weekend « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

weekend

A race, a game and a cookout :: A fine, full day

This morning we ran the Ft. Benning Reverse Sprint Triathlon. It is a short course, featuring a 5K run, a 20K ride and a 450-meter swim, in that order. Here we are after the finish:

This is the first triathlon we did last year, making this the first time we can compare times to previous efforts on the same course. I have a few things to be pleased with here.

The run is almost perfectly flat, and there are a lot of soldiers in the race, so they dominate the run, of course. You see them at the start and somewhere on the bike course or in the pool, if at all. So I’m not running with those guys, but I pulled away from a few people in the run. In fact, I didn’t get passed at all. My time was still slow, but I shaved a great deal off of last year’s run.

The bike is a super-fast ride with only two real rollers to think about. I was pleased with the ride last year, and I did it in three-and-a-half minutes less time this year. When you look at the average speed I was on the upper-end of average riders and almost break into the fast rider speeds. Only one guy dropped me here, and I’m not sure how. I looked down at my gears on that first roller, looked up and he was gone. I didn’t see him again until I passed him in the last 100 meters of the pool.

The pool was an improvement for me as well, if only because I was barely swimming last year. Remember, I was still dealing with shoulder problems and couldn’t even pretend to freestyle. I was disappointed in my swim today. The lanes were crowded for the first half of the short swim. Meanwhile, it takes me almost that entire distance to get warm anyway. I also had some energy excuses. (I even came up with a phrase for the latter, the red line of regret. I could have redlined the thing. I should have. Then I wouldn’t have regretted what I left in the pool because I was a little tired and winded. I could have been faster, but I didn’t overcome the red line of regret.)

Overall, my time was 17 minutes faster than last year’s race, which was very slow. This year’s was merely slow. But that’s a fair amount of improvement, with plenty of areas in which to continue to grow.

I’m bummed that I won’t get to do that race again for another year now. I want to measure these performances against another effort.

Today was senior day for Auburn baseball. Here the mother of one player and the grandmother of another shared a big hug and a kiss on the cheek of celebration. They’ve been coming to these games for four years. They’re going to miss each other.

They are sweet ladies.

Here’s another one. This is Morgan Jackson, Bo Jackson’s daughter. We’re buds:

This was the last time we’d see the team on the field this season:

My new Aubie gimmick — no one steal it! — is the Aubie selfie:

Another of Aubie, relaxing with the ladies.

Auburn lost the game, 8-1, bringing their season to a close with a 28-28 record (10-20 SEC). But the friendships are the thing: parents of five different players came to say goodbye to us today and then we had a cookout tonight with the nice group of people with whom we sit. That’s not a bad season at all, captured in one sentence.

After the cookout we picked up the traditional post-triathlon celebratory ice cream:

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11
May 14

Happy Mother’s Day

I know a lot of great ladies. And I know many wonderful women who were mothers and, to me, strong maternal influences. I wouldn’t be the guy I am without any of them — grandmothers and family friends and my friends’ mothers. I should probably apologize to most all of them for wherever I come up short. Despite the limitations of who they were working with, they managed to do things big and small to help raise me a bit here and there.

My mom, of course, remains the best of them all:

Happy Mother’s Day to all of them, and to all of the many wonderful mothers who try so hard to turn us into upstanding people. Some of the time we listen. Some of the time it sticks. Later, a lot more of it comes back to us. That’s when we figure out how lucky we are.

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10
May 14

Running in the rain

Received an email from a student that read, in part, “I just wanted to thank you for your character and personality throughout this year … ” So maybe I got something right this semester. I receive a few of those a year, and they are all appreciated and gratifying.

Today I graded things, working down the stack to the point where, really, it can’t grow back into something insurmountable. There is only 113 more things to read, if you’re keeping track.

We listened to baseball on the radio and the good guys won, 8-1.

We went for a run. We got caught in the rain:

This is the time of the year, suddenly, where it is warm. And after it rains it is proportionately more intense. On the one hand I could run under tree branches, jump up and shake one down upon me. On the other hand we have 90 percent humidity.

