I went to a Club Wildwood Civic Association meeting the other night and remembered why I hadn’t attended any in a long time. Nothing much was on the agenda, and the bulk of the meeting was one of the members getting up and taking 15 minutes to explain (what should have taken 2 minutes) that the water pressure in the park had dropped because the government had required the park to install an anti-siphon valve on our side of the line coming in.

Apparently it didn’t sink in to everyone that there wasn’t anything we could do about it because one of the guys motored his wheelchair up to the microphone and complained that you had to flush the toilet twice (I’m trying to get the visuals of that out of my head), there wasn’t enough pressure to run his shower massage and this was resulting in using more water which would eventually raise our lot rents.

That prompted the first guy to get back up and in 10 minutes explain that we were using less water than the same time last year and go into extreme detail as to how to adjust your lawn sprinkler valves so they would spray farther with less pressure.

A rumor was going around about an orgy in the swimming pool. That conjured up some real images that kept me awake for two nights until I found out it was three drakes and one hen Mallard (ducks).

One of the guys spent some time before the meeting adjusting the microphones around the room so people could get up and speak their mind. There is always a parade of committee chair-people giving an update on what their committee did that past month. Of course, the first woman got up and fiddled with the microphone, turned one of the two switches off, and then took a couple more minutes to get both switches on at the same time. The highlight of the evening was the “Foxy Ladies” (one of them is from Hastings) dressing up in clown costumes and doing about a 10 minute skit after the meeting was over.

The guy that went up in the wheelchair and complained about the water pressure was “Skip” Skippon (I wonder how he got that nickname). It reminded me that, as a kid, I always wanted a nickname. One of the first guys I met in St. Joe when we moved there was Daryl O’Daye and, since he was a good left-handed baseball player, was nicknamed Lefty. My best friend growing up in St. Joe was Don Dettman. His father was also Don Dettman so instead of calling him Junior, he was nicknamed Skip (but his mother called him Bish…where that came from I don’t know).

In Hastings Paul Peterson is known as Trum (but his brothers call him Charlie), Mike Corrigan is known as Crash, Stub, or Wrong Way, one of the other Peterson boys (John, I think) is nicknamed Weezer, Tom Havens is known as Abner, Rod Miller is known as Pub, Dick Brower is Mooch, Melvin LaJoye Jr. is known as Bud, Melvin LaJoye Sr. is known as Bunny (he fathered several children) and the list goes on and on.

I guess Jack is a nickname for John, my real name, but that’s not what I had in mind. A real nickname should refer to one of your strong points, although Dick Brower got his nickname, Mooch, for a reason and it wasn’t one of his strong points. I never could think of one I wanted and soon realized that you don’t choose your own nickname. It gets chosen for you and either sticks or it doesn’t. At one time, a couple of St. Joe kids called me Rev, since my father was a minister. Although I was and always will be proud of Dad’s accomplishments, Rev was maybe the last nickname I wanted (other than Stinky, Tubby or Pee-wee…don’t ask) and, thankfully, it didn’t stick.

Friday was an optional training day off, but if we decide to do something, the schedule calls for a 3,000 meter swim, a 30 – 50 minute run or a 60 minute ride, but not all three. Of course, if it says not all three, I interpret that to mean doing two is OK, so I swam at 6 AM and went to Starkey Park for an easy ride around 11. The wind was 5 to 10 mph from the South and I rode from Starkey to SR-54. The last couple of miles is open country into the wind and I had some trouble keeping my heart rate down and going any faster than 15.5 mph.

When I got to SR-54 I did a loop around the parking lot and headed back. As I went through, a guy came from SR-54 and rode onto the trail just ahead of me. He looked to be a “biker” ‘cuz he reached into his back pocket, picked something out, and rode no handed for a while trying to open whatever he had in his hand. I rode behind him, caught up quickly, and was on his wheel after a mile. I must have caught a “bit-o’-Jean”-itis over the winter because I kicked it up a little and passed him. I said “It’s a perfect day to ride” as I went by and kicked it some more to separate a little.

I didn’t look back, but with the wind following, I rode in what turned out to be a perfect gear. I didn’t get out of heart rate one, but looked down and I was doing 22.5 mph most of the time. I looked back and he was sucking my wheel (a bike term meaning he was drafting me…get your head out of the gutter) so I kicked it a little more. We rode that way for three and a half miles until we got to the Starkey turn-off and he never passed. At times I was going 24.5 without any effort. I slid my bike into the left lane, gave him a left turn signal and a respective nod. I’M A BIKER. Not good! Not Fast! But I’ve overcome the post-crash fear and I feel like I belong.

Just as I thought all was well in the biking world, along came Saturday. The schedule called for a 150 to 210 minute heart rate 2-3 ride. I decided to go to Anderson Snow Park, ride the North trail to the end (somewhat hilly), turn around and ride the 28 miles back to SR-52, then turn back North and ride 10 miles back to Anderson Snow. It was a good plan had it not been for the weather. The ride up to Crystal River was with virtually no wind. The weatherman had predicted winds from the South at 15 to 25 and gusty and that started just as I turned around at the North end. I rode 28 miles into a brisk wind with the temp at around 81 and the humidity in the 90% range.

The water stop at SR-50 was cordoned off with police tape (no, it wasn’t a crime scene…they were doing some remodeling) so I couldn’t stop there for water. Why I didn’t stop at Anderson Snow when I went past is beyond me, but I was dehydrated by the time I got to the water stop at SR-52. The last 10 miles I couldn’t go any faster than 12.5 mph and had to work hard to keep that up. I filled my water bottle and took a big long drink. The water tasted like it was pumped from the stagnant pond just behind us but at that point I would have drank anything. I drank half my bottle, filled it again and started on the 10 miles back to the car.

I finished the water before I got there and took out a bottle of Gatorade I had in the cooler and started out on a 30 to 40 minute transition run off the bike. I got to a mile and a half, was overheated and could tell my heart rate was higher than it should be so the “Jack” in me said stop and I did. I walked back to the car and, by then, my heart rate had come back down and I was somewhat cooler. I drank my recovery drink and was nauseated but recovered in a couple of hours. Shades of my last Ironman Wisconsin!!

So I have all summer to figure out if I need to pump more fluids sooner, or if my body just doesn’t absorb them very well and I’ll have to take my stomach “to the woodshed” a couple of times to teach it proper hydration. I’m retired so I have all kinds of time to figure it out. We’ll see how well I’ve learned come September 10.

Just (Not Coping Well With Heat And Humidity) Jack