Backwards

I was an extremely mediocre cross country runner in high school.  Cross country was a “no cut” sport at my school, which is the only reason I made the team.  I ran primarily because it was a fall sport and I wanted to stay in shape for spring soccer.  I was unenthusiastic at training, but people had told me for years that I had a natural running style, so I thought that I’d be good at it.  My first race as a high schooler proved that natural ability is a poor substitute for training, at least in the world of endurance sports. 

I did bring one very special talent to the cross country team - throwing up.  Well, I didn’t actually throw up, but I was always the first to dry heave during our training runs.  Over time, our coach developed the inspirational line - “we’re going to run until Peterson pukes.”  Maybe it’s because my old cross country coach conditioned me to believe that I could make the pain stop by throwing up, or maybe it’s just because I’m particularly susceptible to dry-heaving when I am over-exerted.  Either way, it’s a talent that I’ve retained since my youth.

This morning I ran my fourth Peachtree City sprint triathlon.  The distances are manageable – 600 meter swim, 13 mile bike and a 5k (3.1 mile) run.  When I first started doing these triathlons, they were relatively novel and there was a certain “wow” factor in simply completing a triathlon.  These days I feel hard pressed to find someone who hasn’t run one, including my wife and two oldest children.   I ran my first tri four years ago and barely crossed the finish line.  My first triathlon became my first blog post, and I’ve been writing about my endurance events ever since.

I don’t race because I am particularly gifted or goal oriented, I just need sufficient motivation to exercise, and signing up for races has served me well in that regard, at least until recently. 

For various reasons, I did not register for any races this year until today’s triathlon.  Last year I ran the ING half marathon, a 5k and another triathlon before  this point in the year, but until today I didn’t have any challenges on the horizon, so my training throughout the year has lacked intensity.  A couple of weeks ago my wife finally said, “so, are you still planning to do this tri?”  That was her kind way of saying (and she has no other way of saying things)- “s0, are you pretty much surrendered to getting fat as well as old?”  About two weeks ago I ratcheted-up my training schedule, but that’s not enough time to adequately train for a tri.

Another development that greatly mitigated the intensity of my training was that I was running this one alone.  In the past, I’ve always run with friends, or had my family with me.  Even though Peachtree City is less than an hour away, we’d treat it like a destination race – we’d get a hotel, go out for a high carb dinner the night before, and push each other onward and upward, that sort of thing.  This year, I ran alone.  My friends have all either lost interest or had other things going on, and my wife and I have decided that dragging the kids to a race 50 miles away at 6:00 in the morning isn’t the best way to start a Saturday.   Consequently, I traveled and raced alone.

I went to bed early last night in hopes of getting a good night’s sleep, but woke to thunderstorms, and then some lower gastrointestinal distress in the middle of the night.  During trips to the bathroom I thought about turning off my alarm and sleeping in rather than making the lonely trip to Peachtree City, but I resisted the temptation.  My alarm went off at 4:45, and I rolled out of bed, made some coffee, picked up my bag and hit the road.

As always, the race was well-organized and amply staffed.  Race volunteers directed me to a parking space and then packet pick-up.  I got my body marked (they write your race number on your legs and upper arms and your age on your right calf with a Sharpie), and moved into the transition area.   The transition area is where you put your bike, helmet, running shoes,  and all of the stuff you need for the race.  There’s a science to proper organization of your transition area, and it makes a difference in your finishing times, as today’s experience proved again.  This being my seventh triathlon, I wasn’t as obsessive about checking and re-checking my gear as I have been in the past.   Soon after I had arranged my stuff, we were called to the swim start area.

Though I don’t turn 40 for a few more weeks, the USAT considers you to be whatever age you will be on December 31st of the year in which you race.  Consequently, “40″ was written on my calf, and I raced in the 40-44 age group.

In years past, this particular triathlon has been characterized by the large number of first-timers, and there were a few there today, but this race was a championship qualifier of some sort in which the top 33% in each age group qualified for national competition.  There were some ultra fit looking folks in the swimming queue.  A guy in front of me was talking about his experience at the Iron Man race in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho in June.  A fellow behind me was talking about his experience this year at a Half Iron Man race in South Carolina.   I was surprised at the number of seasoned and serious triathletes in the group.

As I stood there at dawn, listening to the bravado around me, reflecting on my lack of training, and lamenting the fact that I hadn’t brought any friends, I suddenly felt something in my gut.  No, not the intestinal issues from the previous night.  It was something primal, aggressive, almost angry.  Something in me said, “I am going to freaking do this!” 

In this triathlon the swimmers go out two by two, separated by 5 seconds.  This normally eliminates the viscious aquatic scrum that I’ve experienced at other triathlons where a hundred swimmers sprint into the water at the same time and jockey for position.  When the starter told me to “GO!”, I did.  I ran into the water with abandon and swam with methodical intensity.  One of the challenges in the swim is to control your adrenaline so as not to burn out too quickly.  Most triathletes develop a stroke the relies primarily on the arms so that they can preserve their legs for the other two elements of the race.  After a few seconds of frantic kicking, I got my body under control and started to glide through the water, passing several people – including Mr. Coeur d’Alene.  Another challenge to the swim is to simply see where you’re going.  There’s no neat black line at the bottom of the lake, so you have to periodically lift your head from the water and look ahead.  This morning the swim seemed more instinctive and natural.  Unlike previous races, I mostly avoided getting tangled up with other swimmers and kept a fairly true line to the finish.  I had my best swim split ever – 10:51.

