Darth Dad

Back in the late 1980’s the Atlanta Track Club had a 50 mile race they put on in January. I ran it 4 times between 1986 (34 years old) and 1991 (39 years old). My worst time was 6:55:48; a pace of 8:19/mile. My best time was 6:43, which placed me third in 1990. That was an average pace of 8:04/mile. Surely they gave me hours, minutes, and seconds, but after running that far I really didn’t care if it was one second, or 59 seconds. My running log doesn’t show the seconds.

The race was held at Stone Mountain Park. There is a fairly hilly road around the mountain that is 5 miles long. Ten laps around the mountain yielded a 50 mile road race course. I’ve run that road every Saturday and Sunday since 1975, so of course I was compelled to run the race.

One of the years I ran the 50-miler I had an interesting encounter during the race. It was an unusual moment that I will never forget. I rarely tell this story because it is barely believable and some may consider it, well, overdramatic and self aggrandizing. I hope that I can do it justice in the retelling. My presence may have meant nothing, or everything; it’s hard to know.

I was running okay that year. I was at the 36 mile mark and had 14 miles left to go. This guy passed me moving pretty quickly and with excellent running form. He was clearly the leader of the race and I had just been lapped. So this guy was at the 41 mile mark and had only 9 miles left to go.

I never considered trying to keep up with this guy and draft for a while. He was so much faster it wasn’t an option for me. If I wanted to finish the race I needed to maintain my pace. I watched him run away from me, admiring his running form and his pace, and he was about 100 yards ahead of me when he suddenly started walking; on a downhill no less! Un-by-god-believable!

Leaders of races never walk and never quit. The reason they are able to lead a race is because they never walk and never quit. These guys are the best. I figured he had to be injured. This was really too bad because the nearest help was 4 miles in the direction we were headed , or one mile back in the direction we had just traveled.

Since he was walking it didn’t take me too long to catch up to him. When I caught him I stopped to walk with him and check his status. In a normal race I would have blown on by without saying a word. This was a 50 mile race. What’s the hurry? A little walking wouldn’t do me any harm and it seemed like the neighborly thing to do.

So when I caught him I said “Are you okay”?
He said “I’m done”.
“You’re done?” I said with surprise.
“Yeah, I’m done. I quit. It’s over.”

This was an awkward moment. He’d clearly run too hard, too soon, and had broken his own will. As a runner you hope to drive your competitors to mentally quit, but this guy was leading the entire race, second place was nowhere in sight, and he had driven himself so hard that he was quitting right there. This is rare. Most runners have the good sense to monitor their own physical and mental wellbeing and back away from the breaking point; bump up against it, yes, but not break.

This guy had done the mental equivalent of driving his car into a telephone pole and I was the first one on the scene of the accident. This was a psychological car wreck. I wasn’t a trained psychologist, but there was nobody else around to handle this, so I figured it was up to me to fix it.

I was walking with him while all these thoughts were running through my head. It took a moment or two for me to decide to take a chance by saying and doing something that really could seem odd to most folks. Could? Hell, what I had in mind was totally odd by anyone’s definition. This could really be embarrassing for me if it didn’t work, but if it did work, and this guy could finish the race, wouldn’t that be worth the risk of my own embarrassment? Maybe I could keep this secret and nobody would ever know.

So I said something like the following. I took my time saying it so each part would sink in deep and could be processed by a brain that wasn’t fully functioning at the time –

“I know you’ve run a lot of races. Remember how you finish the race and are totally wasted? Remember that moments later as you are walking through the finish chute you can feel the glycogen refueling the muscles in your legs and they don’t feel quite so bad? And by the end of the chute you are rethinking the entire race and wondering if you couldn’t have run a little harder here or there, because, after all, suddenly you don’t feel so bad? After a little more walking your legs feel much better and you are sure you could have run faster; in fact, you are ready to run a warm down.”

“Can you feel that happening now? Do you feel the fuel flowing back into your muscles? Every moment you are getting stronger and feeling better. Your blood stream is doing its job; bringing energy to your body. Give it some time. And while your body recovers feel the sun on your face and the energy that brings, and the beauty of the day, and these woods, and let all of that nourish your soul.”

He continued to walk in silence, so I went on to say and do what might seem ridiculous, but seemed perfectly logical after 36 miles of running.

