Dichroic Reflections

preliminary anxiety

I set a new record for this year Saturday - did the half marathon in one hour, fifty-six minutes and 23 seconds. That's not a PR - I did one last year about fifty seconds faster - but it's nearly four minutes faster than last week's. And fifty seconds isn't a whole lot over 21, 097 meters - about 1.5 seconds average split, whereas I averaged more than 5 seconds faster than last week. The good thing is that this is partly because I did the whole stinkin' almost two hours with no breaks, but it's also partly because I just rowed faster. This was after going flying the the morning, so I'd already had that to tire me out and work up a sweat (we've had heat advisories the last several days. I ate half a bagel, drank some diluted Gatorade, and took more of the latter up with me to the erg, where I took a swig without stopping about every 2000 meters. I won't even try to push on that long when I do the marathon at the end of September: I'll permit myself a brief stop every 6 or 7 km and will probably again drink on the fly every 2K or so. I need to do the math to figure out what split I have to do to match last year's time.

In the meantime, I have other things to be anxious about. On Friday, we leave to fly to Lakeview, OR, in a Cessna 172. We did this once before in a 182: this is a less powerful plane, but a nice new one. The seats are more comfortable, for one thing, and it's a little reassuring not to be flying something as old as I am, even if airplanes do get much better maintenance than most cars. The worst thing is knowing that if we had to make a forced landing anywhere on the first half of the trip, we'd have to put down into a 110-degree desert, with only the water we're carrying with us. (We'll take some extra, but water is heavy.) We'll have a few snacks and will do Lindbergh one better by taking peanut butter AND jelly sandwiches. As Rudder reminds me, though, most of the time we'd be able to put down near a road, so chances are even if we can't make a phone call from wherever we are, it wouldn't be all that long before rescue came. And of course I've flown over heated deserts four times before this summer, on round trips to San Diego and Sanata Barbara, which no airplae issues whatever.

Plus, this time I'll have Rudder with me. He doesn't know the aircraft as well as the instructor I flew with before, but for dealing with emergencies, I'd put my money on him. And there won't be any emergencies, anyhow; that's what aircraft maintenance and preflight inspection and flight planning are for.

Still, better to get the worrying out of the way beforehand.