Managing transitions (moving from the swim to bike, and then the bike to run) was a key to setting my personal best in 2008.  For whatever reason, I didn’t manage them as well today.  I lost 31 seconds in my first transition relative to last year.  Still, I felt like I had some gas as I came out of transition and mounted my bike.  My quads ached as I started, but I knew that it would pass.  Once I cleared the initial congestion outside of transition, I leaned into my tri bars and started focusing on my cadence and stroke.  A few clusters of advanced riders passed me, but for the most part I held my own.  I set a personal record on the bike course of 40:46, averaging 20.6 mph.  That’s not impressive in general, just impressive for me.

My next transition was also sub-par.  I lost 35 seconds relative to last year.  All told, that was 1:06 that I really shouldn’t have given up.  I can’t say why exactly, except that last year my bike was located closer to the transition exit and I can run faster without my bike than I can with it.

My legs resisted the run at first, as they always do after a ride, but I settled into a normal pace after about a half mile.  At the first mile marker I calculated that an overall personal record was still in play, so I pushed harder.  I started to compose an inspirational blog post in my mind.  At mile 2 I was still on pace.  My mental drafting was getting better with each stride – I was going to write about will power, attitude and drive.  Then, at about mile 2.2, Peterson puked. 

At first, I was able to run through it.  I noted that the retching sound actually had a dampening effect on the runners around me, so I thought that it might be of some tactical advantage.  Eventually, though, I had to stop.  I’ve never stopped in a tri before, not even my first one.  Stopping to walk was a surrender, but there was no decision about it, my body made me stop.  I heaved several times while the runners I’d carefully reeled-in over the past two miles started to pass me, one by one at first, then in a big pack, as if it were a coordinated effort to mock me. 

I’m not sure how long I walked, a couple hundred yards perhaps.  I finally felt well enough to start running again.  I recaptured a little ground, but not enough.  I finished the 3.1 miles in 27:49, a lousy 8:59 pace.  I’d done sub-8’s in the past.  My finishing time was 1:23:14, which is second best among my four Peachtree City Tri’s, but the most disheartening.  Roy Hobbs didn’t bust the outfield lights, Ray Kinsella’s dad didn’t emerge from the cornfield for a catch, and Rudy didn’t get the sack against Georgia Tech.  A middle aged guy just finished a race in the middle of the pack, and no one who cared about him was there to see it.

I finished 372nd out of 952 overall, and 54th of 98 in my new age group.  Not horrible.  But until today, I’d never gone backward in a race – not in a 5k, 10k, triathlon or anything similar.  I’d always improved with each race, however marginally.  At nearly 40 years old, I suspect that today’s trend will continue, but I can’t blame today’s result on age.

Running has always been a spiritual exercise for me, and I took some good lessons from this morning’s experience.  Finishing strong in life, as in racing, requires discpline. And not just on race day.  And going backwards isn’t good, at least not in the important things.  While going backwards doesn’t matter in things as trivial as a sprint triathlon, it matters a lot in terms of maturity and character.  No matter how old I get, I can’t let up.  I can’t stop earnestly seeking the significant things of life.  If I stop, I will go backwards.

 

On the Video Below

Work is busy, so blogging will probably be light this month.  Hopefully, this video recap of our year can tide you over for the time being.  I was disappointed in the video quality, because the original photos and footage are pretty stellar for the most part.  I was especially disappointed that the text is so difficult to read.  But, hopefully you can get the gist and join me in celebrating a great year.  With all the gloom and doom inundating us from all sides, it’s good to appreciate the simpler and significant things.

 

TIP: FOR A SUPERIOR VIEWING EXPERIENCE, CLICK THE LINK ABOVE RATHER THAN THE PLAYER BELOW, THEN SELECT “WATCH IN HIGH QUALITY” JUST BELOW THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE VIEWER.  IT’S MUCH SHARPER.

 

Peachtree City Triathlon Results

For anyone interesting in seeing what triathlon results look like, click this link.  I’ve got to say that the Peachtree City folks have their act together more than any other group I’ve experienced.  The results were up by the time I got home from the race.  I often have to wait for days.  The photos, however, still aren’t online.  That’s unusual in my experience.  Those are normally ready almost right away.

 

Welcome to Event Tech!.

 

My Shrinking Bucket List

“Life is full and life is rich.”  That’s generally how I respond when an old acquaintance contacts me through Facebook, Linked In or in some other virtual community.  It’s difficult to sum up 15 or 20 years without typing several pages of text that no one wants to read, so I tell people that I’m happily married, that I have four young children, and that life is full and life is rich.  It really is.

I inherited a pessimistic outlook on life.  I’m convinced that it’s genetic.  Shortly after my oldest son learned to talk, he spilled a cup of water and said “Oh No!  I’ll never have water again!”  I didn’t teach him that, I promise.  But like him, I can blow the slightest adversity out of proportion and convince myself that all is certainly and permanently lost.  But now and then, God elevates me above my immediate circumstances and points out the rich and wonderful things in my life.  In those moments, I see that my cup runneth over.  I am a rich, rich man in all of the things that matter.  I am loved, I am in community, and I am assured of an abundant and eternal life.  As if that weren’t enough, God has covered the cake of my life with some wonderful frosting.  I am married to an absolutely gorgeous woman who is head over heals in love with me.  I have four healthy, smart kids who shower me with affection every time I walk in the door.  I have an interesting and lucrative career, a healthy body, an abundance of friends, and almost every weekend brings another memorable, photo-worthy experience.  In moments like this, with perspective like this, it’s hard to imagine why I ever feel anything other than euphoria.

But it’s all about perspective.  In the midst of a trial like a sick child, a marital spat, a career setback, an unexpected repair bill, a poor report card, or a Saturday afternoon loss by the Tennessee Volunteers, I see it all slipping away.  Suddenly, I stop walking on the water and start sinking into the depths.  You need look only a couple of posts back to see my darker side.  In those moments I need a lift from my Father in heaven, who extends his hand, lifts me from the mire and gently admonishes my lack of faith.

