The center of the universe

Anywhere outside of a one mile radius from my apartment might as well be a foreign country. There are a couple of areas that I am somewhat familiar with around here, but if I'm not in the retail area of downtown it's pretty much all new territory to me. On Saturday, we went to a benefit for the Seattle Humane Society in Fremont. It's 2.5 miles from my apartment, so... it might as well be China. They speak a strange language over there and eat different food (actually, there are a lot of Thai restaurants over there, so maybe it's really Thailand). Fremont could be on another planet. I saw something when we were driving around looking for a parking spot that made me want to do a little exploring in that neighborhood, so I headed off in that direction for my 6 miler on Wednesday.

According to the reliable editors at Wikipedia, sometime in the 1970s some residents began calling their little corner of the world the center of the universe. It has a few other flattering and unflattering names that probably do just as good a job of reflecting the neighborhood's culture too.

I had one goal in mind heading over that way. I wanted to see a particular piece of "art," but I wasn't crystal clear on where it was. I was just going to run over there and find it, as long as it didn't take me more than 3-3.5 miles to find it. I wanted to run 6 miles and not much more than that. That was my whole plan. "Go that way. If something gets in your way... turn." Anyone who really knows me or has ever ridden in the passenger seat with the responsibility for navigation knows that I do not like not knowing exactly where I'm going. Unlike some people, I do not feel comfortable just going off in a direction and finding what I'm looking for when I get close. I need an exact route, and I need to know the next turn as soon as I make the first one. And there had better not be any damn detours that aren't covered by the map. My head might explode.

If I learned one thing during the 10K it was that I need to keep my eyes open and really see where I'm going and what's going on around me. I tend to focus too much on the next step or that next milestone in the distance, and I think I sacrifice a lot of enjoyable things from my run by doing that. That was part of my reasoning for going to Fremont. The goal was Lenin, and Lenin was found.

In 1989 Communism went out of fashion in Slovakia, and when it went out of fashion so did the statue of Vladimir Lenin. Some guy that lives in Fremont thought it would make good yard art or something, so he mortgaged his house to have it shipped all the way over here from Eastern Europe. Crazy!

On the way I went over the Fremont bridge again, but this time I looked out rather than down. There are some pretty nice views of the lake from there. I'm pretty lucky to live around so much water. Yeah, some people live around it their whole life and think nothing of it, but I lived in land-locked north Texas for most of my life. This water thing is kind of new to me.

I had an interesting exchange after I crossed the bridge. I heard someone doing one of those "hey you!" honks on their car horn so I looked around. Sure enough, right next to me was a car slowing down with a couple inside laughing. I took of my headphones expecting this guy to ask for directions or something, but instead what I heard was a sarcastic "hey buddy! looking gooooood." Asshole. Ok, so maybe I look a little funny in my running clothes. I wear tight fitting shorts that come down almost to my knee, sort of like bicycle shorts but without the ass padding. They keep the skin of my thighs from rubbing together and irritating me. I tuck my shirt in because when I don't it shifts around a bit and annoys me. I wear a headband, a very unfortunate shade of blue, because I figured out that if I didn't wear one sweat would drip into my eyes. Sweat that has traveled through the moisturizer on my forehead is not a pleasant thing to have in my eyes. It's painful. Add on to that my Spibelt, which, let's be honest here, is little more than a smaller than usual fanny pack. It's not bulky and it's barely noticeable, but it's there. Then there's Grendel on my wrist. Grendel looks, at first glance, like a watch, but it's ridiculously oversized and makes me look like a 7 year old that's put on daddy's watch. If I just got a hat or something other than the bright blue headband for that area, I'll bet I'd improve my running fashion 100%. Screw it. I'm not dressing for prettiness. I'm dressing for comfort. Whatever. I'm obviously annoyed by it still. I could rant on, but I'll try to let it go.

Leaving Asshole and his girlfriend behind I went hunting Lenin. It actually wasn't as hard to find as I thought. I went up to 36th, turned left and ran a block, and there he was. Larger than life. Problem though. I've only gone 2.75 miles, so I need to work in another quarter mile before I can turn around. All right, well what's further down the street? There were some very interesting restaurants down that way. Down one of the cross streets there was an outdoor cinema. I'll confess that I already knew that was there since it's where the benefit was. They showed E.T. last weekend. I wonder what they'll show this weekend.

I knocked out that extra quarter mile and turned around to go home. On the way I spotted the Waiting for the Interurban sculpture. This is a set of six people and a dog waiting under a bus stop. The locals like to put clothes on the statues, I guess for comedic effect. I have to admit, it kind of works.

I was on my way back home treading over the same old ground. I kept my eyes up looking for interesting stuff, but the only thing that caught my eye was the green slope under the Aurora bridge. It just struck me as greener than I expect for the end of summer, especially when we've been lacking rain a bit.

Saturday I should have some more interesting things to see. We're going over to West Seattle for our run. I'll be going 9 miles this time. For my last movie reference of the post, I'll note that my route will take me right past Alki Beach. It's the beach where Tom Hanks and the kid flew the kite in Sleepless in Seattle. Should be fun.

Pace Chart
Mile 1 - 9:17
Mile 2 - 9:38
Mile 3 - 10:09
Mile 4 - 9:46
Mile 5 - 10:20
Mile 6 - 10:27

Obviously, I'm not rocking the negative splits.