I'd be hiding, but I'm too responsible
I'll bring the graham crackers, you bring the chocolate milk and let's go hide under the bed. No one will miss us really.
I'll bring the graham crackers, you bring the chocolate milk and let's go hide under the bed. No one will miss us really.
When I was a little kid, I had a nickname...and no I won't tell you what it was, I finally convinced my family to stop using it, so no one else gets to either, not even Glenda.
I was fortunate enough to spend most of my summer with Glenda this year. Not that I wasn't working, just it was stuff I could do from here. I am coming to the end of the semester, and as usual I am swamped...but I am also dealing with the lack of time I have left here. I don't leave to go back until August 21...but I am going back there to take care of some stuff from July 20-25 (actually I won't be back here until the 28th, but she is joining me for part of the time).
There are days in the New England winter when the sun comes up after 7 and goes down well before 5, when I think there will never be ENOUGH sun...much less too much sun. Even those bright, sunny (if cold) days just don't last long enough.
I went to the Howdy Du this morning, the second duathlon in the Central Texas Duathlon Series. I did not run in the race. I went to cheer Glenda (and Shorey and others) and to help at the Austin Duathletes booth.
As many or most of you know coach Phil (Panther) Carmical
and wife Audrey added baby “Dash” to their family late last winter. Panther was
at the race today too to cheer and work the booth and generally have a good
time. Dash came along to cheer
too.
And so he did.
Dash is a sweet little guy and just at that age where he smiles a lot
and squeals and babbles. I
volunteered to help keep an eye on him.
He was in his stroller at one point while I was keeping an eye on him
and started to fuss. I tried feeding him, but he had no interest. Like most
males I know he just wanted a little attention. So I picked him up. Panther
came rushing over to see if there was a problem, but I assured him we were
fine.
We watched the runners go by, I cheered, Dash squealed. We
“danced” to the music on the loudspeakers. We walked around, Dash checked out
the view…got fascinated with shiny things…all those things that babies do.
Finally, I noticed that he was yawning, I rubbed his back and we walked around
some more. Soon there was a little head on my shoulder and I was pretty sure he
was out. I didn’t want to disturb him, so I had someone else check to make sure
he was asleep. When I was sure, I walked across the tent to Panther, who got
the stroller and between us we got Dash snuggled in for a nice long nap.
Glenda will send her own report about this race, but in any
event at one point Panther announced,
how well Glenda had done and then added. “…and Suellen got the baby to
sleep.” A cheer that was soon shushed so the baby could stay asleep went up
among the assembled. I don’t know what the award is for having the ability to
cuddle a baby to sleep (learned primarily by experience gained becoming first a
mother and then a “Mimi”), but in many ways it is a reward in itself. Thanks
Panther!
No, of course I didn’t win the race. I could have though, if I could have convinced everyone else to run backward J. #1 was my bib number and I earned by being the very first one to pick up my race packet.
As often happens, maybe the most meaningful bit of this race
happened while we were hanging around before we started. Glenda, who was there
to cheer for me and not run today, had run into someone she knew from a
previous training group. While we
were chatting, a woman walked up. She was someone he knew and he introduced
us. Although much taller, she was
built very much as I was when I started all this running stuff.
We all began to talk about races and people we knew,
etc. The man said, “I’m running
Monday, Wednesday and Saturday with my group…” The woman piped up, “I’m mostly
walking Monday, Wednesday and Saturday with the same group.” I assured her that
I knew what she meant as Glenda and I were currently training with the same
group, and that I sometimes jokingly refer to it as my “chasing group” instead
of my training group, but that I loved it and have made progress all the same.
We chatted a bit more, but came back around to starting
older (she is a newbie in her 40’s as I was), etc. and she said “well, I
suppose being this slow is what I get for doing nothing but sitting down for 20
years,” I nodded and smiled, knowing exactly what she meant…and when the person
who’d introduced us turned to her and said, “but you got up…that’s what’s
important,” he could have been talking to me.
You see, I was doing this race as a confidence builder. Since I went from the relative cool of
Rhode Island to the unusually strong Texas heat (the hottest June ever
recorded), my running sort of fell apart in a lot of ways. It is hard to
explain, but I just needed to know I could still run in a race…since any kind
of decent pace in a training run has escaped me so far this summer. I never
expect to win a race…but today finishing feeling reasonably good would be a
win. With that as a standard…I won!
That last thing Glenda always says to me before a race is,
“remember don’t go out too fast.” I always nod solemnly and have good
intentions…and then, well I have a short memory. My first mile was 12:10. Not the fastest I’ve ever run…but
better than I’ve been doing this summer by far.
Mile 2, still feeling relatively strong, I did stop for a
few seconds at the water stop to douse myself and get a drink. After that there were volunteers at the
halfway point, which was really nice.
And just down the road from them was Glenda cheering for all she was
worth. I’m not sure how she got to
that point, other than she is bloody fast and probably took some short cut. She
told me I was looking strong, but as I have commented before I could be crying
on the curb and she’d tell me I looked strong. Still it helped. Second mile
13:11.
I had gotten to the third mile and was beginning to feel as
if it might kill me…then I got worried that it wouldn’t J
But every race has that moment in which you wonder why the heck you are out
here doing this anyway, so I knew with a little hard work and perseverance with
maybe a modicum of grim determination of the soul thrown in I would finish…and
probably even have a smile on my face.
And so I did, finishing the last full mile in 13:42. And with that last fraction an overall 40:26, that’s an average of 13:09 minutes per mile, for those of you keeping score at home. J
So, since Rouge equipment is east of I-35 and that is where we start our Panther Project runs. This morning we did the East Side Ramble...choice of 7 or 10 miles. Glenda did 10, I did 7.
"For you there are unlikely to be too many problems. Of all the signs, yours describes someone who can turn a problem into an opportunity. Failure is unlikely to disturb you too much as you have a knack of being able to rebound from adversity."
Recent Comments