Happy Father's Day

After we'd toured the Samuel Adams brewery, we got to chatting with a fellow at the Stony Brook station. He'd been through the tour with us and was heading back downtown.  He was from Tennessee, but he was in town because of some function at his kid's school.  Turned out he had one kid at Harvard, another at Boston College, and his third was set to go to Stanford.  I fell on my knees and cried, "Teach me!"

I personally know a few other fathers whose adult kids have all turned out well.  Maybe they didn't all go to Harvard, but they all grew up and are leading productive, happy lives.  One example is our Sunday School teacher.  He has three seemingly well adjusted grown kids who are all doing well, but the thing that strikes me about them is they all attend our Sunday School class.  This tells me that they've all embraced their father's faith, and respect him so that they continue to listen to his instruction.

That's all I want. Well, that, and all my kids to attend a fine college.

Thanks, Dad, for pointing me in the right direction. And thanks to all those father's for proving that you can raise kids that manage to stay out of jail and still come around once they're grown. God bless you.

Another Race Report

A couple of Saturdays ago I drove over to Sedalia for the Spring Into Summer Duathlon (is there such a thing as a unathlon?).  My day wasn't starting very well because at midnight the night before I was still driving home from a T-Bones game in KCK.  I get to bed about 1:30AM, and get up at 5:30AM.  I suppose real racers would recommend a few more hours of sleep before a race day.

My friends, mentioned in the earlier 5K race report, told me about this duathlon and invited me to run. I consented thinking, well, it'll be a good training run. The race consisted of a 2 mile run, a 12.3 mile ride, and then another 2 mile run.  I arrived at the park where the race is held about an hour early, cause that's how I roll. The only significant thing I really noticed before the race was that there were some serious bikers present. There were a lot of Cannondales, Treks, Cervelos, Giants, and some other expensive looking rides. Me? I roll up on The Lotus.  I believe I had the only Lotus in the race. The Lotus is an adequate bike, but it didn't take me long to develop some serious cycle envy.

My goal for the first two miles was fifteen minutes. I did it in 15:12.  Beyond that I had no goal, and that might have been a problem.  I finished the ride in 42:15, and the second run in 15:53. I heard someone say that you shouldn't push too hard on the ride, because you need energy for the run, but I realized later he was talking about an Ironman, not a short duathlon.  I probably could've ridden a little faster, but the runs were about as well as I could do.

So, again, I finished second in my age group.  However, that is not at all impressive when you consider I finished 21st overall, and there were a number of forty-somethings that beat me as well.  There were also four ladies that finished ahead of me (two of them in my age group!).  Another lady that beat me was forty-five years old! How did they do it? They obviously had high dollar bikes. I'm sure that's it.

Sorry, no race pics today. I meant to take some photos but didn't get around to it. Well, I'd better get back to training.  There's only 35 days until the Shawnee Mission Triathlon. See you there.

PS. The top overall time was 1:02:05. My time was 1:14:36.