Not Dead!

No, I'm not dead.

But I have been working some 16 hour days, which seriously impedes my ability to write and publish blog posts.

I have a few in the works, too: A playlist of pre-race music; a review of a research journal article about overtraining; and a financial post on exactly how much money it takes to begin triathlon.

However, I don't know when I'll finally have the time to refine these posts enough to publish them.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with these (previously written and published) love poems I wrote to (and about) triathlon.

Peloton

You see us in the mornings,
Lycra-clad and faces tight-clenched,
A brightly-feathered fleet of gazelles
Chasing down metallic bears
On the PCH.

You see our toned legs
Glowing with the hues
Of Santa Monica sunrises,
Strained in the pursuit
Of Mulholland Highway heights,
Legs thrusting in hypnotic circles
Like the movements of
A strange and sacred Hopi dance.

You see our honed bodies, our honed
Equipment, our honed technique;
You see our helmeted heads
And suppose that we are
Very experienced.

We see your rear fender
As you drift too close
And we eat tar
Like bulldozers
Scraping their buckets
Along a demolished road.

Dive

Gathered.
I feel calm as adrenaline swamps
my veins like its preparing them for
the coming onslaught of lactic acid.
Elites

Gather,
shaking out just-warmed arms
and legs, preparing themselves for
another chaotic mass swim start.
Goggles

prepared for entry, a dive into
this lake. Fucking cold
lake. No wetsuits--not that cold.
Holy shit. Look at those deltoids, toned
to pro levels. What am I
doing here?

5-second warning. Together
our whole bodies
tense--one monstrously muscular
athletic being.
At the buzzer we all

Gather
our limbs, hone our
extremities like water knives,
and leap. I fly
like a Power Bar-sponsored swan
and suspend myself
forever in the lens of some
sports photographer. And in
the last moments
before

I hit the water and
enter a painfully hazing world
of feet and elbows,

I float totally
Gathered.

A Jog

Sun-crisped words fall
To the rhythm of shoe-thumped pavement
Calloused hands that soften
Like the shining hairs that graze my arms and neck
Clench and tense, relax self-consciously
Percussive jolt of knees
Chased by laughing shivers
And the rushing pulse of deep-drawn breaths
The well-known beat of our bodies.