I don’t have a written bucket list, but I do have a running mental list of things that I want to see and do before my life on this earth ends.  Because of this rich life I’ve been given, the list is shrinking.  I wanted to graduate with honors from college - check, to graduate from a ranked law school - check, to be married to a beautiful woman - check, learn to play the guitar (half check), to have children – check, check, check and check, to become a partner in a major law firm, check.  As I age, my list changes and grows.  I’ve wanted to travel to the Islands – check, to run a triathlon – check, to run a half marathon – check.  

Just this week I was able to check one more idiosyncratic item from the list – I wanted to own a canoe – check.  That may seem a little odd, but one of my greatest outdoor experiences  was as a camp counselor at Camp Paddy Run in Winchester, Virginia.  In an otherwise ordinary summer, I spent one week escorting a group of high school kids for a week long float down the Potomac River through West Virginia, Virginia and Maryland.  We camped out on the banks of the river, and awoke to spectacular, quiet mornings as we silently floated through deep gorges while bald eagles soared above.  Ever since then I’ve wanted a canoe.  We live close to the tranquil Chattahoochee River, and for many miles of its bank there are parks and put-ins perfect for canoeing.  As much as I wanted one, I could never justify the purchase.   Finally, just this week, I saw an ad on e-bay for an Old Town 17′ canoe, completed with life jackets, paddles and seatbacks.  The seller was just 7 miles from my house, and I just had to check it out.  The seller nearly backed out because he was so attached to the canoe, but he’s getting divorced and has to sell it all.  I quickly strapped the canoe on top of the Pathfinder and took off before he changed his mind.  I can hardly wait to take it out.

Another item on my revised bucket list is finishing the Peachtree City Triathlon in under 1:20.  Today was my last chance to mark off that item for the next year.  As an interesting backstory to my triathlon adventures – my wife Toria has taken up the sport.  She was initially intimidated by everything about triathlons and had a pretty inauspicious start to her biking career (as related in an earlier post).  She finished her first triathlon two weeks ago and performed extremely well.  So well, in fact, that I felt the heat.  She finished with an average bike pace of 18.9 miles per hour, 13th out of some 132 in her age group and faster than I had ever ridden.  I was extremely proud of her, and extremely pressured to best her bike time.

(Toria’s the one on the right)

The Peachtree City Sprint Triathlon was the first one that I ever ran, and I told the story of that first race in an earlier (and if I may say so, amusing) post.  The first time I ran that race the distances were a little shorter than they are now, and  I finished in about 1:33.  Two years later the race organizers increased the distances to about a 600 yard swim, 14 miles bike and 5k (3.1 miles).  In my second effort, I greatly improved on my first time with a finish of 1:24:57 (another story told in a previous post).  But today I wanted to finish in under 1:20.  For the uninitiated, that’s still not an impressive time, but it would be an impressive improvement for me.

In the past, the Peachtree City race has been a time for my guy friends to gather for an overnight, but due to injury or scheduling conflicts, all of my race friends dropped out.  In lieu of the guys’ weekend, Toria and the kids picked me up at work yesterday afternoon, and we all drove down to Peachtree City together.  We carbo-loaded at Carrabas and tried to get our wound-up kids to fall asleep in our crowded hotel room.  I woke first, grabbed some muffins in the hotel lobby and rode my bike to the start. 

This was my 6th triathlon, so I bring a little experience to the table.  For one thing, I knew to stay in the porta-john until I was finished, regardless of how many people were waiting outside.  I carefully laid-out my gear in the transition area, and then I went to the porta-john again.  I wasn’t going to repeat last year’s fiasco.

Once the swim started, I still felt the slightly panicked disorientation that comes with swimming amidst hundreds of thrashing athletes struggling past the buoys, but within 100 yards I settled into my swim cadence with just a couple of interruptions as I was kicked in the face and had to adjust my goggles.   The lake was full of some sort of tentacle-like vegetation that grabbed at me with each stroke, but I powered through it and finished my swim a few seconds faster than last year. 

After a decent transition I moved to the bike.  The bike has traditionally been my worst discipline.  For reasons I still don’t completely understand, in past years the rest of the field has passed me like I was on a leisurely walk.  My desire to improve on that weakness was compounded by Toria’s excellent performance in her race.  I’m no chauvinist, but there’s not a guy in the world who relishes the thought of his wife besting him in any athletic endeavor.  For the first time in any race, I felt like my stroke had some power and I started passing people.  This was new to me.  I crouched into my aerobars (a new addition since my last race) and started to gobble up the riders in front of me.  I stayed with a pack of 5 or so riders with a similar pace.  They’d pass me on the uphill, and I’d retake them on the downhill or flat.  We engaged in some good-natured jabber, exhorting each other to press to the bike finish.  But the weather was working against me.  We’re feeling the effects of Tropical Storm Faye, and the wind was gusty with a light rain.  At times I could feel the wind slow my pace, but I was still performing better than prior years against the field.  In the end, my bike pace was .5 miles an hour faster than last year, only 76 seconds better than last year, but given the conditions, I was pleased.

Because of my extra effort on the bike, I was a little gassed for the first mile of the run.  After the first mile marker I picked up my pace, but I knew that I would have to press hard to make my sub 1:20 goal.  About 2.5 miles in I found myself running next to one of my cohorts from the bike leg.  She was 28 (everyone’s age is written on their calf), and I had served as her inspiration throughout the race.  Each time I passed her on the bike, she attacked almost immediately to re-take her position.  I’d finished ahead of her and beat her out of transition, but she sprinted ahead of me during the first mile.  I finally passed her again.  Predictably, she picked up her pace and pulled even.  We exchanged jibes, and I pulled ahead of her for the last time. 

