Untitled (Forgot to title it)

I did end up going walkabout. By the time I post this (motel wireless is uncooperative), I will be back from Ojai, which is about 2 hours north of Whittier, where my little apartment is. Actually, I HOPE my apartment is still there; I understand there were a couple pretty big earthquakes there on Thursday. This means my streak of not experiencing an earthquake is unbroken; I always manage to be out of town or in the car or something when an earthquake hits.

Anyway, Ojai is a little arty community near Lake Casitas. Yeah, I don’t know where that is, really, either. It’s on the way to Ventura. My friend Adamarie loves it in Ojai and figured I’d enjoy it too.

It’s a good trip. Ojai is kind of sleepy, and I’m not really deviating that much from my normal routine. Yesterday I arrived and walked around a little, had some tea, went to a used bookstore. Today I will (or will have) hike(d) the Gridley trail, which originates about a mile from the ranger station in town and ends at Nordhoff Peak (4,485 ft). So it’s not terribly exciting or eventful, but something good did happen: I realized that I’ve been kind of skating through the past couple weeks instead of actively choosing what I’m going to do with my time. I’m financially secure for the summer, so I can basically do whatever the hell I want to. And I remembered that when I was even planning the trip. On Wednesday, I started thinking of which weekend I might be able to go away. And then I remembered that I could conceivably pick up and go at that moment, which is something I used to do, obviously, when I was in the thick of my trip.

So I did some Internet research and found a motel room and some info about Ojai, and then yesterday I CrossFitted and took off. It was incredibly energizing to be spontaneous, and I realized I haven’t been doing much of that lately. There is a tennis tournament in Ojai this weekend, so I was only able to get a room for last night, but that was enough to get the wheels turning again.

And in the timing-is-everything vein, I just got some feedback from my agent on the narrative part of my book proposal. I had submitted it to him about a month ago, and then he promptly got swamped under all the other things he does. But I probably wouldn’t have been as excited to get to work on the revisions any earlier because I’ve been sort of treading water, so I’m glad it took the amount of time it did. Working on a book is already proving to be an incredible and challenging learning experience; I really haven’t seen as much red ink (well, red strikethrough using the track changes tool) on something I’ve written since the first drafts of my dissertation. So it’s a little daunting, but I’m going to repeat that I’m up for the challenge until I believe it. Let’s just say that I have a crapload of work to do.

I neglected to describe the SoCal CrossFit Games Qualifiers, which happened last weekend. This is the third year that CrossFit will hold its own Olympic-style event; this year it will be in Aromas, CA, in July. In previous years, it was a first-come, first-served situation, but this year there is so much interest that they had to hold regional qualifiers. The SoCal quals were in Tustin last Saturday and Sunday, and a bunch of people from our “box,” CrossFit LA/Petranek Fitness, participated. The top 6 men and top 6 women competitors were chosen to be on the SoCal team, and I’m happy to report that our own Andy Petranek finished third overall! So he’ll be competing against CrossFitters from all over the world in July. Congratulations, Andy!!

So how do I describe the event, the workouts, the absolute studs (male and female) who participated? First, it was hot as balls, which means that the performances were that much more awesome. Second, there were lots of very fit people in skimpy outfits—never a bad things. Third, the workouts included many things that I physically cannot do, like 105/155lb clean and jerks (first number for women, second for men) and chest-to-bar pullups (though I can do some of those now), and they also included things that I can do but would not be able to do the required number of times within the cutoff times, like 65/95lb overhead squats, box jumps, wall ball, 2K row. There were three workouts, two on Saturday and one on Sunday, and even though Andy’s the only one who qualified, everybody from our box showed incredible heart and did amazingly well. I was proud to be cheering them on.

Okay, now it’s Saturday and I didn’t end up going hiking—before I left on Thurs, I did a nasty walking lunges workout that I am STILL feeling. Plus, it was rainy (so much for triple digit temps; it's back into the 50s and 60s). So I wussed out, came home, saw a movie, and got a massage. I was SPONTANEOUS.

Today I'm continuing to play hooky from training, and the trend will continue until Monday, when I'll hit it hard in preparation for ADCC and the Mundial. They are coming up! Dang.