Social Notworking

True confession time:

I have never been to any type of fan convention. Not Comic Con, not GalaxyQuest, not even a Star Trek convention.

I might have to correct this oversight.

Getting my office hours cut back was supposed to be a boon to my personal productivity. I was supposed to do more writing, keep the linoleum shiny, achieve Kalstrom-level fitness, and buzz through my long-overdue family photo archival project. None of these has happened. But it's not a total loss -- I have watched a lot of movies and eaten a lot of burritos.

My latest guilty-pleasure movie discovery is a documentary entitled "Comic Book: The Movie." If you have a single geeky bone in your body, you should immediately throw this gem into your Netflix queue. The inclusion of a cameo by Bruce Campbell would be enough all by itself, but you'll also see such luminaries as Ron Perlman, David Prowse, and Peter Mayhew, not to mention a host of today's biggest voice actors.

That's all I'll say, other than to say that I am now accepting applications for candidates to accompany me to a future sci-fi or comic convention of some sort. Athletic blond females will receive special consideration; fluency in Klingon is a plus.

Anyway, if you do watch that movie, pay close attention. If not, you'll miss some of the stars and visual references that make this a delightful film.

But my weekend wasn't ALL superheroes and nerdiness. I also managed to get in some pretty decent workouts.

I was scheduled to coach swim practice on Saturday, so I did a short run, swam, and then headed out to Waterton to ride my mountain bike up the canyon. (I still hadn't permanently repaired last week's flat on my road bike, so I decided to do dirt instead of pavement.)

Normally, I prefer to do all my workouts as early as I can in the morning. I tell myself that it's to get the workout done and out of the way while the weather is still cool...but I wonder if those aren't just excuses for my preference to exercise on empty roads.

Because I coached first, by the time I got to the canyon on Saturday, the great throngs of "normal" humanity had made their appearance. There were wall-to-wall people in the canyon, which meant that I had to be cautious in my biking. Unless you're David Carradine, you can't really put the hammer down when you're threading your way through a crowd. I still got a good workout, but wasn't able to blast it the way I normally would.

As a firm believer in science, I will defer to anyone who can cite a study on the subject, but my informal observation is that groups of athletes are more likely to be aware of traffic flow than are similar groups of slack-jawed land whales. I never had to stop or slow down to pass runners, but there were a couple of times where I was blocked by a cliff-to-river red-rover line of Chris Farley/John Candy look-alikes who appeared oblivious to the fact that they were stonehenging the entire road. Sigh.

Oh well -- next week I can get started at my normal 5:00 am time. At that hour, all I worry about are hungry pumas and grizzly b'ars.

On Sunday, I was able to start my ride before sunrise, so I decided to head back up Highgrade. As I did last week, I took a brief refueling pitstop at the Smokey sign. The grass seems to be thriving.



Hey, here's a question for the locals. The green-lettered placard here says that Highgrade Road begins in 2.1 miles...but I don't think I've ever seen a sign that actually verifies that such a road officially exists. The street markers seem to go from Deer Creek Road to Pleasant Park. If any part of the climb is labeled with the Highgrade nomenclature, I must not be observant enough to see it. I notice the "Drive slowly; our squirrels don't know one nut from the other" sign every time I ride by, but I've never seen a Highgrade marker.

Google Maps shows it as the segment I just refer to as "the switchbacks." (That's where I saw the red fox again this week...but his black counterpart did not make an appearance. I did see deer, but no elk this time.) I assume that Highgrade ends at the point I can shift back off of my granny chain ring.

I had an early enough start that I did not see another cyclist until I was midway through the switchbacks on the way down.



That is a fun descent. I made it back to South Valley with about a half hour of slack in my schedule. So instead of turning back into Ken Caryl, I pedaled over to Wadsworth and did an extra leg down toward the Lockheed Martin plant, which made it my longest ride so far this year. I felt like I might actually be starting to get in shape. If I had another month to train for my triathlon, I might be able to gain some confidence in my ability to compete.

But no. It's almost time to taper. I'll show up at the race as a fat, slow guy whose only advantages are abundant buoyancy and an appreciation for the extra sea-level oxygen.

Tomorrow, I'll talk about my tentative exploration of alternative forms of healthcare. I may also have a report on my last pre-taper plyometrics workout. And after watching the comic book movie, I might be tempted to offer one of our trademarked nerd trivia graphics contests. I hope you'll drop by.

In honor of Don Knotts, let's all shout "Atta boy, Luther!" and have a great day!