I could hear the cheering crowds ahead.  I looked at my watch and saw 1:20.  My sub 1:20 would have to remain on the bucket list.  I finished in 1:21:27, a full 3:30 better than last year.  My run was slightly slower, but I more than made up for it in the bike and transitions.  Most important, I finished with an average bike mph of 18.9.  Maybe I can’t best my wife, but at least I can hang with her.  I placed 52nd of 113 in my age group and 270th of 928 overall.  It was my first top half finish in my age group.  Best of all, my fan club was waiting for me at the finish.

After the initial post-race congratulations, Toria informed me that Will was not feeling well.  We hurried back to the hotel so that I could shower and change.  As we got in the highway toward home, Will threw up in the car.  That’s one of those bumps in the road than can throw me on other days, but not today.

This afternoon I made a run to REI for some canoe equipment and took Mary Kate along, the faded “38″ still showing on my calf.  After my errand, I took her to a nearby coffee shop where we shared a cookie.  I asked her about school and she smiled at me with chocolate-stained teeth.  I had nothing to do other than look into the eyes of my beautiful daughter and give her my undivided attention.  It was one of the simpler and more unexceptional events of the day, but in that moment I found myself thinking, “this is as good as it gets.”  There are a few items still lingering on the bucket list, but my life will be full if they go unfulfilled.  Life is rich, and life is full, and I pray that I’ll have the eyes to keep seeing it that way.

 

Milk

For the first several years of our marriage, my wife suggested that there was “something wrong with me.”  To be more specific, she would generally tell me this as I was leaving the bathroom.  I assured her that it was just a guy thing.  Being somewhat slow on the uptake, it was not until my mid-30’s (and I’m still in my mid-30’s) that I linked one of those episodes with a very large bowl of ice cream I’d eaten earlier in the evening.  I finally realized I was “lactose intolerant”, a phrase that I’d heard on television ads for years without knowing what it meant.  There was, in fact, something wrong with me.  Again, my wife was right.  Since then, I have stayed away from milk and its various related products, especially ice cream.  I really miss ice cream.

Milk is pleasant to drink, and for most people, easy to digest.  It was originally designed by our creator for babies, and is essential for infant mammals.  They can’t survive without it.  It’s one of the first building blocks for becoming fully developed.  We’ve got to start with milk, but eventually, we’re supposed to graduate to solid food.  If we don’t, we become malnourished and poorly formed, incapable of moving ahead as fully functional adults.

New Testament writers make frequent use of the milk metaphor.  At present, I am reflecting on Hebrews 5:11-14, where the milk analogy appears just after the author has introduced the meaty topic of Christ being a High Priest in the order of Melchizedek.  He writes:

Concerning him we have much to say, and it is hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing.  For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.  For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant.  But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good from evil.

This very rich passage has lent itself to many different interpretations, but the gist of it is clear.  The Hebrew Christians receiving this letter were content with the basics of the faith and were not moving on to maturity.

“Milk”, or the elementary teachings about Christ, are not denigrated or diminished.  In fact, in 6:1 the author describes these things as a “foundation.”  You’ve got to have the milk, there’s no getting around it.  But there’s more to learn and do.  These Hebrew Christians, and we modern Christians, are too often unwilling to press on to maturity.  Consequently, we become dull of hearing and increasingly difficult to instruct. 

The more debatable aspect of the passage is what, exactly, are “milk” and “solid food”?  Volumes have been written on the topic, and I’ve read some of them.  But in essence, I believe that ”milk” is the essentials of our salvation (Christ’s atoning death and resurrection), while “solid food” is truth leading us to a mature and diligent life oriented to our final hope in Christ Jesus.  Such a life leads to the things promised.  The things promised are not merely resurrection in the life hereafter, but a life of service and hope that begins now.

 But there’s another side to the coin.  In our pursuit of weightier things, we can find ourselves chasing rabbits and engaging in divisive controversies about esoteric things.  At one point in his ministry, Paul warned a pastor of such arguments. 

But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law because these are unprofitable and useless.  Titus 3:9

I can get wrapped around the axle of some of the weighty matters of theology.   In the process, I become lactose intolerant with regard to the basics of my faith, and lose my joy.  It’s all broccoli and no ice cream.  In the book of Galatians Paul addresses a group of people who have started chasing the rabbit of legalism.  “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel” (Gal. 1:6).  And later, “What has happened to all your joy?” (Gal. 4:15). 

So, what are we to do?  How do we seek the weightier things without getting caught-up in divisive and distracting controversy?  The author of Hebrews answers the question in part.  “But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.”  (Heb. 5:14).  A great part of maturity is the ability to discern between the false and the true, to separate needless controversies from truth worth defending.  It’s not easy. 

On Monday I went for a 7.2 mile run.  It’s been a good running year.  In October I’d set a personal record in a 10k, in March I ran my first half marathon in respectable time, and in May I won a small 5k.  My running was strong.  Some of the experts will tell you that you can lose a triathlon in the swim or the bike, but you can only win it on the run.  Consequently, I normally tend to focus on the run – a basic, a fundamental.

Sensing that my run was about where it needed to be, I started to focus on the swim and bike.  I researched and practiced technique, and focused on those more complicated disciplines to the neglect of my running.  Predictably, my Monday evening run was really hard.  My final third was more than 3 minutes slower than my first third, while two months ago I was finishing strong at that distance. 