“I’m not feeling too bad. I am pretty sure I can finish this race. I think I have some extra energy I can spare. So don’t freak out, but I am going to take your hand and hold it. (And I did) Open your mind to the possibility that some form of life, energy, psychological wellbeing, or whatever you want to call it can flow from one person to another. Feel it, or imagine it, it makes no difference. Let your mind recharge like a battery. At the very least feel the spirit of good intentions and let them help you recover.”

After a little time passed I thought he might be ready to run again, so I let go of his hand and we continued to walk, and I said my final words.

“Pretty soon now you are going to feel ready to run again. You will know when you are ready to take that first step. I am going to continue walking. I am not going to run off and leave you behind. You are going to run off and leave me behind. Start out slow and easy at a pace you know you can hold all the way to the finish. Take it easy on the up-hills. Walk if you need to, but just remember that walking isn’t quitting in a 50-mile race. Keep moving toward the finish. Finishing is the same thing as winning in a race this long. Finish the race.”

And so he did resume running. He ran off and left me. I started running again soon thereafter, but I couldn’t run anywhere close to the pace he was running.

When I finished the race my boss was there at the finish. I asked who had won. The winner had already gone home, but my boss said that the winner had told the volunteers at the finish that some guy out on course deserved credit for his finishing, and winning, the race. I like to think that guy was me.

Posting Schedule

I have a job, and miles to run, and a dump truck of wood chips on the driveway that need to be distributed. I’ve therefore decided to give up on my original intention to post something every other day. That is a pace I simply cannot maintain. This blog is supposed to be fun for me, not a chore, so I’ve decided to back off to posting one piece a week. I’ve got nine pieces ready to post at the moment. That gives me a nine week break before I need to come up with something new. That’s the deadline I’ve set for myself.

I have 18 pages of one-line subjects and stories that are under construction. Perhaps I can actually finish a couple of them before my nine weeks are up. Perhaps I will find the motivation I am lacking between now and then.

Here are the titles for the next nine posts. I intend to post them sometime each weekend.

29 Aug Darth Dad
05 Sep Blog Focus
12 Sep Back Seat
19 Sep Scout Camp Swim
26 Sep Lectures
03 Oct Recovering Parent
10 Oct Littering
17 Oct Marco Island
24 Oct Sailing with Dad

Redemption Center

Ann started running with me and the rest of the running group out at Stone Mountain beginning with the summer of 1994, just prior to starting the seventh grade. We had a pretty good running enclave that included runners of all ages, and most were quite capable and competitive.

As a rising seventh grader with a modest mileage base, Ann could keep up with the group for a couple miles, but couldn’t immediately manage the full 5-mile loop; no one that young could. She went the distance, but not the pace we were running for the whole distance. As the weeks went by, and Ann ran with me on the weekdays as well as the weekends, each weekend she was able to keep up with the group for greater distances, and eventually kept up for the entire 5-mile loop. It was a rite of passage into adulthood.

Our group didn’t “run for fun”. Our group ran because we enjoyed competition. We would often run sociably for a couple miles to warm up, but then it was time to jack up the pace to find out who was at the top of the totem pole that day. Many workouts turned into races. This is the running environment Ann grew up in. It wasn’t long before Ann was joining me at 5K and 10K races around the Atlanta area and all over Georgia.

As I said, the training often resembled a race, so the training gave us a close approximation of what we were capable of over a range of distances. We had a pretty good idea of what time to shoot for at a 5K or 10K race. Because of our competitive environment, we didn’t shoot for conservative times. We targeted times that were ambitious, and it was all too easy to miss the targeted time due to the least imperfection in race conditions or fitness.

Most road races were on Saturday mornings, so we would find ourselves at Stone Mountain on Sunday mornings having failed to attain the unreasonable times we had set for ourselves. We called these Sunday morning runs “The Redemption Center” or “Redemption Runs”.

Ann and I, and the rest of the group, would bitch and moan about how we had failed to run the impossible times we had set for ourselves the day before. We never concluded that the target time was too fast, or the race conditions were sub-optimal, or our fitness was lacking. We always concluded that we had wimped out, or our bodies had betrayed us, and so we had to punish ourselves and our bodies for the failure of the day before.

