Marathon Man

It was brutal getting here. Red eye flights are bad enough but add in a nice delay at LAX and it becomes painful. But we got through it an when I awoke Saturday morning I could hear music, a banda at 7:00 a.m. Well it  was Mazatlan's yearly world class marathon race event and around here you don't do anything without music. I was drawn to it about a mile from my house...I love that tuba

 So I'm enjoying the band and watching these guys run past and they seemed to have a nice steady and practiced gate, but what do I know about running eh ?  And I'm chatting a bit and acting kind of like this marathon thing is so impressive when really it's just not much of a spectator sport. I was remembering my brother telling me about this 'runners high' that he experienced that really sounded more like oxygen deprivation to me. Then on the other side of the 4 lane I see the lights coming and they're coming fast....So I hustle over and sure enough , it's the lead pack of one American and a half dozen Kenyans. and let me tell you I WAS impressed...for real .

 If he first guys I saw were running well these guys were sprinting, They were moving at about the speed I go when I really hump it on my bicycle. Being self absorbed and a bit of a gym rat I know fat and what fat looks like. These guys are 1to 5 % body fat guys. The sweat was just poring off them. I 've seen a lot of well conditioned people but....they make body builders look fat. That guy on the left is Stephen Njoroje from Kenya, the 2014 champ. And oh,when the lead pack went by the closest people behind them were at least 10 minutes and that's at the half way point.

 

 The pic below is the lead women's pack. Absolutely great athletes as you can see....did I mention that it was about 80 degrees when they finished?

 MP took this pic of me last night doing my own marathon. I'm no finely tuned athlete but everyone that knows me knows I ain't no quitter. Some of the successes I've had in life I attribute to just one thing....stick-to-it-tiv-ness. So last night the wind blew the bait into shore and  on my first night of fishing we had an incredible toro bite. I caught one. Yup, one. I ran to the beach with just one lure and it had single hook on it and they just kept spitting the darn thing out. It was like the Kenai when they banned treble hooks. We all thought the difference will be small...well it ain't. The way I figure it  treble hooks work 3 times better than singles. Makes sense eh ?

 But I made up for my poor performance last night with this gorgeous sea serpent this morning.  Really, I haven't got  a clue to what that thing is. But I'll tell you this, his beak was sharp enough to get me bleeding all over my new Pesca Maz fishing shirt.

 So with that beautiful gods creature carefully released I swang back and fired again. My first air knot. On the ten scale this baby is only about a 2 but that's what you get when your attention lapses. You have to look at your real each cast to make sure you have no loops. You have to look at the tip each cast to make sure you're not looped.....Did I mention that I blew the insert out of the tip of my favorite 11 footer by getting a little buck ever and reeling the barrel swivel through it??? So, we have a start to this fishing marathon and I'd say it's a pretty usual start. Ya win some, ya loose some, and some you shouldn't even have showed up for.