I have a new term in my lexicon. It is intestinal trail. An intestinal trail is a trail which twists and turns as you intestines would after, perhaps, having injested something fouled. Used in a sentence, "the Cougar Mountain trails are at times intestinal." The race humbled me after I posted such a good time the week before. I still beat the folks I run with though.

My blood pressure seems to be normal. I hurt my arm a few weeks ago. I had thought that maybe I had blood poisoning due to the red stripe extending from my armpit to my wrist, so I went to a clinic in Issaquah and before the doc saw me the nurse took my blood pressure. She said, "your blood pressure is 140 over 110, that's high." No shit that is high. No re-check. No "you can't walk out of here without some investigation" or at least "go directly to the hospital NOW", sort of thing. I stuck my arm in a drugstore machine today after work and the readings were normal. So my heart and blood vessels won't give out (soon) after all. The doc said that the pain was due to overuse. When I saw him the stripe was gone. A day or so later it turned the color of a bruise. If anyone out there can fill me in on this phenomenon then please do. From the armpit I think it is the coracobrachialis muscle and at the elbow maybe the supinator. I had been weedeating for half the day. The other half I spent wrestling with a 36" mower. The travails of the working poor.