Last evening was the annual Trilanders dinner where we all get together and talk about what races we’ve done and what races we expect to do next year. It was fun to see so many of us get together, but not all could make it. Some can’t make the Sunday morning runs and others can’t make the Saturday long rides, the Wednesday time trials, the Monday/Wednesday/Friday swims or the Thursday spinning class so it’s a way to hook everyone together.
Thanks to Bill for organizing the dinner, Judy “The Happy Snapper” for providing many of the pictures, Corrine for organizing the pictures and Martin for the computer work to put the slide show together. As I watched the slide show and looked around at peoples’ reactions, I knew that we were all there for one reason. Not all of us swim, or bike, or run and, yes, a few of us do all three, but we have become a pretty close family of health nuts.
Every person there got involved in Triathlon or running for a different reason and it would be fascinating to hear all of those stories. When you see what’s going on in the world today, and look around the room last night, we have a pretty special group of people.
OK. Enough of the sentimental stuff. Conspicuously absent from the triathlon pictures was Jon Anderson or “King J.D.” as he was named in the story of how the Trilanders were formed. He has had some health issues going on so I asked him how he was progressing and what his injury was. Being a healthcare professional he explained it in medical terms, so when I asked him to put it in layman’s terms, he called it “butt muscle tendonitis”.
Even though I’m on the hospital board, I don’t believe that I know everything there is to know about medicine, but have read that tendonitis often comes from overuse. So the way I see it, Jon has been injured for almost a year for using his butt too much. That’s not something I would openly discuss if I were him.
Along the same lines, I was talking with Sam and Colleen about their upcoming “Iceman” race. As many of you know, I had a short career on the mountain bike circuit, but I do know a little about that particular race. This will be Sam and Colleen’s first time and we were discussing how much sand there is on the course and how rough some spots are. He said that was OK because Colleen had a “soft tail”. I told him that he should keep his wife’s physical attributes to himself, but he insisted it was a mountain bike term. Before you think the alcohol was clouding my thoughts, I was drinking ice water all night.
Today’s run reminded me of Ironman Wisconsin. It was raining the entire run, the temperature was around 47 degrees, but there was very little wind. Now it’s gotten a little colder and the wind is blowing at least 20 mph, so it’s getting worse. No, I’m not going out on a bike ride this afternoon to show how tough I am. I admit to being a weather weenie and can’t wait to get down to Florida. Of course I’ll whine about it being too hot and humid, but if I didn’t, you’d think that aliens had taken over my body.
Congratulations to our friend from Hudsonville, Jim Dyke, on his Hawaii Ironman finish. Jim is 61 and completed the race in 13:20:36. I understand the heat was stifling but there wasn’t much wind on the bike. By the way, the winner in that age group, which will be my age group in 6 weeks, did the race in 11 hours flat. Wow!
In the last couple of weeks I’ve given a lot of thought to the general lack of understanding, compassion, and forgiveness in the world today. Just when I think I stand above the rest, along comes the guy who shot ten Amish girls in Lancaster County Pennsylvania and five of them died. The interviews with the Amish people all showed that they had forgiven the guy already. If my daughter had been one of the girls in that classroom, and the guy wanted to die himself, I’m sure I would have helped him along the way. So maybe I’m not as far down the line as I thought.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t plan to become Amish. On the one hand I wouldn’t have to worry about what to wear or what colors look good on me. On the other hand, the beard would make my pitiful swim even slower, it’s a long buggy ride to Florida and Jean wouldn’t be able to use her cell phone.
Just (Wish I Had Taken In The Dock Yesterday)