So, do I quit practicing the bike and the swim?  No, I need to improve in those things.  But I’ve got to stop neglecting the fundamentals, or my strength becomes a weakness.  As with so many other things in life, it requires balance and discretion.  It’s not easy, but nothing worth having ever is.

 

Near Miss

Much to my delight, my wife has taken up biking as a hobby.  I’ve been riding for a few years now, though not as often as I would like, and I’ve long hoped that she would take up an interest in a sport that we could enjoy together.  She purchased a friend’s used bike a few months ago, and we recently began taking some rides together.  It has been all that I hoped for, except for the falling.

If you ride, you know the thrill of moving at 20 miles an hour under your own power, passing runners, and sometimes cars.  It’s great exercise, and you can cover significant distances over the span of a couple of hours.  On the other hand, there’s the near constant threat of crashing.

Most semi-serious bikers use bike shoes that clip into special pedals.  Using bike shoes allows the rider to utilize hamstrings on the upstroke, which generates a great deal more power.  The downside of bike shoes is that you have to clip in and out of the pedals, which takes some getting used to.  To clip in, the pedal has to be in the right position, and you have to assertively push your toe and then the ball of your foot into the clip.  Clipping out is a little easier,  you just turn your foot to the side.   But for most of us, when we sense that we might fall, we instinctively want to put our feet straight down.  Doing so when you are “clipped in” has the ironic consequence of making you fall.   

Last Monday we were enjoying a gorgeous morning while my mother-in-law watched the kids.  We left from the house, pedaled along a normally busy highway, coasted down a long hill to the Chattahoochee River, and rode along the river for several miles.  On the way back home we stopped at a red light at a major intersection.  Moving through an intersection in traffic can be nerve wracking because cars are a little unpredictable, and you can never be sure who sees you.  Plus, light cycles can be pretty short when you are pedaling through them.  Lastly, when you start from a stop at an intersection, you have to “clip in”, which, as I mentioned, can be tricky for a novice. 

As we were at the intersection, two cars had pulled up along next to us.  Toria was behind me, and we were studying the light so we’d know exactly when to start moving forward.  The light turned green, I went, and then I heard a scream and a crash behind me.  By the time I was able to turn around, Toria had gotten off the ground and was moving her bike off of the road.  She’d had trouble clipping in or out and had fallen directly in the path of a car, but the car had stopped.  She was scraped and bruised, but she had no significant injuries.  It was a near miss.

The scary thing about a near miss is what could have been.  The alternate catastrophic scenarios play out in your mind for days or weeks, making you cringe at the mere thought of what nearly came to be.  As I look back over my life, I see a lot of near misses.

On our way to Amelia Island last month, a heavily loaded pickup truck suddenly crossed the interstate median, passed a couple of hundred yards in front of us, and ran into a fence on the right side of the road, accelerating all the way.  Had we been driving a couple miles an hour faster, we’d have been in its path.

When I first started riding with bike shoes, I failed to clip out at an intersection and fell to the side just after a car had pulled to a stop next to me.  I hit the side of the car and startled the driver, but I was unhurt.  Had I fallen a three seconds before, I would have been underneath it.

A few years ago, when Mary Kate was about 2 1/2, she wandered a few feet away from me in the church parking lot and was standing behind the rear tire of an SUV that was backing up, and there’s no way the driver could have seen her.  I pulled her out of the way just in the nick of time.

Between my junior and senior years of high school I worked in a corn canning plant in Idaho.  I was stacking cases of vegetables coming off of a line.  As I’d fill a pallet with cases, a forklift would lift the full pallet and take it into the warehouse.  At one point the forklift driver was backing up and didn’t see me, and the plant was so noisy that I didn’t know he was there.  He got so close that the tread of my shoe was caught underneath the rear tire of the lift truck. Someone else managed to get his attention and he stopped just before the truck rolled over my foot.  My foot was firmly stuck until he rolled forward.  I was two inches from losing my foot, or worse.

Those are just a sampling, I can remember a lot more near misses, and those are just the ones of which I was aware.  I consider the near misses of which I wasn’t even aware, the unseen dangers that passed me by while I sat blissfully ignorant.  I don’t know much about post traumatic stress disorder, but I imagine that a component of that affliction for a combat veteran is the constant memory of near misses, and the memory of those friends who weren’t missed at all.

 Then there are a whole other set of near misses that we don’t generally consider.  What if my Dad hadn’t played his cards quite right when courting my Mom?  The mere odds of my particular DNA emerging from the reproductive process are staggeringly slim.  What if I had chosen a different college or law school and ended up in a different city, never meeting my wife and having an altogether different set of kids?  The fact that I am sitting at this desk in this moment in my particular circumstances is a product of a nearly infinite set of seemingly random, but inescapably coordinated events.

King David of the Old Testament reflected on these things, and among his musings was this song:

O Lord, You have searched me and known me.

You know when I sit down and when I rise up;

You understand my thought from afar.

You scrutinize my path and my lying down,

And are intimately acquainted with all my ways.

Even before there is a word on my tongue,

Behold, O Lord, You know it all…

Where can I go from your spirit?

Or where can I flee from your presence?

If I ascend to heaven, You are there;

If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.

If I take the wings of the dawn,

If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea,

Even there Your hand will lead me,

And your right hand will lay hold of me…

For you formed my inward parts;

You wove me in my mother’s womb…

My frame was not hidden from you,

When I was made in secret,

When I was skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth;

Your eyes have seen my unformed substance;

And in your book were all written

The days that were ordained for me,

When as yet there was not one of them.

