Wow! Who knew?

Obviously those of you who are runners must... I got up this morning at 8:30 (which is early for me) and rode my bike ~ actually Mike's, mine has a flat front tire ~ to the library. I took the scenic route back so it was about 4.5 - 5 miles total. I had some movies on hold that I thought I was supposed to pick up yesterday and I wanted to get there before they pulled them off the holding shelf and thought I'd get a little exercise along the way.

Now I'm all showered and feel great with all this extra energy. Someone remind me of this tomorrow when I'm laying in bed not wanting to get up....I need motivation to keep at it. I do have my 20 year reunion coming up at the beginning of November...I'll have to put some sort of picture or something in a prominent spot to keep me going. Mike badgering and bothering me has the opposite effect ~ makes me just want to keep sitting on my butt!

Off to use some of this energy for good!

New Triathlon Equipment.

fresh from a week of camping, i can answer the "will i ever do a tri again?" question with a definite "most likely"

i was even given some new equipment to train in.

...with a little PSA thrown in




and this was the fun we had without beer.

thanks for reading

Just have to put this out there. This guy was on Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show which Mike & I watched last night. In the special features his stuff had me crying. I'd love to see him live...

DUCK!

Sheesh! I got in trouble yesterday for not posting about the darn ducks.

Dunno, maybe this baseball banquet I'm organizing all by myself that's being held tonight for 650 people got in my way. Sorry!

So....ducks....with all this build up from Mike I hope I don't disappoint

Watching those swimmers head out into Anchor Bay was like watching salmon swimming upstream...all the splashing and thrashing was kind of amusing. That picture of the bouys by the way was taken from the end of the dock with no zoom....about 20 yards in front of where the actual start line was. It was as daunting looking in real life as it appears in the picture.

It was a windy morning so the waves in the bay were a little rough and from what Mike said there was a bit of a current so going out was a struggle. We watched about 10 or so people not even make it to the first bouy. The power boat came by and dropped swim noodles in the water for them. Before the boat headed to them Cindy looked out and said Hmmm, those people don't seem to be going anywhere....I guess that's when the boat noticed too.

The swimmers were starting to make their way back to shore. We heard some people yelling to the first few out that they were only about 5 minutes behind their projected time and they should make it up on the bike. Right then we truly realized how rough the water was.

While the swimmers straggled in we noticed a mama duck with her 2 babies swimming around just off the beach. Some of the brilliant spectators started yelling at her to move out of the area, she'd get run over; like she understood. That just caused her to turn and start heading out into the water, into incoming swimmers. All we could imagine then was someone in their swimming zone reaching out a hand and hitting a duck...that would not be a pretty sight.

Suddenly mama noticed the incoming swimmers and started to swim to the right...into more swimmers and then left...into more swimmers and a sea wall. She panicked and started for shore. The whole time the babies were with her until she suddenly made a turn. One baby followed, the other went the other way. At this point...screw the swimmers we were worried about that baby. It kept diving under the water for long periods and coming up 5 feet or so from where it went under. Being under the water was even more scary cuz then we couldn't even warn the swimmers to it's location. Mama was safely off to the side freaking out, spreading her wings and squaking. Baby surfaced next to the sea wall and then wound up going under the dock and way out of harms way. But mama had no idea where baby was. Again, the spectators started yelling to her that baby was on the other side of the dock...again...do you think she understood?

Apparently we are a short attention span crowd because the ducks were forgotten when one guy got about 15 feet from shore, tried to stand up and almost face planted in 2 feet of water. He was white as a ghost and didn't look too good. He kept struggling to get above a kneeling position in the water. I went to one of the teenage volunteers and told him to get medical help. As he stood there not quite sure what to do a couple of spectators waded in and brought him to the beach. He wound up being taken away by ambulance. Mack stayed back and monitored the situation for us while we watched Mike head off on the biking leg of the tri.

There you go, the story of the ducks. I told you it wasn't a huge deal.

"Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man..."

Can a call myself a Tin Man?...Iron seems a little far-fetched right now.

Well, i did not drown, Woo Hoo!!!

Who knew horses could swim. I was jokingly called aClydesdale again, by my swim coach....remember whose husbands butt i kicked ;). Hey she called me a clydesdale, and i was able to correct her that while a Clydesdale is a beautiful animal, i prefer the no-nonsense approach of the Draft Horse.

She appreciated the distinction, as her daughter is starting equestrian stuff. but.....

Back to me.

Here i am at the start. Downtown New Baltimore, city of fish-flies, and Anchor Bay in the northern part of Lake St Clair.

The only known festival celebrating...an insect, but their apperance is a symbol of a living lake.

speaking of lake, bay, whatever...

