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Chattahoochee Challenge Sprint Tri

Got to the race in plenty of time. Got to the front of the swim start line, which was the plan. Had a decent swim, for me. But this is relative. If you’ve read about my triathlons here before you know I’m lousy in the water. But I took some time off my previous best in this particular river swim.

The Yankee was very fast in the water, as usual. I didn’t see her again until the run.

My bike leg was OK. I ride this route better when I ride it easy than when I ride it at pace, which I find amusing. My ride should have been better, but I dropped my sunglasses and decided to stop for them, which seemed silly in retrospect. It took what seemed like forever to get back up to speed after that.

And then when it was time to run I couldn’t find my legs. I was tired. It was hot. The run portion of this particular race is a good one. Scenic, historic, nice and flat. But there’s no shade. And I could have really used some shade today.

So my overall time was not good. But we had fun!

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12
Jul 15

Chewacla Tri

The triathlon that we thought about just riding our bikes too.

And then we each thought “I don’t want to carry all that stuff on my bike,” and wisely decided to drive.

This was the first local triathlon, a nice easy sprint, and we were so proud to take part. Our local bike shop ran the thing. It was small, first year and all, casual and a lot of fun.

I was terrible in the lake. I’m always terrible in the swim.

Don’t get me wrong, I can swim, I’m not a threat to drown or anything, but I’m not a distance swimmer. Lately I’ve been getting advice from a very patient coach. And it probably helped for about 100 meters. It all comes down to breathing and how I tend to not do that.

You know, while riding or running, if you don’t breathe you just stop moving or remind yourself about the in-and-out nature of respiration or, at worst, black out. In the water, when the body realizes the lungs aren’t breathing correctly the lizard part of your brain tends to take over. At that point, my swim is basically over. So, I’m terrible in the swim.

Apparently, though, I was third on the bike course. (I do not know what is happening.) I’ve been riding pretty well lately, but that is a surprising result, if the times were accurate. The route was basically my home roads, though, so that’s probably part of it.

I would pass the occasional person, give them the “Good job!” and warn them of a pothole just ahead. That’s probably annoying in retrospect.

Didn’t have a very good run. I’ve only run that route once before, last weekend, and didn’t think it was too hard. Foolishly, I forgot to add in the bike and swim exertion in that one trial run. But that bad run up the mountain let me meet a guy who said he was just two weeks from knee surgery. He’s racing next weekend, too. Make sure you tell the surgeon about this, I said, impressed.

“Yeah, doc, let’s get this thing fixed. By the way, I’ve run in two sprint triathlons the last two weekends.”

On the way down the mountain I ran into a guy who was here just to measure himself for an upcoming Olympic distance race he’s going to do. Don’t think he was too pleased, so I spent the last quarter mile of our run trying to convince him that this will scale up well.

Now this one, she had a great race. She’s clearly in mid-season form, having finished just outside the podium:

Later, trying on my sweet new tri shirt:

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7
Jun 15

Hope in Motion 10K

This week, from Monday through Thursday, I walked 34 miles in new loafers over the cobblestones of Berlin. Walked so much I have some weird muscle strain across the top of my foot. On Friday, of course, we flew home.

There was a cancer research fundraiser in Stamford today — a 5K walk, a 5K run and a 10K run.

So naturally we went out and ran the 10K.

I do not know what is happening.

Signs from the groups massing for the walk:

Big hugs after the finish line:

Mid-run thoughts: Every uphill is just a downhill you haven't met yet.

— kenny smith (@kennysmith) June 7, 2015

Supporters along the way. Some days they boost the morale more than others:

In the little festival area they had near the finish line there were boards with markers and posters and note cards. People were coming through and writing the names of the people they were running and walking for. It was quite moving.

If you want a little feel-good emotion wake up early some weekend and volunteer at a cancer run. It’ll change your day.

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17
May 15

Catching up — UK style

We ran a 10K today, which is an annual benefit for a local hospice. Took two trains to get there, but the people were lovely at the Sudbury Court run. The race was won by an Egyptian man. He was very, very fast. He had the look about him at the starting line. Everyone knew he was going to be the guy. He could not receive his award because he’d left for another run.

I was hoping there would be an award for the greatest distance traveled. I thought we had a real shot at that.

We were just happy to chat and jog. It was a pleasant little run, after which there was a cookout. It was a pleasant morning. I got a little sunburned. That’s how delicate my skin is, I got a sunburn in London. Here are our little finishers medals:

Yesterday we passed, but did not go to, the Jane Austen Centre in Bath. We saw her out front:

I bet you did not know there was livestock right up by Stonehenge. I didn’t:

She’s mastered the selfie stick. We’re getting picked on about it, but it helps compose some nice photographs:

At our local restaurant and pub:

This is right outside the pub:

Across the street is an Italian place that we’ll have to try:

And another joint on the other corner:

This is our pub, the Crown & Sceptre, delicious food!

And, up above, the crown and sceptre:

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22
Apr 15

Move fast, move slow, so long as you move

When we did the half Ironman in Augusta last year I realized one place where those races do a disservice to the athletes. They shut down the relief area too early. That’s not a knock on the support staff there, some person has stretched or massaged 100s of sweaty people in an endurance sport of their own and probably wants to go home. But those people that come in slow, and late, they’ve been on the course for a long time, and they deserve that support too.

That’s about the third thing I thought of when I learned of Maickel Melamed, who knocked down the Boston Marathon over the course of 20 hours. Also, he has muscular dystrophy, and he was out to prove something about Boston, and also about his spirit:

So the rest of us really are running out of excuses, aren’t we?

If, like me, you’ve been feeling a bit older than normal later, let’s take one more item away. 76-year-old man running 8 marathons in 8 days across Alabama:

“You meet a bunch of interesting people and you see a bunch of interesting things,” he said. “That’s what keeps me doing it.”

I should really stop looking up excuse antidotes.

I’m going to spend the next little while thinking about creating a job like this:

What does your role as lead news editor for mobile entail? Are you in charge of news about mobile developments? Or are you responsible for news content delivered on mobile?

Banks: I was hired to help reporters and editors think about how they could create unique content for mobile and content that’s optimized for mobile. So no news about mobile, but rather creating and optimizing news delivered on mobile platforms. That includes everything from working with designers and developers to building new templates for content on mobile, then teaching editors how to use those templates, to working toward making sure, for example, graphics that we publish work on mobile. I also will jump in and pitch ideas aimed at mobile — like an interactive about smartphone ergonomics that readers access on their phone, and by playing a little game and performing tests in this interactive could determine whether their phone is too big or too small for their hand.

I could see that being a fun position for the right journalist. One of the really neat things about it would be that, in many newsrooms, the person in that position would be blazing their own trail.

More and more content is going that way, no matter how fast or slow the rest of us move.