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1
Nov 14

Callaway Twilight 10K

I got to hug my lovely bride today, and it was the most wonderful feeling in the world.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

As is now apparently our way, we find things to do online and then convince each other to do them. That’s how we started doing triathlons and that’s why we did a half ironman relay recently and that’s why we ran a 10K today.

There’s a 5K we did on campus a month or two ago with a friend. She said she liked it. The Yankee liked it. So I looked around for other races, being wary of how far I’m wiling to drive a car to run a distance I can do in my neighborhood. There it was, the Callaway Gardens Twilight 10K, held just over the border into Georgia.

The premise is you get to run around the pretty place and see the Fantasy In Lights Christmas show before it is open to the public. Twilight is a misnomer, but who cares. So we signed up, our friend bailed out because “Brrr it is cold and I’m from New Jersey.” So it was just the two of us, which was fine.

We made our way to Callaway after lunch today — and by after lunch I mean I ate in the car.

We got there just in time. Here’s the scene at the race start:

And here we are, probably less than a mile in, looking strong and having a nice time:

We’re not winning anything, this is just an excuse to exercise some new, pretty place. And, also, to have roadside support like this guy:

We ran through a lot of interesting light decorations that I’m sure pop nicely in the dark. There were speakers blaring thing from the trees — and of course the 12 Days of Christmas section was the one that wouldn’t end. We ran under giant decorations like snowflakes and wreaths and barns and this Santa’s Workshop kind of thing:

And then after six miles you found yourself trotting up the last little hill, turning right and running with Robin Lake on your left and the finish line ahead of you. We pronounced the course is relatively flat and fast. I’d like to really run it and see how slow I am. Ren did really well. It was her first 10K, ever, and she was very pleased with her performance and her time, as she should be. After the run:

It was windy and a little chilly, Somewhere between there and the finish line I got a full, complete, laughing, joyful hug of pride and pleasure and accomplishment. I could write a lot more about that, what that means or what it felt like, but the most important part is this: Don’t ever let go of those too early.

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25
Oct 14

A day in the sun, night under the lights

Just a perfectly lovely day. I spent some time in a lawn chair with the sun peering through this tree. My head tilted back, aviators on and my eyes closed. Everyone thought I was sleeping. I could have been. I’m tired enough. But I was just enjoying the barest of breezes and that tinkling dance of the sun through the thinning shade.

A perfectly lovely day.

Two private school kids, separated by 800 miles, telling the same private school jokes to one another. We public schoolers can only pretend to know:

Penguin mascots make little sense anywhere, but certainly not in October in Alabama.

Spent the afternoon with friends. Football was played this evening and we watched it. Late into the night we enjoyed the company of friends and made it home in time for pizza at around 11 p.m. and more football.

No wonder I’m still tired. Tired, but pleased.

A perfectly lovely day.

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19
Oct 14

Talladega 500

We received tickets to the big race at Talladega Superspeedway. It was a great day. Everything worked out perfectly, the weather was grand. We were on time. We did not get sunburns and were entertained by a little bit of everything.

We drove up, fighting no traffic, walked a far shorter distance than we’d anticipated, waited in the shade for a few moments at the Will Call window and then walked a few hundred yards to the gate and to the proper section. We were sitting about 100 feet off the finish line. It was a perfect afternoon to be outside and we had a grand view of everything.

There were pre-race interviews, a parade of antique military vehicles, driver introductions and there was something called sky-typing:

Then eight retired military service members jumped out of a plane with flags attached to their rigs:

We saw a flyover synched with the military band playing the national anthem:

And, of course, the race fans:

Here’s the pace car for the day’s race:

Brian Vickers had the pole, he would finish 20th:

Dale Earnhardt Jr lead the most laps throughout the race, but his day ended with a disappointing 31st, which eliminates him from the championship race.

For a time it seemed that we would see a little history. Danica Patrick had a strong run toward the end of the race, but caution flags and the last pit stop worked against her:

Brad Keselowski won the Geico 500, advancing in his championship chase:

But, really, you’re hear for the fans. Here are a lot more of them:

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18
Oct 14

A fine Saturday

Lovely day, beautiful weather. Perfect sun. It would be great to sleep in. We woke up early to go to the Syrup Sopping. They estimate somewhere around 20,000 people roll into the tiny little village — really, it seems to small to call it even a village — for arts and crafts and friends and music and syrup and biscuits.

We stroll around for a while, looking at the things we don’t need to purchase. Usually we see the puppies and I wonder how we’re going to walk away without adopting one. We did not see them today, though. They have, we decided, all found good homes.

We heard the musical performers from a distance, but did not see them play. We saw a few people we knew. We watched students working on a video package. I had a biscuit dipped in freshly made cane syrup.

We bought a few bottles of the good stuff and some local honey. We picked up two bags of kettle corn. The syrup and honey will last the year. The popcorn might survive the week, but don’t bet on it.

