Local Sudoku Champ

I've seen several brief AP type articles about a Palo Alto guy who won the national Sudoku contest in Philadelphia the other day. However, today's SJMercury had more details.

• He works in a bioengineering lab at Stanford.
• He never brings puzzles to work.
• He uses a special thick-lead mechanical pencil so it won't break and he can avoid the time it takes to click for more lead while working a puzzle.
• He also runs marathons.

And for you fanatics, his winning strategy...

The key is knowing what to spend time noting on the puzzle and what to simply store mentally, he said. "I only write a number down if there are only two places it could go," he said.

Sure, no problem. Easy as running a marathon.