Poliana Okimoto

With marathon swimming, I think you have to use your head more than you do in pool events, which are more automatic. You can just go out and replicate your training pace in competition. With the marathon, though, you have to contend with nature, physical contact, and time.

Pool swimmers are very slim, and they're stronger. Marathon swimmers have to train an awful lot, and they end up losing a bit of muscle mass. So we need to have a bit more fat, though that's not the case with me. Many swimmers have a little bit of extra fat though, so that they can deal with the cold and get through what is an exhausting event.

We continue to be exasperated by the view, apparently gaining momentum in certain circles, that armed robbery is okay as long as nobody gets hurt! The proper solution to armed robbery is a dead robber, on the scene.

Webs are made mostly of spaces. They break easily. They barely exist. They belong to the category of half-things: mist, smoke, shrouds, ghosts, membranes, retinas or rags; and they quickly fill up with un-things: old legs and wings and heads and hollow abdomens and body bags of wasps.