I’d much rather ride my bike in the rain. I don’t know why, but riding in it is just amusing. Running is something else. At least the cleanup is easier.

Things to read … because reading in the rain would be the best.

This is just hard to conceive. After 6 siblings lose houses in Limestone tornado, family ‘home place’ burns week later:

April 28 was the only time the Farrar siblings didn’t consider living in close proximity a good thing. The homes of six of the seven siblings were struck by the EF-3 tornado that ripped through western Limestone County just before 5 p.m., but the family emerged from a nearby storm shelter grateful. They were all unharmed and “the home place,” built by their late mother and father, sustained the least damage of any of the five homes.

The siblings, children, nieces, nephews and grandchildren moved into temporary housing in local motels and tried to regroup.

Then, exactly one week later, on Monday, May 5, the home place on Parker Road burned after catching fire when power was restored to the area.

This sounds like a lovely family. IRONMAN Mourns Passing of Dean Bullock:

It is with great sadness that we pass on the news that 2013 Kona Inspired winner, Dean Bullock, succumbed Thursday to the brain cancer that forced him to call it a day at the IRONMAN World Championship last October.

A day after Bullock was pulled off the bike course, his wife and nine children did the marathon course for him to take care of his “unfinished business.”

[…]

Last August, Gaylia Osterlund wrote a profile on Bullock. “He talked about death openly,” Osterlund remembers of her interview. “He told me if he died tomorrow or when he was 100, he did not want to be remembered for racing. He wanted to be remembered for his now 37 years of marriage, his kids, grandkids and his faith in his Heavenly Father. He truly believed nothing else mattered.”

He was 59, running the Ironman and had 17 grandchildren.

This one is unique: Denmark’s unprecedented media scandal – A gossip mag takes a page from News of the World’s playbook.

Analytics are the key here: Internal innovation report says the New York Times needs to up its digital game or else.

Have a nice day: ‘We Kill People Based on Metadata’.

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4
May 14

Catching up

The weekly post of extra photographs returns with extra images from familiar places, and delicious food with which I stuffed my face. Let us get to it, then.

This was the reception for the wedding we attended yesterday. You walked in and saw the ice sculpture and then this sign:

Well then, now you are intrigued. They offered two different mini-quiches.

There were miniature pancakes, already drizzled with syrup and topped with blueberries, raspberries and blackberries. We all know pancakes:

Maple-glazed bacon on a stick. This was the hit of the night. I ate too much bacon:

This guy was out of control, climbing on tables, blowing out candles. His grandfather there might be something of an enabler:

And today, the largest moth I’ve ever seen. This is a Promethea Moth, Callosamia promethea. I would have picked him up, but it would have taken two hands, and lifting with the legs:

The Yankee took this one, but it is cute so I stole it:

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3
May 14

It started with a banana

And now, scenes from a morning ride. These horses were unimpressed:

The Yankee is wearing purple for Elise, the beautiful, beautiful young daughter of a friend of hers who died early this year. There was a “virtual race” today, a fundraiser to help pay medical costs.

It was a nice ride. My legs felt good and the little hills we chose didn’t seem much of a challenge for a change. I spent most of the time thinking of the pictures and videos of that little girl’s face. When I found myself in a lull I remembered how much that 3-year-old loved to do burpees. That’ll make you laugh, a tow-headed baby doing toddler burpees with enthusiasm and giggles. You can cover a lot of ground quickly that way. Over the last few miles it all slowed down and I found myself thinking of her mother and father and the empty spot in their home.

So we rode 35 km in the midmorning sun and that was delightful. Guests came to visit and that was wonderful. We went to the wedding of one of The Yankee’s former students and that was lovely. Beautiful bride selfie:

It all made for a full and rich day of emotion. It started with a banana and ended with brunch finger foods and, ultimately, will conclude with my being too tired to eat a proper meal. But I spent the full day with my wonderful wife and we managed to cram a lot of a day into the waking hours. It was a good trade, even if the horses weren’t impressed.