From Psalm 139

Near misses can be unnerving, and rob the near victim of peace.  But God is the grand orchestrator of things.  There is nowhere that he is not, and no thing that he does not know.  He has formed me, and he has led me along the seemingly random paths that have brought me to this point.  I am painfully aware that not everyone is “missed” by tragedy, and I have witnessed tragic loss.  For those suffering such a trial, I don’t imagine that God’s sovereignty is of much immediate comfort.  But I believe, and I must believe, that the trials of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose, will somehow work together for a greater good that may only become apparent in the life hereafter. 

For now my family is healthy and intact, and I am grateful for that.  But my greatest comfort comes in knowing that my life is not the product of dumb, random chance.  I serve an omniscient God who is leading me along an everlasting way, a way of significance and meaning insofar as I am following him.  And so, as Jesus exhorted us to do, I strive not to worry about tomorrow, but to seek him first, and trust him to take care of the rest.

 

John Tanner Triathlon

Well, the official results aren’t posted yet, but I kept careful track with my stopwatch and saw partial preliminary results before I left the park this morning.  It’s a good thing to be able to swim 600 meters, bike 12 and run another 3.1, no matter who you are or how fast you do it, but in terms of how I gauge success, it was a mixed bag.

I saw a neighbor friend of mine during body marking. Body marking is during pre-race when volunteers use a Sharpie to mark your race number on your arms and legs, and write your age on your calf.  It doesn’t wash-ff easily, so all day people have been asking me what “38″ means.  My neighbor Chad and I have trained together in the past, but neither of us knew that the other was running this race.  I commented to him that it seems that the intensity of the athletes ratchets up a bit with every race.  The first time I ran a triathlon, in 2005, many of the athletes were using hybrid bikes and tri bikes were a novelty reserved primarily for the sponsored athletes.  The first time that I ran this particular race, I’d estimate that fewer than a third of the competitors were wearing wetsuits, even though the water temperature was wetsuit legal.  At this tri, easily half of the bikes were tri-specific bikes, and most everyone had a wetsuit, except me.  I’m still riding the same old TREK 1000, and haven’t sprung for a wet suit.  It’s a lot of money to spend for the one race a year that I’m likely to use one.  It was brisk this morning, but I figure I can endure almost any temperature for 600 meters.

 I saw competitors ranging in age from 13 to 86.  Yes, 86.  It’s not hard to spot the real competitors.  They’re generally lean, muscular, handling expensive gear and wearing a sponsor’s shirt.  I’m not lean (though much leaner than I was when I started doing these races), not terribly muscular, and my gear is out-of date.  Still, I love the electricity of fit, focused people setting up in the transition area, waiting for the race to start.  I never feel quite a part of it.  I generally stand just outside the transition area watching everyone else, wondering if they peg me for being as out of place as I feel.

My goal was to finish in under 1:20.  I knew that was ambitious because my previous best time was 1:25 on this course.  Five minutes is a near quantum leap, but I thought it was in reach.  I trained fairly regularly in the off-season, and I’d had an encouraging time in the ING Half Marathon.  On the downside, my bike training, such was it was, consisted exclusively of spin classes at the YMCA, and I had only swam three times in the last six months.  Almost all of my training had been in the run.  But if you only train in one discipline, I suppose that’s the one most deserving of attention.

After my gear was arranged and I had taken care of other pre-race business, I walked over to the beach.  The park’s lake is pretty small, and the race course generally follows the perimeter of the lake.  Fog had rolled in since I had arrived, and when I first reached the beach I couldn’t see the buoys marking the course.  The temperature seemed to be dropping below the 61 degrees that had registered on my car thermometer when I pulled into the park.  I kept looking back over my shoulder to see if Toria and the kids had arrived.  I knew that they were planning to come.  I was self conscious at being one of the very few people without a wetsuit.  For the uninitiated, wetsuits are legal if the temperature is below a certain mark.  In addition to keeping you warm, the wetsuits create a buoyancy that creates some competitive advantage, though you lose a few seconds in transition.  But they are expensive, so I haven’t bought one, and not a lot of people are eager to loan them out for the same reason.

I was in the second swim wave.  The first was men 29 and under (blue swim caps), the second was men 30-39 (green swim caps), the third was men 40-49 (purple caps), and the fourth was women 29 and under (pink caps), and there were some more waves after that.  The waves were separated by three minutes. 

It was a wade-in start, so I waded in the murky water out to the start mark.  It was cold, and the water tasted like gasoline because of the support boats.  The starter sounded, I pushed the button on my stopwatch, and off we went.  Even in prior races where I had been training in the swim more regularly, I have found the swim to be a jarring start to a race.  All of the things that I practice in the pool quickly go out the window.  My cadence is off and there is no elegance or rhythm to my stroke.  Oftentimes as I reach out I inadvertently hit another swimmer’s leg, and the wet suit makes it feel like I’ve taken hold of a seal.  I had done abysmally in last year’s swim on this course, and figured with only minor tweaks I could improve dramatically.  I did worse.  I don’t know if it was the lack of training, the fact that I’d been sick this last week, or a general lack of sleep, but I felt lethargic and my stroke lacked any thrust or power.  As I was finishing the swim a series of pink caps passed me, women who had started six minutes after I had.  That was among the more demoralizing developments of the tri.  We’ll call it #1.  As I ran out of the water I heard my wife and kids calling my name, and that gave me a bit of a lift.  Then I looked at my watch and spit in disgust. 