1/4 mile seems a lot farther when laid out on end in a lake, bay, whatever...There are 4 buoys in this picture. ouch


and here i am waiting, looking at the buoys and thinking....

"just don't be the first guy to wave for help from the lifeguards"

big horn sound aaaaannndd. we're off!!!



Fun Guv called it a bunch of salmon swimming upstream. i stayed to the back....like it was intentional, ha....but i was very surprised by the contact in this part of the sport.

26 minutes later, after one major panic attack, and a bunch of little ones.



It was a long walk, saunter to the bike/run transition area

i brought some G2, took my time and went back to the standard, socks, shoes, shirt, helmet,


aaaannnd, Go..



It was basically a nice bike ride. 11 miles long, it took 39 minutes. i got to see some interesting things in regards to traffic, and "man vs auto" moments but overall nothing odd so....
\

It was admittingly nice to pass some people on the bike portion. After being one of the last out of the water, notice the empty bike racks in previous picture, i was happy to feel a little bit athletic. Also, after watching the number of people thrown "noodles" in the water by life guards and a few broken down bikes and accident bike victims, i was happy to still be on my feet.

Speaking of that, now here we go....my area....the run...3 miles piece of cake, eh?


i mean really, look at the confidence here. where was this an hour and 7 minutes ago??? i like this picture for a couple reasons. One, i'm actually running. proof, finally that yes, both my feet are occasionally off the ground at the same time. Two, i look thin in this picture due to clever choices in attire, (Oprah was right). Three, i'm still smiling. and Four, thanks to clever photo skills, Fun Guv caught me with a decent size fold/bulge going on. This is real trick photography, and thanks to all the people saying "Eeeeewww" to themselves right now. heehee...made ya look

As for me....i'm gonna start looking for an aircraft carrier at nearby Selfridge Base from which i can shout "Mission Accomplished"

yeah, i know....Selfridge is an Air National Guard base, and there are no aircraft carriers in Lake St Clair. Got it....



After the halfway point my run turned....unispired.

It was hot, humid, and really, i was just doing this for the fun and i thought.

"Take a walk, enjoy this, don't set the bar to getting a PR, if you ever do this again, tooo high."

So i walked through the water stations, and chatted with guy in my age group and we rounded the bend. One more corner and the finish.

i had mentioned that my wife would cheer me to go faster and if he wanted to keep up, but he was pooped. Sooooooo.....



At least i wasn't last in my age group. Actually i was 4th from last.

But, i finished, had a good time, and feel super re-invigorated for a good Detroit Marathon train.

Time on the run, 31 minutes, funny eh?? It was a tough overall event.

So there it is...a quick, timely, race report.... with pictures. Soon Fun Guv will throw in her experience, hopefully she blogs about the family of ducks ripped apart from each other by the incomming swimmers. Screw watching the race....the real action on the pier was concern if the momma duck and the ducklings would ever reconnect.

Anyway, i will post after taking some time and reflecting on whether i want to "tri" this again.

Oh yeah, official race times gooooo here

Best guess, 1:39:46

Thanks for reading

Well, there we go ladies and gents...boys and girls.... i always wanted to start a race this way. Toe-ing the line and waiting for the gun to sound as i lift off into an early lead.

Ok, here i am at the 26th annual Pickerel Festival 10k event. It is a beauty for us slowpokes out there. My first year, i was second in my age group, last year although faster in time was a third place finish.

This may be my last sub 40 year old race, so i was going for the gold.

Guess what????? Third group down on this picture, it says Male age group 35-39, place #1 Michael Passmore.

Later an update was printed with the other runner in the age group, he got the silver. (He's a good friend who's wife has been helping me learn to swim for this weekends tri)

OK, yep it's a small race. When the 5k runners and 5k walkers moved up to their start line, y'know a 10th of a mile in front of us, i heard one 10k'er say...

"Guess, we all get a medal today"

...and the obligatory "Steers" at the finish. Notice the "impressive" 49:25...7:58 pace. but Jimmy was there "4" to cheer me on the victory.

After winning my age group, i wanted to take a minute here to officially retire from the 35-39 year old, male age group. i'm taking my game to the masters level.

Thanks for reading

As per Fun Guv,


It was nice to actually see how the Garmin can be used to help when lost in the woods. Four of us from the summer regional went running and....well the trails aren't as well marked as we would have liked and we found ourselves running in the Betsie River trail and not the trail managed by Crystal Mountain.

Quick use of the Garmin and although our 6 miler became a 9 miler. Which kinda sucked for the non-marathon..."6 miles seems long but not too bad" guy in our foursome.

