This Week in Motorsport
This afternoon, I opened up Lumi's truck and Big Red, my backpack, and exchanged some papers between the two. Though it was not at that moment raining, the sky's spigot had been open not too much earlier and droplets ran off the hatch to Lumi's trunk and right onto my papers. At that moment, amidst the black thunderclouds inside my head, I'd have preferred that it never again rain anywhere on Earth, the devil with the consequences! That initial squall of rage soon passed, but, man alive, I hate rain.

I've hated rain almost my whole life, but last weekend it added insult to injury by washing out the Petit Le Mans. Last weekend's (Saturday, 26 September) twelfth running of the Petit Le Mans from Road Atlanta was an event I'd been looking forward to for months, not quite since the 24 Heures du Mans in June, but since not all that long after. Why? Because the Petit Le Mans is one of only three races in which the Audis and Peugeots compete head to head, at least as far as I am aware: the 12 Hours of Sebring, the splendorous twenty-four hours around the Circuit de la Sarthe, and the Petit Le Mans (10 hours or 1,000 miles, whichever comes first). So, though I've enjoyed the other American Le Mans Series (A.L.M.S.) races I've watched, Petit Le Mans was my only chance to sate my Le Mans fix until the 12 Hours of Sebring in January. I watched the start of the Petit Le Mans and then skipped most of the early hours of the race to watch the frankly more important Michigan-Indiana football game. (I'm growing to love various kinds of motor car racing, but I love college football more than any other sport in the world.) By the time the valiant Wolverines completed their heart-stopping victory over the wily Hoosiers, the Petit Le Mans was under a red flag—all drivers return to the pit lane at once—due to heavy rain and standing water on the circuit. The delay was expected to be half an hour, an hour at the outside. Eventually, because rain falling on a racing circuit without any race cars does not make for good television, Speed switched to a rebroadcast of the A.L.M.S. race from Mosport from several weeks hence to fill the dead air. In time, with the clock still ticking and the rain still falling, the Petit Le Mans was called, with Peugeot scoring another win over Audi, but in highly unsatisfactory fashion as far less than 50% of the race had been run. Cursed rain.

Then today, persistent rain all but washed out the first televised practice session for the Formula One Japanese Grand Prix. The mighty Suzuka Circuit is spoken of as one of the legendary F1 race courses—in the same breath as the streets of Monte Carlo, Spa, and Monza—but I didn't see enough to begin to understand the majesty. I taped Speed's ninety minute live broadcast of Friday practice (though because of the extreme time difference between Japan and the Eastern Time Zone, the early afternoon practice session was aired at 1:00 A.M. Thursday Night/technically Friday morning), but aside from a few misty laps in the closing minutes of the session, I taped an hour and a half of Speed's excellent announcing talking over shots of a rain-soaked race course and the diehard Japanese fans cowering in plastic ponchos and under umbrellas.

The rain stopped almost precisely as soon as the practice session ended. Verdammt rain! It's like it's taunting me.

Operation ÖSTERREICH
Yesterday's news
Two in a row, and today I ran 50% longer than yesterday; 50%'s not so impressive, I'm still playing catch up, but already I feel at home again in the locker room. Curiously, five of the eight treadmills sported signs proclaiming, "Temporarily OUT OF ORDER, Service call has been placed." I know there's got to be a good joke in here about my elephantine bulk, but I used the same treadmill today as yesterday with no apparent ill effect to the machine. I didn't sprint the last minute, but I did increase my rate by 20% for those last sixty seconds.

"If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,"

"We're in now now."
Today made for three in a row, but it wasn't as strong an effort as yesterday. I ran for the same duration, and used a higher speed at the same incline during the middle sector (first and third sectors are run on a level surface), but didn't have the energy to "sprint" the last minute. This may have something to do with what I ate—breakfast and lunch on Thursday, lunch only on Friday—or it may be that after three consecutive days I was more exhausted than after only two. In either event, there is a hectic weekend ahead; so, I shan't get back to the Rec Center until Monday. Also, the scheduling anomaly that allowed me to run on Thursday and still get home only a little after 7:00 P.M. won't repeat; instead, I'm targeting a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule.

Will I choose next week to give the One Hundred Push Ups another try?

The Rebel Black Dot Songs of the Day
Mustard Plug, "On and On" from In Black and White (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary:

"By now, you think it's over,
Countdown, it's getting colder,
Come on, tell me it's over,
Goes on and on and on and on again."

Donnerstag, 1 Oktober
Mustard Plug, "Puddle of Blood" from In Black and White (T.L.A.M.)