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feedit · 7 years

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Student of the Game

Dad was a lot of things: Father. Husband. Grandfather. Salesman. Foodie. Golfer. Fisherman. Gardener. Water skier. Creative swearer. Carpenter. Photographer. Guitar player. Computer enthusiast. Traveler. He taught me about many subjects, but his most lasting legacy to me was how he lived his life with endless curiosity and enthusiasm. A never-graduating, Student of the Game of Life.

Before it was A Thing, Dad was a foodie. He was the only person I knew who got Gourmet magazine and actually cooked from it in the 1980s. Before Pinterest became an instant recipe delivery device, he recreated his favorite dishes from restaurants he’d gone to on his business trips using just his incredible palate and taste memory. His chili recipe is legendary for its heat and intensity: He claimed it came from Butch McGuire himself (but that is another story).

He flamed Bananas Foster at home and fed us fondue when we were very young (and it became a favorite birthday dinner request). He watched cooking shows like Justin Wilson’s cajun cooking, Julia Child and The Frugal Gourmet. He took my mom to Italy, and upon returning, recreated all their favorite dishes such as carbonara, which became another family favorite. I learned that butter and heat are important ingredients, and more is almost always better. He talked about cooking and recipes constantly. His enthusiasm was contagious.

A great cook needs a great garden, and I remember how he sweated through his shirt as he wrestled the rototiller through the orange, baked clay soil of our side yard in Pennsylvania to create it. He raked and planted and watered and obsessed and watched and worried and finally, harvested. Huge zucchini and cucumbers and tomatoes filed the kitchen and our neighbors’ front porches. I loved to pick and eat the still-warm strawberries from the huge mound he’d constructed near the main garden. He poured over gardening magazines and specialty seed catalogs.

We would walk through the tall rows of tomatoes at the end of the season as the leaves began to curl on themselves, brown and exhausted. Inhaling the scent of tomato leaves, we discussed next year’s crops. Corn, maybe, he said. Or we could try pumpkins to enter in the county fair? I learned about staking tomatoes, watering from the bottom, how to pick off the clinging, iridescent Japanese beetles. He talked about our garden and harvests constantly. His enthusiasm was contagious.

When we moved to Florida, Dad’s interests turned to the sea. We bought a small motor boat and he took to fishing. He invested in high-test fishing line, huge reels and thick fishing rods and Mom got him outriggers for trolling for fish. We watched the sunset on the evening before fishing trips, and the sunrise on morning of just to be sure (Red sky at night, sailors’ delight; Red sky at dawn, sailors take warn). We headed out on the water in the early morning light, equipped with water and snacks and bait in the live well. Sometimes we caught nothing, other times we’d feed the family with Mahi-Mahi or other delicacies and I learned that there are two kinds of people: Those who are sea sick and those who will someday be sea sick. I tied knots and learned how to set the anchor.

We took family vacations to the Florida Keys and fished and snorkeled around John Pennecamp Park in Islamorada each summer. Back home he read fishing magazines, watched fishing shows on TV. He talked about our boat and fishing constantly. His enthusiasm was contagious.

A few years later, he took up golf. Always a sharp dresser, golf was a perfect sport for a clothes and shoe enthusiast and as we’d come to expect, he took to it with his full attention. He’d played for years and done some client golfing but now it was game on. He bought new clubs, joined a golf club, got Mom some shoes (the way to her heart?), took lessons, stayed at the driving range far after dark and at the course every weekend.

He and my mom played together and when we visited home, my sister and brother and I played, too. He read golf magazines, watched golf tournaments and instruction on TV. He traveled to Ireland to golf. I learned not to bet him when we played. He talked about golf constantly. His enthusiasm was contagious.

His birthday is July 28 and while 2017 marks our fifth without him, he’s never far from my mind. I see the patterns of the enthusiasm gene spelled out in my life daily. It’s not enough for me to simply dabble in a new interest or hobby, I must investigate. Study. Learn. Gear Up. Read. Watch. Go Deep. I became a runner, and then I ran Marathons and Triathlons, complete with wet suit, race bike, magazines, gear and trips. I cut my hair to make training easier. I talked about it constantly. My enthusiasm was contagious.

My coffee table is full of cooking magazines and I never met a cookbook that I didn’t long to add to my vast collection. I think about food and cooking more than is probably normal. It’s not enough for me to bake the occasional muffin, I must grow sourdough starter, make bagels, learn how to make jam. I study kitchen store and flour catalogs intently. I talk about my projects constantly and share my successes and failures with family and friends. I Instagram the results. My enthusiasm is contagious.

On the south side of our home, a tomato jungle grows. Three plants gone wild, winding and arching up the trellis of our porch, vines bowed and heavy with the weight of green tomatoes, thick and glistening with summer bounty. I feed them coffee grounds and banana peels and pick off dead leaves and worry about blight and bugs. I run my hands through the leaves and inhale the sweet musky scent.