So it was that after only a mile of warm-up on Sunday, the day after a race, at least one of us would jack up the pace to a self-punishing level to prove that we weren’t as bad as we felt. Usually all of the racers would join the punishment posse, and the folks who had not raced would join in because they were “fresh meat” and could keep up with little difficulty.

We knew logically that it was scientifically wrong to run hard two days in a row, but we did it anyway because our emotional sides needed it. We were angry with ourselves, we were angry with the results, we were angry with our failure, and it felt like we were doing something about it. Unfortunately, what we were doing was stupid.

I remember Ann had a high school race that she felt was particularly poor. She was in a real foul mood in the car on the way home and I could tell she was going to be a real pain in the butt for days until she had a really good workout, or a really good race, and thereby redeem (there is that word again) that day’s race and the resulting poor self image.

When we got home it was late on a Saturday night. I suggested that Ann go to Mountain Park Park (not a typo) and do a Redemption Run on the soft trail in the woods. The sun had been down for hours, but off we went anyway. I accompanied Ann for several hard miles on the trail, narrowly avoiding trees that suddenly loomed up in the darkness as the trail wove its way through the woods. Eventually fatigue set in, and better sense prevailed, and one of us finally came to the realization that “this is nuts!”

We had a good laugh. The Redemption Run had done its job and we headed home for showers and comfortable beds.

Driving to the Beach

Many of my blog pieces seem to revolve around going to the beach. This is yet another one. It is a short story about a fond memory.

When Ann and John were small we often went to Topsail Island, NC for our summer vacation. We would leave as soon as the Gwinnett County Swim League Championship meet was over.

One year John was on a relay that was scheduled for late Saturday afternoon. It was an 8-hour drive to the beach and check-in for the beach cottage was 3-6pm. Ann, Jean, and Grandma headed for the beach after Ann’s morning swim so they could get the key for the beach house. John and I headed for the beach in a separate car after his afternoon swim.

John and I left from the pool in Snellville, GA around 4pm. John wasn’t old enough to drive yet, but fulfilled the roll of navigator with gusto. Whenever we traveled we always made sure that Ann and John had maps so they could follow along. They kept us informed of our progress and made sure we didn’t miss important turns in the route. We always gave them jobs they could handle, and navigator was just that sort of job.

Since John and I left so late, and I was the only driver and needed breaks along the way, our ETA was well after midnight. The fond memory is simple and silly. I remember it was way after 10pm and we were driving along on some deserted two-lane road in the middle of nowhere North Carolina. The moon was full, it was a beautiful summer night, we were making good time, and there was no traffic. We rolled down all the windows, stuck our heads out, and howled at the moon with everything we had. We gave our best imitation of hound dogs at the top of our lungs with the wind in our faces. It was great fun!

I hope John remembers that simple moment as fondly as I do. I think it was one of my, no, OUR better immature moments. Perhaps we are moments away from yet another one. You have to grow old, but you don’t have to grow up. I resemble that.

Excuses or Choices

In high school I didn’t find it too difficult to participate in cross country, wrestling, track, concert choir, church youth group, church choir, song and dance troupe, two years of orchestra, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and was a non-speaking cast member in school plays. My grades were good, but nothing to shout about. I just assumed I wasn’t the brightest bulb in the chandelier. It never occurred to me that my extracurricular activities might have an impact on my grades.

Wilkinson, my high school track coach, said that I had too many irons in the fire and none of them could get hot. Being a city boy, it took me a while to figure out the branding analogy. To placate Wilkinson I dropped out of the running for concert choir president, and Fellowship of Christian Athletes president. Wilkinson was not the least bit placated. In retrospect I wonder how good I could have been at one or two things, rather than trying to do everything.

I had the same issues in college. I was doing a double major in Math and Physics. I was working 20 hours a week in the computing center. I was working a full-time job every summer and most spring breaks. I had track or cross-country workouts that consumed every afternoon during the school year, and kept up the regimen during the off-season. There was no time to do two-a-day workouts like I did in high school. I still had too much going on, and it showed up in my running times, and also in my grades, which were good, but again, nothing to shout about. I never ran close to my high school racing times. College academics were too time consuming; imagine that!