We also saw cyclists this morning. As ever, I wished I was on my bike:

Instead we went home and watched football, which was fun. We played with Allie, which was better:

I visited Walmart for supplies. Picked up a few snacks and some Ibuprofen and greeting cards. I stood in line and marveled at how people struggle with the self checkout system and, simultaneously, the hands on technique provided by the disinterested staffer tasked with monitoring their progress. There should be a certification test for the self checkout. And there should be some customer service training for the non-cashier.

But the odd delays of the slow older gentleman who did not understand UPC codes and struggled mightily with how to pay the articulate machine, compounded by the diminished capacity of offline self checkout stations and the helplessness of it all since the express lane was stocked full of people who didn’t understand the concept of the number 20 got me outside and just the right moment:

And then more football, followed by more football. It was a fine Saturday.

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28
Sep 14

Augusta Half Ironman 70.3

The calm before the chaos.

We were up before dawn. We were in downtown Augusta before dawn. We’d been on a school bus and got down here to the transition area before dawn. The Yankee was a mile up the street, waiting for parachutists to drop in and the national anthem and a canon to blast and all of the waves to start. As we are running a relay, the unwanted step-children of these races, she was in the last wave.

She still beat a whole lot of people out of the water.

We, Jenni (our runner) and her husband Gavin (our cheerleader) sat on a railroad berm and watched the first part of the morning come and go. We watched the sun rise, and that was not a bad seat for it:

At 9:20 The Yankee was finally able to get in the water. She swam 1.2 miles and then worked her way up the boat launch ramp and then ran a little more than 100 meters to the relay pen, in the very back of the transition area, because, remember, we are the step-children of the race. We’ve watched the pros and quite a few of the age-groupers come and go. A few of the relay teams had their swimmers come in and then came our water hero, having done all of the above in just 28 minutes. Not too shabby.

But these races don’t give you a lot of space. More cramped than a dive boat or darkrooms I’ve known.

Anyway, as I was standing there waiting, having done all of the preparing and water-drinking and snack eating and bathroom breaks I could muster, looking at the fancy bikes next to my bike I hear great stories.

One of the age-groupers was pronounced by friends of hers in the relay area as an idiot. Seems she’d completed a full Ironman last weekend and was doing a half today. That’s a 140.6 mile race followed by the 70.3. This makes no sense.

A guy was telling us about his nephew, who went to an Ironman race and was very excited. Ironman! But he was crushed when Tony Stark didn’t show up, just a bunch of people in spandex with bicycles.

That is a bummer.

The Yankee came in, I pulled the timing chip off her ankle — that’s our relay baton, if you will — and put it on mine. Grabbed the bike, ran out of transition and off we go:

Every other race picture the pros took of me is badly out of focus. Because I go so fast.

Here’s the course, a 56 mile joy ride through the countryside. I have made turned this into a ThingLink, which means it is an interactive image. This one is very basic. Mouseover and click on the black-and-white dots to see the notes. The race starts near the left margin and goes in a counterclockwise direction. The notes, as you might imagine, follow suit.

I finished my part, slower than it should have been, but I spent the back half of the race trying to measure my effort so I didn’t blow up the entire race. (We’ve not eaten well enough this weekend and proper fueling is key.) But I made it in, dismounted with great relief and found that the growing pain I had in both feet was something of a problem as I shuffled all the way through the transition area — because we were camped at the back.

I passed off the timing chip to Jenni she was off and running on her 13.1 mile run.

I, meanwhile, suddenly can’t walk. And I’m starting to cramp up. I got a cramp in my quad and made a facial expression and my face cramped. More water. Much more water. Get all of that under control, change clothes, get our things out of transition and back to the car and we got to watch Jenni go by on the run route. Then we had a snack at a nearby restaurant and watched her run by again. She was awesome.

And here she is at the finish:

Pay no attention to the time, as that clock counts from the beginning of the event, and does not account for the big delay in the wave starts. The important thing is that we finished. We had fun. We survived. And we got bling:

We also got massages. Actually we got stretched. The masseuses had closed up — with people still on the course, but whatever, who cares about those people, right? — so we got the active release guys. I put Jenni’s name on the list and then my name on the list. The Yankee didn’t want one initially, because she’d only done 28 minutes of work or something. But I decided she should get the active release stretch too. So I added her name to the list. The guy says he was closing up shop. He’d seen a ton of people. I explained I was trying to get my wife on the list and my name was his last customer. Before I could even think up the “Help me keep the domestic peace” jokes, he conceded.

“Put her on there,” he said, “And then write ‘No more customers!'”

So the four of us had dinner, deciding that the racers don’t like the relay teams not because we could use all of our energy in one event, but because we are athletes with social skills who know other athletes.

After dinner we got on the road. There was a long drive home — and it was a long drive home. We got in sometime just after 10 p.m., just in time to do laundry and put everything away.

Apparently we’re going to do the whole race as individuals next year. I’m exhausted from the requisite training already.