A race, swimming, motorcycles, and shoes -- does it get any better than this?

So on our way home today, I was joking with my wife, saying this was about as perfect as a day gets.

It started with timing a race of a different kind -- a predictor race. Predict your time, run the course without watch, phone, music, or anything that would help you pace yourself, and the person that finishes closest to that prediction wins. The awesome part of this is that it isn't necessarily the fastest person that wins. ANYone can win. And in fact, it was an 11-year-old that won this morning, in her first-ever race. She was only 9 seconds off her predicted time. Amazing. And second place was only 9.4 seconds off.

With an 8:00 start time, it was clear and cold, and never thawed out until well after we left. We'd spent the night in a hotel nearby, and didn't have to check out until after the race, so we took some time to take advantage of the pool and hot tub to warm up and get a little exercise.

Next stop was at Bellevue Kawasaki. I'm not a real motorcycle nut, at least not to the point of what I am with bicycles, but I do like them, like riding, and think often of my "next" motorcycle. Well, this shop is the only one in the state that carried MV Agusta. And let me tell you, those are some SWEET bikes. If only just the insurance wouldn't bankrupt me... I threw a leg over several bikes, MV's, Ducati's, and the more common Suzuki's and Kawasaki's. Sure, there were several that were drool-worthy, but none were bikes that I'd actually want in my garage. Ah me...

Lastly, we took a trip to the Born to Run store in Bellevue. I'll write more about this, as there were several revalations that came out of trying on the various models, eliminating one that I thought would be a great shoe, and putting one back on the list that I thought I'd turned away permanently. We stuck around for quite a while, and I got into several discussions with the people working there and some of the customers about the shoes in the store, and also discussing the Skechers GoRuns. Yup, my wife gave me free reign to get my shoe geek on.

Yeah, today was a good day full of some of the best things in life...