If I had pursued easier academic subjects and had not studied so hard in college, I might have been a better runner. If I didn’t study so hard, I might not have my current job. If I didn’t work my way through college maybe I wouldn’t have had the money to finish. If I didn’t do all those high school activities maybe I wouldn’t have been accepted to college in the first place. If I hadn’t been accepted to college I might not have met Jean. If, if, and more ifs. I have yet to find the right combination of “ifs” that would have yielded everything I wanted. It simply wasn’t possible to do it all, and that is my greatest regret.

As the great cartoon philosopher Popeye the Sailorman said, “I am who I am.” I am the sum total of the choices I’ve made over my lifetime. It does no good to wonder what might have been. Speculating on past choices is useful only if the same choice is available in the future; not too likely. I did the best I could, making the choices I did, with the knowledge I had at the time. I guess I’ll have to be satisfied with that.

All of this is simply a prelude to a message for Ann and John about their choices thus far. I am pleased and proud of the choices you’ve made; as if that wasn’t already abundantly clear through the content of this blog. I hope that you are as pleased with your choices as I am. I would not change a thing. It would be my wish that you not obsess too much over what you could have, would have, or should have; or in our native tongue, “coulda, woulda, shoulda”. In the fractured English that I enjoy so much, “Ya done good”, now move on.

Junior Nationals

I think it was the August 2000 Junior National swim meet at the University of Florida that Coach Hugh was unable to attend. Prior to the meet Hugh went over the target splits for the 1500 meter freestyle with John and left instructions with one of the other coaches who would be on deck to give signals.

In the distance events the swimmer will occasionally glance at the coach while taking a breath during the swim. The coach has various hand signals that say “speed up” or “great pace”. I don’t think they would ever say “slow down”, but I am sure the gesture would be recognizable on the spot.

The stand-in coach did his duty giving signals to John from the swimming pool deck during the 1500 meter freestyle. I was sitting up in the stands writing down splits with a couple of the other coaches from the Dynamo Swim Club. John did the 1500 meter freestyle in 16:17.45, which was a top 16 time and an improvement of 31 seconds on his best time. It was a phenomenal swim.

When the stand-in coach returned to the stands and sat with the other coaches he said, “Man, that was fun! I told him to speed up, and he sped up. I told him to hold steady, and he held steady. He did everything I told him to do. That’s what coaching is supposed to be like. I wish I had swimmers like that!” I smiled. Dads love hearing praise about their kids.

John tells me now that he did the Junior Nationals 1500 in a borrowed “jammer” suit that had a hole in the butt. If you will, imagine the start of the race. If you recall the Drag Suit posting, Jean and I still hadn’t caught up on buying the proper gear, but we are not taking the blame this time.

Academic Workshop

In the spring of 1999 Ann was finishing up her junior year of high school. A flyer arrived in the mail that spring inviting her to a one week Invitational Academic Workshop (IAW) at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

The West Point web site describes the IAW as “a fast-paced program of academic workshops, military training, physical fitness training and intramural athletics conducted during the second or third week in June each year. West Point cadets serve as squad leaders for all aspects of the week-long workshop.” The week-long workshop cost a couple hundred dollars plus the airfare.

Though Ann didn’t have anything important planned for the summer she didn’t express any interest in the workshop. In fact, Ann was rather negative about it. I personally think she did not want to burden us with the cost. Given the history of West Point and its graduates, Jean and I thought this would be a good experience for Ann. Ann had never been to the northeast and we thought it would be a great adventure for her. Ann remained unconvinced

I thought the topic was dead several weeks later when Jean called me at work. Jean made an impassioned case about how we had been spending buckets of money on John’s swim club dues, swim meet entry fees, and travel expenses all over the southeast. She pointed out how cheap it had been to support Ann’s running by only purchasing shorts, shoes, socks, singlets, and the occasional entry fee for a road race. Jean insisted that Ann should go to the IAW. The only problem was that the IAW application had to be postmarked THAT DAY.

By this time I’d firmly learned the lesson that “If momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” I quickly acquiesced to Jean’s wishes. I was actually all for it; I’ve always been a fan of the military. I just didn’t know how Jean was going to get Ann to go!

Jean found the application and filled it out. She drove to the high school and got Ann out of class. We’d never gotten Ann out of class before and it scared Ann to death. I suspect that Ann quickly added up what Jean had done so far and came to the same conclusion that I did. Resistance was futile. Ann agreed to go to the IAW and signed the application. With the signed application in hand, Jean drove straight to the Post Office to get the envelope postmarked.

