Still Talking Smart

Jul28

If you don’t remember the family rivalry in the Pewaukee Triathlon two years ago I invite you to go back and read up on it, you’ll find it under Talking Smart in the archives. Two years later and the competition and the smart talking are still going strong!

I was unable to make it around the lake to spectate at the Tri-Allegan Triathlon but I was able to convince Uncle Weasel to be my first ever guest blogger and share the story:

This year’s Tri-Allegan Triathlon featured an epic battle between young and old, man and woman, athletic prowess and wily experience and cunning. It may go down in history as one of the greatest athletic events of all time. That being said I must report that my team, Team Old Guys finished in a solid 4th place. My swimmer, Scott pared 30 seconds off last years swim time but died coming out of the water and couldn’t muster much more than a walk across the beach and up the hill to transition. But then again he’s a swimmer not a runner. Marty the runner is the closest to a rock star as there is on the team. He just plain flies and uses himself up on the course….he also spends a lot of time using himself up during warm-ups. I’m the old guy on the bike and even though I’m due for knee replacement in 2 weeks I was determined to hold up my end of the bargain. To boot I had made a small wager with the local chief of police (10 years my junior, 50 pounds lighter and 2 good knees). My bike time against his bike time, loser congratulates the winner publicly in the local newspaper. Maybe not so smart but if you talk big you gotta back it up, right? I trained over 550 miles getting ready and was determined to at least beat the chief. I found myself getting my game face on minutes before the start and who should pop out from behind my friend Mel (Mel is a big guy and easy to hide behind) but my little sister Mary. I was shocked to say the least and stunned to see that she was in her “skinny pants” with a timing chip on her ankle. She was in the race!!!!

Now it was time for a quick team meeting and a recalibration of race strategies and goals. The old guy’s mission is to BEAT MARY!!!!!!

Scott swam like a torpedo, I biked as hard as I could and when something let go in that right knee at mile 11 I kept going, Marty ran like the wind. All of us with one goal. BEAT MARY!!!

Now you have to understand I put together a team 2 years ago to beat Mary and she edged us by 2 minutes. On that team I had a University of Wisconsin Stevens Point Athletic Hall of Fame swimmer and a svelte, fit twenty something runner and we couldn’t do it. But Tuesday night a bunch of old guys gave it all they had and we beat Mary by a decisive 4 minute margin!

It just goes to show, don’t cut us Old Guys out, she may be younger and fitter but us Old Guys are CRAFTY!

Excuse me now while I go write a letter to the editor.

This Moment – Pre-race Kisses

Jul13

A Friday ritual . A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week.

A simple, special, extraordinary moment.

A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Talking Smart

Jul11

Today was the Pewaukee Triathlon John, my Uncle Jim and my brother Tyler got together to do it as a team. John took the swimming leg, fitting as an ex-swimmer. Tyler took the running leg, not so fitting, but he does run, although I can now say that after 5K he does not look happy about running. Uncle Jim did the bike, very fitting since a few years ago my Uncle took up biking and while we have teased him unmercifully all the while he logs in an amazing amount of miles! Uncle Jim came all the way from Michigan to join the team (named “Not a Prayer” by my Mother who signed them up, let that be a lesson for next time you cook up an idea at Christmas dinner and don’t act on it first!) and they placed a very respectable 35th in the team division. As Gramps would say “They beat somebody!”

Now I just need to go back a pull up this little comment by my Uncle after a post about the Pewaukee River Run back in April…. Here it is… “Looks like an old fat guy from Michigan is going to have to come over there and put them in their place.” and.. Oh look! A tweet that reads “Don’t make me come over there!” You can check out River Run for the full story. But in short, my friend and I have been attempting to beat my Mom and her friend in a canoe race for several years and haven’t managed it yet. Talking smart is as far as we’ve gotten, something Uncle Jim excels at as well.

I’m sure you can guess what happened today but here is my race synopsis anyway…

Luck of the draw the boys and my Mom ended up starting in the same heat. John (blue cap) and Mom(red cap) lined up together on the beach for the swim. John sped out in front of the heat with another ex-swimmer leaving the rest of the heat behind Mom included. But soon we saw John bounce face first off a buoy, a LARGE orange buoy and then careen off in the other direction. Result being that he seemed to swim at least half again as far as necessary. The trouble with being an ex-swimmer is we are all used to those cushy things like lines on the bottom of the pool and lane lines. He exited the water in style… …well,in style might not be the word for it, he realized after than he was the only person he saw there wearing an “old school Speedo”. To my husbands defense, he was a swimmer, they all wore Speedo’s. Anyways, my husband ran out of the water in his Speedo, and handed off to Uncle Jim (OK, so we actually never really call him Uncle Jim it’s Uncle Weasel or Uncle Mushroom, Ivy called him Weasel all day so lets go with that one) and Uncle Weasel took off on his bike… …as it turns out the team didn’t rate too high on the style meter no mater who you were watching!

Mom swam a very straight course, got far enough out of the main pack that she was swimming mostly by herself, ran in to the transition area, and took off her on bike. Lets also just say that my mom bikes on her red Schwinn Traveler that she got in college. I don’t know much anything about bikes but it seems that most triathletes (or Uncle Weasel) have things like clip in pedals, or baskets, or bikes that are super light weight, not so much with the old Schwinn…

Waiting at the transition area we didn’t see much of the biking but reports from the road say that Mom caught Uncle Weasel around five miles, gave him an encouraging “Root hog or die!” and left him in her dust. Mom ran into the transition area with her bike and left again with a smile (sort of) for her fans. Uncle Weasel does not run, not even in a race, but he moved as quick as he could over to Tyler who took off on the run five minutes behind his Mom. Even with the Weasel’s lack of running factored in we are still all scratching our heads as to why it took the two guys longer in transition than my Mom. I’m thinking it has something to do with Tyler never making it out of the locker room at swim practice in a reasonable time but I could be wrong.

The cheering section (plus John and the Weasel) all moved over to the finish line to see if Tyler, the-25-year-old-stays-in-shape-lifts-weights-runs-on-a-regular-basis-son, could eat up the time and catch his mom. Turns out no. Mom showed up just two minutes before Tyler did, still smiling, sort of. Tyler said only two people got by on the run both old ladies, and then amended “Not as old as you!” looking at his Mom.

My Mom won her age class in the Pewaukee Triathlon today, she was almost twenty minutes ahead of the next woman in her age class, and two minutes ahead of the smart talking Uncle Jim and his relay. That’s right, three of them doing the legs separately couldn’t manage to beat her. So let me just say, she’s fast and if you think you can beat her, go ahead a try. Oh and let me just throw in there that she sorta freakishly competitive so if you’d like a fighting chance you better not mention that you are gunning for her!

My Uncle Jim, did awesome for a self proclaimed “Old fat guy” doing the bike course in 15 minutes less than his predicted time, coming in just over the one hour mark! Maybe one day Uncle Jim will beat his little sister but he’ll have to join the rest of us and stick to talking smart for the time being!