My sons scramble out each morning to count the baby tomatoes. They pick the red/black cherry variety with careful, chubby fingers. We pop them in our mouths and they burst when we bite these gems, still warm from the sun. We grow mint and lettuce and herbs and harvest them together. We have learned to love what we grow and to grow what we love. We talk about our garden constantly.

Our enthusiasm is contagious.

Happy Birthday, Daddy-o. I love you.

-- Photo of David Reid graciously provided by Joyce Reid, taken in Islamorada, Florida, 1987.

#studentofthegame #momlife #memoriesofdad #happybirthday

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spellyjane · 7 years

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Splash, Hammer, Meh, Yay! Chatty 70.3 RR

I was heading into Chattanooga 70.3 with no taper and a month after IM Texas. My coach and I fit in a bit of speed work but it has been a bit of an adjustment. They are such different races. I have been in Ironman mode since last September. Sounds like a good excuse for a wussy day right!? It isn’t, I had a cracking day, it just did not play out the way I planned it.

My team mate / mate Alex and I hit the road loaded with bikes, coffee and enthusiasm for the long drive from Chicago to Tennessee. Even with a delicious lunch stop in funky Nashville we made good time and arrived in time for race check in.

I am probably never going to be in charge of booking race accommodation again. The Days Inn was truly hideous, truly. But it was walking distance to the race start, it had a bed and a lamp, so some may say it was perfect.

We met up with my race mate Jeff for dinner at a pub on the main street. He had flown in earlier from Denver and was there on a mission to claim a 70.3 WC slot. We had an early dinner so that Alex could go and pick up his wife Theresa from the airport.

So our weekend gang of Alex, Theresa, Jeff and I assembled for breakfast at the Frothy Monkey next door to the Chattanooga ChooChoo hotel. There was a lot of good eating that went on this weekend. We planned our day and got moving.

A little recon ride showed the worst part of the course, the suburban streets were cracked and potholed but brightly marked with orange tape. It hardly seemed possible while we were sweating buckets at the unsheltered 3pm athlete briefing, but the weather forecast for race day was for thunder storms and a 100% chance of rain. After hearing the few key bits we needed to know, we staggered back to our rooms for a pre dinner rest and heat stroke recovery. I must say, those athlete briefings are important BUT sitting us out in the sun for an hour is counter-intuitive. What a crock of shit that weather forecast turned out to be, but at that stage it was a significant concern for all of us.

As we wandered up the street to meet Jeff at the restaurant he reserved for our pre race dinner, we saw formally attired people coming and going from what was obviously our destination. I was lucky to have had the sense of occasion to add a pair of loafers to my shorts and shirt combo but really that is as fancy as my race travel wardrobe goes. We arrived quite under-dressed but clearly oozing enough confidence and our blue athlete wrist bands to carry it off. No spaghetti and red sauce to be found anywhere on the menu we endured with soup with lobster, sorghum buttered bread and some sort of tree fern sprouts. I have eaten pre race fish tacos in mexico, schnitzel in Austria and quinoa in Calgary and know that this pre race dinner in Chatty will be just as memorable!

As we dined the heavens descended and the forecast epic weather arrived violently. We stared out the window of the restaurant all dreading our trip back to our hotel let alone the race the next day. I don’t mind swimming and running in rain but riding my bike in heavy rain is just plain scary. I was thinking about the numerous man hole covers and the road conditions I had seen earlier that day. All I wanted at that stage was a safe race, to not crash my bike or be struck by lightning. I was committed to racing, after all I had to burn off all the calories I had just consumed!

Before bed I pottered around got all my transition gear into plastic bags and just got myself into rain racing mode. I pictured my whole day wet and soggy but killing it anyway. My husband sent me some words of encouragement and I was in bed by 10, I managed an ok sleep. I was up at 4am to see a dry parking lot and low cloud cover. Whoa, I was immediately elated!

I met Jeff on a dark corner near my hotel and we walked up to the race together. He was his usual quiet pre race self, perhaps a little more so because I know he was really wanting a good race and a slot.

I got myself ready, went and found Alex near his bike, he is a special breed of chilled out, after letting some of his vibe rub off on me, I told him I would see him near the swim start, and I went off to collect Jeff for the shuttle bus to the swim start. He was not as chilled. He was staring at me with scary evil possessed eyes. I was horrified until I figured out it was not actually directed at me but the member of his nemesis tri team who had racked his bike next to Jeff’s.

We caught the bus to the swim start, and wandered down to the sub 30 min swim time area. (I was anticipating a sub 30 min swim given the river current.) Alex found us and we chatted away nervously while we waited. Actually I chatted away… Still no sign of rain but the deluge the night before had an impact on the current in the river. They had sent the pros off on the original course, swimming 300m up stream, turning, swimming 100m across then the remaining 1600m downstream. But it was evident that the current was too strong for us mortal age groupers so to the cheers and hurrahs of the crowd around me, they cut the up stream portion. I wasnt saying boo, but I certainly was not thrilled to be doing the short swim. So without the upstream portion we just had a mad 1300m sprint downstream. I got that into my head straight away. Don’t hold back I thought, just get in and go hard.