I did have a decent transition and passed a cluster of folks early on the bike course.  Shortly after that a 15-year-old girl flew past me.  We’ll call that demoralizing event #2.  As has been my past experience, I struggled on the bike.  This time it wasn’t just my level of fitness, but I was also having bike problems.  Something is wrong with my derailleur, and the bike kept shifting on its own at inopportune times.  It made for a very inefficient ride.  At one point I was struggling up a long hill, and threw my chain.  Suddenly I found myself spinning to no effect, so I looked down and saw that the chain was off.  My forward motion ceased, and I nearly fell before I could clip out.  I was able to get the chain back on pretty quickly, but I lost time and momentum.  That was #3.  People kept passing me – and it seemed like most of them were women, children, and really large people.  As someone was passing me (one of the few other guys who was running the race without a shirt), he commented that something was wrong with my derailleur, but I couldn’t understand what he said and didn’t really know what to do about it.

Toward the end of the bike leg, I picked up a little steam.  My legs kept churning, and despite my technical problems, I didn’t allow myself to coast.  If the preliminary results are correct, I still managed to finish the bike about three minutes faster than last year.

I had another speedy transition, at least speedier than last year.  I used a number belt for the first time and ran the entire race shirtless.  That spared me a few seconds.  I felt decent at the start of the run, but there’s a long hill about halfway in, and for the first time since my first tri I was tempted to stop and walk.  My quads ached and my lungs were burning.  But I pressed on.  I passed a lot more people than passed me, mostly because all of the really fit people were already finished. 

As I turned the corner toward the finish, I saw two people ahead of me in the next quarter mile.  Some of the early finishers were along the race course and encouraged me to chase them both down.  I did, and that was a small victory in itself.  With the finish line in the distance, I looked at my watch and it registered 1:20.  I was sad that I hadn’t met my goal, but at the very least I wanted to finish strong in front of my family.

I passed the second runner a few yards ahead of the finish line and cruised in at 1:21:24 (unofficially at this point).  Short of my goal, but better than my previous best on this course by over 3:30.  Unimpressive among the field, but a nice improvement over my past performances.

A volunteer handed a water bottle to me, and then took off my timing chip.  I was breathing hard, and she was probably afraid that I was about to collapse on her, but I didn’t.  My family raced over to greet me, and they were more excited than I was.  I knew that I needed to set aside my disappointment so that the morning would be fun for them.  Mary Kate gave me some hand-picked dandelions, and I thanked them all so much for coming to see me.  For now, at least, I’m still their hero.  I grabbed a banana, we took a picture, and talked to my neighbor who had finished a few minutes in front of me.  He set a personal record too.  After refreshments, I moved over to the transition area to pack up my things.  As I finally finished packing and moved toward the car, the race monitors yelled “biker coming in!”  I looked up the road, and there he was, Mr. 86, coasting into transition. 

As I drove out, I saw him coming out of transition.  He was walking and holding a water bottle.  I assumed that he’d had enough, but I still respected the guy for going as far as he had.  That 86-year-old man had just swam and biked as far as I had, and he had nearly 50 years on me.  My window was down as I passed him, and I heard him asking everyone around him “where’s the run course?”  I pointed him in the right direction, and off he went.  He hadn’t quit after all.  The race volunteers had assumed that the race was over and were no longer there to guide him.  Will God be so kind as to grant me that kind of vitality at 86?

Toria and I drove in our separate cars back into Atlanta and met at The Flying Biscuit for lunch.  I asked her if I’d looked fat running without my shirt on.  “You didn’t look that fat”, she said.  #4. 

Update:  Official time 1:21:25.43, 39th of 47 among men 35-39.  I keep improving my times but losing ground against the field.

 

Personal Record

This morning I had perhaps my greatest race experience to date.  In terms of the sterile numbers, my goal was to run 13.1 miles in less than two hours. My secondary goal was to simply finish without stopping.  But the numbers say only a little about why I enjoyed the race so much. 

It rained hard in Atlanta through the night, and the morning temperatures were colder than predicted.  I carpooled with several other runners to get to the MARTA station, and as I stood on the platform shivering, I began to fear that I’d poorly chosen my running attire.  I was just wearing a long-sleeve Nike shirt, whereas most folks had a shell of some sort.  It was 41 degrees.  Eventually the train arrived and we headed downtown.  We didn’t leave ourselves a lot of margin, and arrived just in time to join the queue, though several of us were desperately looking for a bathroom.  Saints be praised, we spotted a long line of porta-johns as our corral was approaching the start.  We squeezed into an open spot in the fence and took care of business before our chips registered a start time.

It was still dark at the start.  It’s always a little surreal to run down the middle of normally busy streets, and the abundant evidence of tornado damage, together with the reflection of street lights and traffic signals off the wet pavement and the relative quiet of thousands of runners (as opposed to the din of traffic), made the atmosphere oddly sublime.   And once I started running, I stopped noticing the temperature.

I quickly separated from the group with whom I’d traveled to the race (some moving ahead, others falling behind). As much as I like those folks, I enjoyed being released from the pressure of conversation.  While I felt strong, I wasn’t seeing any mile markers and had no sense as to whether I was keeping pace.  Finally, at mile 3, there was a prominent sign and I calculated that I was slightly slower than my intended pace, so I picked it up.  Thereafter, I saw markers at almost every mile.  As it turned out, my first three miles were my slowest.

The race course took us from downtown to Little Five Points, then Virginia Highlands, back through midtown and then to downtown for the finish.  It was a well-chosen, hilly course that passed significant Atlanta sites like Ebenezer Baptist Church, the MLK Center, the Carter Center, and several of Atlanta’s hippest neighborhoods.  All along the course there were running clubs, charitable organizations, corporations or families, all there to support someone or several someones.  I admired those folks for waking so early and braving the cold for so long just so they could give someone a few seconds of encouragement.  They weren’t there for me, but I saw some folks I recognized and grabbed high-fives as I passed.  At a couple of points there were large throngs of people with live music and refreshments.  For some reason there were lots of people offering free beer.  It’s like a siren call, and I didn’t see many folks succumb to the temptation.  One who did was my friend and neighbor Steve DeMoss.  Steve is co-owner of an athletic shoe store (Big Peach Running Company) that was one of the race sponsors.  He’s a great runner, and I was surprised to find myself running next to him for a few minutes.  He pulled away after slowing up long enough for some polite conversation, but I passed him a few minutes later and couldn’t figure out why he was standing on the side of the road.  Then I realized that he’d taken advantage of one of the free kegs along the way.  It didn’t take him long to pass me again.  It was like a 13.1 mile party. 

