one thing! At an olympic tri in July last year, Audrey, my wife, arrived a little late, after the swim start. I guess it took her a while to get parked and drag the kid over. So here I come out of the water, stumbling, tired from swimming for a very long time (yes, it was only a 1.5 K swim), and my wife says to me, 'Oh! Thank God! I thought something happened to you, everyone else is gone! I only saw your bike there and I got scared!'

'No, nothing happened, and thanks for that, I'm going to go hang myself now'.

Ouch, huh?

Well, I'm all better now. I'm looking forward to blazing my next half-ironman run, I'm looking for 1:30 or better.

Lastly, on a different note. I worked a little more on my Motivational Fuel book proposal today, revising it to send it out to more literary agents. I'm considering sending it directly to some publishers as well, not sure, but I'm going to get sending it out again tomorrow. So far, I sent it out to just 4 literary agents, and they all turned me down for various reasons. So I've changed some things and I'm going to try again, here's hoping!