The rolling start works well when people self seed properly. But oh man of course they don’t. I started with Jeff, Alex putting himself a few mins back waved us off as we stepped over the timing mats and took off. I lost Jeff within a minute. I was pushing. I was breathing every other stroke for most of the way. I was swimming over the top of a lot of people.

I found the step and hauled myself up and headed off to the wet suit strippers. I made the climb up the steep ramp into T1 to Theresa’s cheers. I donned my gear and headed out. Jeff teased me about not wearing bike shoes in transition as he caught me just before the bike mount line, dammit, he may just have a point. Anyway we took off within seconds of each other but he was out of my sight very quickly.

I was feeling super. My plan was to hit watts that would give me an IF of about .82-.83 (Intensity factor, a fraction of normalised power over my functional threshold power, I am talking about dosing my effort based on my known maximum average watts for a 1hr effort, or something like that) The problem was that the rolling hills on the course were causing a lot of bunching. In order to keep clear of other riders and avoid drafting I was pushing up the hills and when ever I found myself caught up in any bunches. I was finding that as I was coming into the back of a slower rider’s draft zone and beginning to over take that another rider would come up into my draft zone to overtake me, but then we would hit a hill and everyone would slow down, I could tell who the hell was overtaking who, it was a nightmare, in the end I just felt the best thing to do was to get well away of it all. I channeled my Team INTENT Tuesday afternoon hammer-time mojo and went nuts. I vaguely recall passing some poor guy on the side of the road having a mechanical as I headed up the steepest climb, turned out that was Jeff fixing his dropped chain. I finally got some clear road as I hit the easiest part of the course. I rode past a flock of big black birds sitting in the grass on the side of the road, apparently they were vultures, they were scary looking ugly things. A bad sign? Not for me, they were there for the female pro I was gaining on.

Jeff came up and passed me with about 5k to go, shortly after that Alex was there. It was amazing that of all the almost 2500 people racing, that I would be lined up behind those 2 right at the finish. Neither was pulling away from me too fast so I caught up, I giggled as I passed Jeff and finished ahead of him. My IF ended up being .85, not ridiculous but not particularly smart given the hilly run course to come.

We all took off into T2. I was on my way out when I realised I still had a top on that I did not want, the awesome volunteer helped me get it off and dropped it back at my bike while Jeff ran past me laughing. Jeff, Alex and I all hit the run course within 30s of each other. They were gone and I was already feeling that my effort on the bike was going to make this a bit of an ugly run. Spectathlete Theresa was ready with a super smile and cheer as I ran by her at least 3 times out on the run course. I could see Alex and Jeff running together for a bit, they both looked great and I was super jealous that I did not have the legs to keep up. It was hilly and there were lots of U turns but it was a great run course. The aid stations were fantastic. I was not holding a pace I needed to hit 1:40, but I sure as heck was not going to let 1:45 slide by. I watched as a girl with a strong run and a “45” inked on her calf cruised by me with about 8k to go. Oh darn, had no hope of matching her pace, but still in decent shape and not completely falling apart I kicked on and managed a not so terrible run after a killer bike and a hilly run course.

I high fived Jeff and Alex and gave Theresa a sweaty kiss at the finish. All of us were happy. Alex finished 20th in the insanely stacked men’s 30-34 AG, Jeff came 8th in his 50-54 AG both very happy with their performances.

I was 3rd in my 45-49 AG with a 4:31. I can’t call this a 70.3 PR because the swim was cut short by 700m, but it was my fastest bike run combo ever. It was not executed the way I planned but when I look at the data and past performances, it really was one of my best days out. I had a smoking fast bike split of 2:24 which was 5th female overall, including the pros, my run was mediocre at 1:43, but over all a very fast day.

After the world’s most refreshing beer we headed down to the insanely hot river front to attend the award ceremony and slot allocation. Alex and Theresa escaped after awards but Jeff and I stayed. He was fairly certain, that he had a slot but it really was not till they called his name that he breathed again. I was holding my breath too. There was a lot of joy!

I passed on my slot because I already picked it up in Racine last year but was thrilled to see it roll down to a girl sitting right by me, again more joy!

Post race dinner at fab Chattanooga find, Urban Stack, was followed by ice cream thick shakes. We happily all fare welled Jeff before wobbling back to our skank hotel.

Alex, Theresa and I drove home via awesome food in Nashville, we sung a little John Denver, read and chatted, they were such great company all weekend.

I send my huge love and thanks to Simon for his support.

I send more huge love and thanks to my coach Rick Schopp, yeah, I am respectable on the bike these days, thanks for getting me there.

Next stop, cheering on my boys this weekend at their 1st triathlon. Lookout Brownlees.

#ironman703 #racewithINTENT #im703chatt

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