Anyway, back to the expaining my views on "I am Legend". On the surface, a vampire story...with a little zombie stuff thrown in. The real depth of the story is it's evolution theme. The idea that change is a constant and there is no absolute. Our hero's legendary status is due to his ability to walk through the daylight and kill off the vampires as they slept. To the vampire nation which becomes the majority, he is a legend, and feared, and eventually destroyed out of that fear and misunderstanding.

Now, let's compare to the most recent movie version. In which our hero saves humanity, by developing a cure, for this vampirism.....except....nobody seems to ask the vampires if they want to be cured. Even though the vampires show human traits, like organization, communication, intelligence and love, because they are different than the 3 people not changed, the vampires are ill and must be cured.

To draw just one conclusion to today's world, look at the "normal" American opinion of the Muslim world. Many fears and misunderstandings are present, and this is considered a "middle east" religion. But what happens when the majority of Europeans are Muslim????

just something to think about...

Anyway, next week is the Tri...i'm a bit nervous due to the swim, but i should be ok. it's just unchartered waters for me (sorry couldn't waste the obvious pun)

Tomorrow, is my annual run and the Pickeral Festival, in glorious, downtown Algonac....don't blink....It will most likely be my last run in a non-masters division.

thanks for reading

Well we're back from our first summer regional. I can definitely say that a good time was had by all.

Thursday morning we headed up to Crystal Mountain where we would stay for 3 nights. As we approached Cadillac it finally dawned on Jimmy the direction we were headed and he asked how much longer until we got to the Hampton Inn. We had to explain to him that where we would be staying was much nicer than that. When we got to the resort they gave us our room number and told us where to go to get there. Much to our surprise it was a 2 bedroom condo! When we walked in the door the first words out of Jimmys mouth were "Dad, this is no Hampton Inn!"


Mike had a meeting shortly after arriving and I had to join that meeting a little after that so the kids got to spend a little time in the pool. Any time both Mike & I were in a meeting (they had a little spouses meeting Friday morning, more of a get to know the other spouses type thing) and when we had the awards dinner Saturday night the company provided Kids Camp where they had a great time and got to know other kids their age.
The pool area was a lot of fun and we got to spend all day Friday and most of Saturday just hanging out, playing and working on our tans.

Mike & Mack took some time and did the rock wall climb too. Mack never made it to the top, her fear of heights got the best of her, but she gave it one heck of a try and got about 3/4 of the way up.

After Friday night's dinner we were supposed to have the Crystal Coaster to ourselves from 7-9pm. Unfortunately Mother Nature decided to let loose a nice little drizzle right at 6:55. We were informed that the course became unsafe with even just a little bit of water on it due to the felt brakes on the sleds which become essentially inoperable when wet. The good news was they allowed us to use the coaster all day Saturday instead.

It took a lot of convincing to get Jimmy even onto the chair lift. I had to promise he'd go down with me (for some reason he just doesn't trust Mike in these situations...hmmm imagine that) and we'd go slowly down the mountain. He cried the entire ride up and still had a fit at the top. I told him there were 2 ways down walk or ride (at one point we had to do the walk because it started raining about 1 minute after we got on the chair lift so we had to ride to the top and then walk down the hill in the pouring rain...what fun that was!). The girl at the top was very helpful and had Jimmy sit in the sled by himself and showed hime what it was all about. I got in and off we went...after about 10 feet Jimmy was squealing with excitement telling me to go faster...go figure!

We rode it two more times before the rain came. Even though it only lasted about 5 minutes they had to hand dry the track off so it was about another hour before it reopened so we headed back to the pool. Jimmy was chomping at the bit to go back to the coaster, he kept his eye on the ski lift from the pool area and let us know as soon as it started to run again. We went down 3 more times and each time Jimmy kept pushing the lever to go faster and faster. He told me on the way down that this was the "bestest day of his life". He still has the wrist band on in case we go back there he can ride it again!



Believe it or not, in between all the fun, dinners and lunches provided Mike did learn a lot in his meetings and now he's at working putting all that information to good use. He also got a chance to go for a run two of the mornings. I'll let him post about that...the 6 mile run that turned into 9 because they got lost...and the Sunday morning hang over run.

I have to say this company is awesome. There were 79 FAs there this weekend with their families (approximately 70 +/- kids) and we got the chance to get to know quite a few of them. From people that have been with the company 20 years to some that are still in the study mode that Mike was in last summer/fall. Mack has a couple of new buddies that maybe she'll be babysitting soon, two little boys that live nearby really attached themselves to her. She also made friends her own age, of course they live on the other side of town.

Next years trip will be Mackinac Island where we will be taking over Mission Point Resort. The kids are already looking forward to it.