My First Tri

May 4, 2011 in Events | No comments

The event timesheet. (Click for larger view.)

Woo hoo! Yes; finished.

After six years in attempt, and six months in training, I finally successfully entered — and completed — my first triathlon! In a field of about 4,000, the St. Anthony’s is an Olympic, or mid-distance event; not as short as the Sprint distance, and for sure, not the Ironman distance. Just short of a mile for the swim, 25 miles for the bike, finishing with 6.2 miles for the run. And along with reaching that goal, I am delighted to say that I accomplished every other goal as well.

The night before the event, I didn’t sleep well. I went to bed with my heart pounding, and kept waking up every two hours, looking at the clock. How soon? In the end, I got up just before my alarm went off at 5:10am. The race-coaching manuals counseled that pre-race breakfast was “non negotiable.” But I still couldn’t eat. Had one piece of toast, and took one with me just in case.

 

It was eerie walking to the event. In that almost cold and breezy morning, I saw hordes of men and women streaming towards the organizational start — all in the pitch black night. Wow; and we’re going to do this thing? Most everyone was either silent or subdued, with thousands gathering, answering an unseen call.

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World Peace

April 2, 2010 in Politics, Thoughts | No comments

I use that title, a little tongue-in-cheek. But it has merit. Last night, Mom and I went to a lecture by Philippe de Montebello, the former 30-yr Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York. An absolutely delightful evening.

Story #1.
At the Q & A session afterward, someone posed the question, “What is your opinion regarding returning ancient works of art to its historical country?” His answer–as most of the rest of his talk–was deep. And caused me to think. And this does go to World Peace, if you track with me just a little bit:

He said, in many cases, how exactly can you determine the country of history? Not that you don’t know where it was made; but really, where is the history? For one example, he talked about a famous piece in Italy. And the Italians are very protective of it. Except that it was brought to Italy centuries earlier, (if I remember correctly) having been removed from it’s original country during the Crusades.

In another example, a like piece now resides in London’s Museum of Art, also having come from some other area of the world, centuries earlier. So where does it belong, is the postulate? Although created elsewhere, London found this piece many years ago, in the process of being systematically destroyed by tourists taking piece after piece off of it. And preserved it. And this is the point: Where is the history? It’s all history. Created here; almost lost there. Transported who knows where in between. Yet, each event had a hand in it’s history.

Story #2.
Around the mid-1980′s there was a devastating fire in Yellowstone National Park, destroying a significant number of the trees throughout. A roommate had planned a trip across country to see the park, and had mused how unfortunate the chosen timing to see the park this way. I thought for a second and responded, “On the contrary.. This is actually one of the rarest times to see the park: Forests have cycles of growth, and then fire, to clear away all the years of dead growth on the forest floor. All part of the natural cycle. And, this was actually an opportunity to see a part of that cycle that wouldn’t be seen for another hundred years. An opportunity of a lifetime.”

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Hello world!

April 2, 2010 in Uncategorized | No comments

Ah, the Internet! For those who follow this blog (which is really only me, I’m sure) you’ll note that my previous posts are gone. All two and a half of them. This is what happens when you make the teeniest little digital error, like listing your same blog database name in two different areas, to see everything overwritten by the new installation. Alas, it’s all gone; all two of them.

The tragedy is that I liked those blog entries. Actually there was history to them. In fact, I referenced one of them this week, as it discussed an eating protocol, The Perricone Prescription, with which I had lost significant weight and cholesterol points last I did it. I couldn’t remember the details, so I referred back — to find, to my amazement, that it was about 64 cholesterol points dropped, in mid ’08. (So there; I squeezed the info back in for future reference.)

Anyway, the dilemma: should I try and reconstruct the previous posts? You just know that one never writes it as well as the first time.

So, I tell myself it was a lost work of art; and I move, regretfully forward. :)