We interrupt this tale of a journey to bring you back to Sendai, where the fan smells suspiciously like a cow's rear end. It's been busy over here. I was considering copying over an image of my google calendar onto here, but its too hard to look at. Besides! This is a blog, let's use words. So, here's one of the big reason's I've been staying behind on blog posts.

とんとら Tohoku's Triathlon Club

So, it came to be that I joined the Triathlon club here at Tohoku University. I had been considering either the bicycling club or the triathlete kids, trying to find a way to make sure I was going for appropriately lengthy trips on my bicycle during the weekend. I ended up going with the triathlon guys for a few reasons.

The  first was my friend Ryan (this one's not British), who's already in the club, is a handsome devil. The more time I spend around pretty people the more I can pretend I'm pretty too. Ryan also moved with Sarah to a place right by me, so this gives me even better excuses to constantly be bothering them.

Reason dos, swimming. I'm not about to drown if you throw me in water, but swimming technically is something I have never been able to get a grip on. This probably sounds like a good reason to NOT join the Triathlon club and instead go with the biking people, but hear me out. One thing I like, on a very brain-body machine, is getting better at things. I have a feeling I'm not alone with this. On top of that, swimming is a sweet off-sport for climbers. The only reason I know I'm terrible at finessing a crawl through a lane is because I tried doing it with Allison way back when at UW. She tried to teach my clumsy self, but I never picked up much beyond how to properly breath, which is good, because I waste so much strength I'm panting like a dog after a few laps.

Reason tres, running! I've completely fallen out of running since leaving the states, where I had both a) a dog and b) friends who both liked running with me. With all the biking I'm doing now I think my heart is still okay with the work, but my legs have been worked in the wrong spots. It shouldn't be too hard to get back on this horse though. Rumor has it, once I get back stateside I have a father who wants to run with me. Still, it's something I like to do, mainly because I get really good runner's highs sometimes. In essence, I want to get back into it because I'm a junkie.

I'll stop counting reasons at three for a reason I won't disclose here, but here's another line of thought. Every sport I pick up is another thing that'll make me better at climbing, right? That is, swimming isn't the only sport here that'll help me with my climbing. And fancy that, triathlon is three sports rolled into one.

The group has daily practices, sometimes twice daily, but attendance is optional for all. Still, you don't get better if you don't go, so I'm going. On the upside, it's been real easy to fall asleep lately.

On the other hand, I've been so busy lately (but not just with the Triathlon things) that I haven't made it out to climb in over a week. I mean, no climbing! For a week! For Matt! It's been the easiest thing to cut from my schedule as things get worked around. Still, gotta stick to your guns. Think I figured out a place to stick B-nuts back into my schedule tonight