I kept waiting to hit a wall.   I had never run further than 12 miles in my life, and I thought surely that my legs would give out at some point.  I never felt winded, but my knees and shins ached a bit.  At several of the beverage stations I stopped for a quick gulp of Gatorade, and at one point another sponsor was handing out energy gels, so I grabbed one.  I think that all helped.  I don’t hydrate on my training runs, and I was unaccustomed to the extra boost.

At each mile marker my pace was actually quickening.  Around mile 10 I started to feel euphoric.  I found myself giving the most spontaneous, effusive prayer of thanksgiving I can recall ever giving – for my health, for the beautiful city in which I live, for the family that I’d be returning to at the end of the run, and for an opportunity to do something I love (running) while surrounded by strangers who were cheering me to the finish.

For various reasons, my participation in the race seemed in peril in recent days.  Toria and Mary Kate have each had a stomach bug in the last week, and I’ve been walking through a minefield of opportunities to catch the flu.  I’ve feared that I was developing a stress fracture, and in just the last week I began to develop shin splints.  But my fears came to naught, as is almost always the case.  Among the scriptures rattling around in my head during the race, was this passage from Hebrews 12:

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

At mile 11 I took the uncharacteristic step of setting a more ambitious goal mid-race.  I decided to try and finish in under 1:50, and it was marginally within reach.  I saw a sign that said “One Mile to Go”, so I went into my last mile kick, only to realize in a few minutes that the sign was for the full marathoners, about 4/10ths of a mile ahead of our last mile marker.  I was passing people by the dozens with every minute, and despite my premature kick, I still had some juice left for the last couple hundred yards through Centennial Olympic Park.  One fellow had been tracking me over the last mile, and I separated from him at the end.  He made a point to congratulate me on a strong run after we crossed the finish line, and I returned the compliment.

While I did not meet my revised goal of under 1:50, I soundly beat my original goal of 2 hours.  1:51:36 won’t make it into any record books other than my own, but it placed me at 1,413th out of 10,000+ runners, and that feels pretty good (time and place are all preliminary, official results aren’t yet in).

Now here at home, my left knee aches a bit, but my general sense of euphoria lingers.  I pray that in my life as in this race I can finish strong, keep my eyes fixed on the prize, and endure what sufferings await me here with the expectation of the joy that is to come.

UPDATED

Official results are in.  1:51:38, placed 1,415th out of 8,569 finishers.

 

Day Before The Race

My wife went for a run this morning, and the normally crowded running trails were nearly empty.  I imagine a lot of runners are taking the day off in preparation for the ING Marathon/Half Marathon tomorrow morning.  I believe there are some 15,000 registered for the race.  It’s supposed to be in the high 40’s/low 50’s with a steady rain.  I’m aware of minor aches in my knees, and I think that I am developing shin splints, but I’m running tomorrow regardless.  I’ve worked too hard for this to pull out now.  I went down to the Georgia Dome yesterday to pick up my number.  It was a fit looking group of folks down there.

Our itinerary today seems like something out of the “Things White People Like” Blog (coincidentally, I read in the NYT today that the author of the blog is getting a $300,000 book deal).  After Toria completes her shower, we’re going to REI in our SUV to buy a new bike rack, then we’ll go to Lowe’s for a new light fixture for our bathroom, then swing by Costco for some bulk items.  I’m sure we’ll stop at Starbucks somewhere along the way.  We’ll spend the late afternoon at our son’s little league baseball game, and top off the evening with wine and a movie with subtitles.  Stereotypical or not, I’m looking forward to the day. 

Lord willing, this time tomorrow I will have have completed my race and begun post-race celebrations with friends.  I look forward to blogging about it tomorrow.

 

A Cold Run

My 5:00 alarm woke me from an all too rare deep sleep, and I instantly regretted not letting myself sleep for another hour-and-a-half.  But I was up, so I pulled on my running tights, a long-sleeve dry fit shirt, a fleece, a hat and my new Brooks Adrenalines.  It was 31 degrees outside, but it felt colder.  Back in October I wrote an entry complaining about the hot weather extending into the fall, but this March has been unusually cold.  Yesterday I watched brief snow flurries out of my office window, which is unusual for an Atlanta March.  The calendar rarely meets my expectations, except in July and August when I can say with certainty that it will be oppressively hot. 

I ran my standard 7.2 mile run in an hour, two minutes slower than last Thursday’s run.   Last Thursday my legs had spring and I finished strong.  This morning my legs were dead and I felt exhausted from the start.  Instead of profound reflections on God, life and the meaning of it all, I found myself working through the issues I expect to encounter today.  Some days are like that.  But I’m still glad that I ran.

The ING Half Marathon is now only 5 days away, and I think I’ll only run once more before then.  I should be more intentional and educated about training for these races, but I basically run when I can and hope for the best.  For now I am healthy, fit and looking forward to the race. 

As an aside, I link here to an interview with one of my partners.  She’s an elite marathoner and recently qualified for the Olympic trials.  She has two young kids, does what I do, and still manages to run at an elite level.  I’m fresh out of excuses.