In the weeks leading up to the workshop Ann told me firmly several times “Dad, don’t get your hopes up. I am going to West Point for the workshop, and I am going to have FUN, but I am NOT going to West Point for college!”

The IAW was before September 11, 2001, so Jean and I were allowed to go out to the airplane’s gate to greet Ann when she returned from West Point. When we spotted Ann coming out of the gate she was talking with two of the most intelligent looking, handsome, clean-cut, all-American young men I had seen in years. I thought “Way to go, Ann!” As Ann separated from the two fellows she said to them “See you guys next year!”

As the veteran father of a teenage daughter I knew to keep my mouth shut, but I was desperately curious what that remark meant. Just this once I kept my mouth shut. As we walked down the hallway towards baggage claim Jean and I exchanged quizzical glances. Ann said, “I suppose you’re wondering what that was all about. (Long pause) I made more friends in one week at West Point than I’ve made in a lifetime in Lilburn. That’s the first place I’ve felt like I belonged. I want to go to West Point.” Ann had many close friends at home; Lilburn was a great community, but West Point was packed with people who were just like her.

I thought Ann was really mature to change her mind about West Point in spite of her earlier comments. Not many teenagers would do that. She had new information from a first-hand experience, and she acted on it. Go, Ann.

Drag Suit

John knew next to nothing when he began his career in year-round swimming. Each year brought some new piece of knowledge or revelation about the sport. Jean and I knew less than John did, so we were of little use to him other than driving and paying the bills. All swimming knowledge came from outside the family from coaches, other swimmers, or parents of swimmers. It was amusing how many times John, Jean and I would look at each other with expressions that said, “I didn’t know that!” We had one of those moments at the Senior Region meet in 2000.

John had a good coach and improved continuously throughout his swimming career. In the spring of 2000 John qualified for the Senior Region meet in South Carolina. (It wasn’t his first time at Region) At that meet he was shooting for qualifying times for the Junior Nationals swim meet, and was successful in the 500, 1000, and 1650 yard freestyle. The qualifying times for Junior Nationals were extremely fast that few swimmers could accomplish.

At the conclusion of the 1650 Coach Hugh stopped by the warm-down pool to talk over the split times with John. Hugh was visibly agog at the swimsuits John had worn during the race. John was wearing two old ratty suits that would qualify as “drag” suits, and Hugh had a good laugh. “I’ve never seen a kid swim Junior National times while racing in drag suits”. It was quite an accomplishment to swim Junior National qualifying times, but to do it while handicapped by a drag suit was doubly difficult. Hugh was basically saying “who knows how fast this kid could have gone in the proper swimsuit.”

Apparently John’s suits were insufficient for racing at this level. Jean and I didn’t know that suits were important. One of us surely said for the umpteenth time, “I didn’t know that!” After that we paid better attention to keeping John supplied with proper swim gear. Actually, we pestered John regularly because he wasn’t as diligent as he could have been about letting us know his equipment needs. Was that cryptic enough? He got better at this over time.

Age Appropriate Books

When our kids were young we often spent a week at Topsail Island, NC for our summer vacation. It was an eight hour drive to the beach from Lilburn, GA. I remember this one year that we were on our way driving for only an hour or so when Ann piped up that she had finished her book. Ann was in middle school at the time and asked what I had that she might read. I always took several books to the beach, and so tossed one over the back seat. I was a little annoyed that she had not thought ahead to bring some books of her own, but was also tickled that she was willing to tackle the same novels that I was reading. She always did read well above her age/grade level.

A day or two later Ann had finished the book and sought me out. She asked, “Dad, did you read that book you gave me?” “No”, I replied, “Not yet”. She said, “I don’t think you meant to give me that book.” “Really?” I said, “Why not?” Ann smiled and suggested that I read the book.

The book was Rising Sun by Michael Crichton. When I read the book I discovered that it contained some sex; not just plain sex, but some unusual sex. It was a good book, Michael Crichton writes well, but that one bit of content was not “age appropriate”. I sought Ann out and apologized for giving her that book to read. She smiled, like she’d got away with something, and she had.