'Just a lotta ocean', said the burly young guy next to me on the flight from Oakland to Hawai'i. I'd just opened the shutter on the plane window. We both looked down at the huge expanse of blue water stretching away to infinity.
'Yup, a lotta ocean,' I said pensively.
This time next year I will be down there, recently embarked from San Francisco, paddling slowly across that same expanse of ocean. Even from up here and travelling at 500 miles an hour, it looked vast. 2600 miles from San Francisco to Hawai'i. Today it took me 5 hours to cross it. The next time it will take a lot longer.
It's a lotta, lotta ocean.
|
Comments [0]
Getting fit after a long rest is tough - two weeks of BootCamp, plus a couple of runs with the Palo Alto Run Club have proved to be a strain on the old bones. I'm getting a bit fitter, any maybe even shedding a pound or two, but it's still hard work.
Rachel - when I was on the Atlantic, you texted me to say 'After this nothing will ever seem hard again'. You were wrong!
But with every day that passes I seem to be more irrevocably committed to running in New Jersey with Dean Karnazes on 4th November. This morning: an email from The North Face's publicity agent:
'I have seen your web site and story and it's amazing, it will be great to have you in New Jersey and I look forward to meeting you!!!!
No worries on being 'judged' by your run in New Jersey, most media are just interested in how people inspire and excite one another....and what people's stories are. ;0) It looks like CNN and CNN.com will be interviewing Dean during the NJ run and I've let them know you will be there.'
Oh marvellous, now I get to humiliate myself on TV. I've already warned them I'll be the beetroot-faced one puffing along in the background.
|
It all seemed to be going so well. After yesterday's last-minute decision to go to the Maui Writers' Conference in Hawaii, Team Roz really pulled out all the stops to help me get there fully prepared.
I didn't want to turn up empty-handed. The objective of the exercise is to schmooze the attendant literary agents and/or publishers. I needed a seriously impressive book proposal to hand out.
But my book proposal was still far from ready. Ellen Hawkes, my advisor in all matters literary, had made a lot of suggestions for improvement that needed to be implemented.
Impossible deadlines have a marvellous ability to focus the mind, and in 3 hours of intense mental activity and much typing, I had a proposal that met with Ellen's approval.
I also decided I wanted 10 copies of my Atlantic rowing videos on DVD to include in the package, as the videos seem to provoke a definite reaction in all who see them (varying from 'you must be mad' to 'wow').
Luckily Lex at Riekes Center for Human Enhancement was able to help out.
Then there were labels to print out - for the folder and for the DVD's, so it was off to the Palo Alto Apple Store to buy Disc Cover, and to Staples to buy labels, folders and printer paper.
With a lot of expenditure and a bit of difficulty (WHY won't Hawaiian Airlines accept British credit cards?) I managed to sort the logistics - flights, hotel, and conference badge.
So I was looking all shipshape and ready to go. Then I found that there was a problem with the sound on the DVD's, my laptop (with all my logistical info) wouldn't sync to my palmtop... and then to top it all I pulled a muscle in my lower back.
A case of more haste, less speed, maybe.
|
My calendar is now available online, so everybody (including me) can keep up with where I am. To view it, go to the option on the menu bar called 'Roz:Live', and select 'Calendar'. Et voila!
Thanks to my webmaster, Tim of WebExpeditions for setting this up, and for dealing with the mountain of spam that hit my email account yesterday, temporarily rendering it unusable. Normal service has now been resumed.
|
