Run Tuff

The Thomas D. Macrini Sports Hall of Fame is the Hall of Fame for the Wappingers Central School District. Athletes who are selected have to be out of school ten years before they can be nominated. Some athletes get in the first year they are eligible. Like  the hall of fame for pro sports, some athletes don't get in their first year of eligibility, but do get in later.

This is quite an amazing year for John Jay athletes who were involved in cross country and/or track and field. There are twelve athletes being inducted, nine of whom participated in strictly cross country and/or track.  Three others had another sport at which they also excelled.

If you are a John Jay grad you might recognize some of these names:
Kate Hack (Rusin) – xc/track and field
Dan Jordy – xc/track and field
Jeff Long – xc/track and field
Kelly McCloskey – xc/track and field
Ted Turner – xc/track and field
Tim Walker – xc/track and field
Greg VanDeCarr  – xc/track and field
Travis VonStaden – xc/track and field
Rob Giandalone – track and field
Matt Flaherty – track and field/soccer
Jen McCracken – xc/track and field/softball
Corin Racicot – track and field/field hockey

It sure makes an old coach proud!
 

Being a cyclist is all about defensive riding. You're on the road with all sorts of large, hard vehicles while equipped with only a helmet for protection. Any physical encounter with one of those vehicles is a no-win situation so it's all about being alert and expecting the people driving said vehicles to do something stupid. Most of the time they are observant and courteous – sometimes not so much.

A few weeks ago a woman and her friend pulled right out in front of me while I was going along pretty much at my top speed. I screamed and hit the breaks at the same time. Fortunately, I had seen her coming to the "Stop" sign and was keeping a close eye and had time enough to tuck in behind her. When she heard me yell and saw me in rear view mirror she proceeded to stop dead in the middle of the road. I almost hit her again. She and her friend rolled down their windows and apologized profusely. They had not seen me at all, even though I was dressed in a bright colored biking jersey. Scary. About five minutes later I'm riding along at a good clip and a car starts to back out of a driveway right in front of me. I swerved, the car stopped and I went on my way. Guess who it was. Yup, the same lady, minus her friend whose driveway she must have been backing out of.

A couple of days ago I'm out for a nice ride on a beautiful, sunny, warm day in December when another car pulls out in front of me. Again, I had seem him coming toward the intersection and was able to break and yell at the same time. Like the ladies, he stopped in the middle of the road and rolled down his window. His reaction was not an apology, but a nasty, "You got something to say?"

"Yes I do. I had the right of way"

His non-apologetic reply, "I didn't see you."

"Come on man, I'm dressed in bright red!"

"You are?" I wasn't quite sure how to respond to such a bizarre question,  so I just pointed at my jersey.

His ever clever comeback was, "You got anything else to say?"

I sure did. "You need to drive more carefully. There are lots of cyclists on the roads in our community."

His answer to that was to tell me to go ahead down the road. I politely refused, instead telling him to go first because I did not want him coming along behind me where I couldn't see him. He didn't see the humor in that idea, but at least went on his way.

Tee times were tight today with the courses closing at noon because of the holiday party for all the Club employees. My friend and I ended up getting paired with a husband and wife couple. When I signed in, the desk told me we were paired with Wolf and Kitty. I made Kitty's acquaintance on the driving range as I was warming up in the 42-dgree temperatures. She said her husband, Wolf, would be showing up soon, but he might be a bit grumpy as she had gotten him up out of a warm bed to join her after her original playing partner for the day had called in sick. Turns out Wolf is a spry 78-year old who shoots his age, while Kitty is 75, going on 50.

It was quite an adventure playing with these two seasoned golfers, both of whom retain their German accents despite having been in the US for most of their lives. Wolf never missed a fairway and his short came was aptly described by Kitty as impeccable. Kitty was almost as consistent. Her one flaw was her putting where she tended, like me, to putt too hard, which she attributed to both of us as having more brawn than brains. I certainly couldn't ague with that.

I was having one of my erratic days – a few good holes, then a few bad holes. At one point, on the third bad hole in a row, I was back and forth over the green from one sand trap to another three times. After the hole, Wolf put his arm around me and looked me straight in the eye and said, "In Germany we have an old saying for that, 'You stink!'". My partner and I had a really good laugh over that. Kitty, on the other hand,  did not think it was so funny. My partner heard her scolding Wolf for saying such a thing to a poor guy like me. When Wolf mentioned that he had been reprimanded, I told him I thought what he said was great. It certainly was a true evaluation of my play and a wonderful, lighthearted moment to help me get through those bad holes. After that I played the next three holes quite well, putting a decent finish on an otherwise tough day.
 

All golfers lose some golf balls. Bad golfers lose more golf balls. New golfers lose even more golf balls. Bad, new golfers lose the most golf balls. About a month ago I noticed I was running low on golf balls – AGAIN. What to do? I had seen a couple of ads for used balls for sale by people who live nearby. The balls were pretty cheap and I was seriously thinking about buying a few dozen. Then I had one of those "aha!" moments. Those guys were finding those balls on the same courses I play on.

I needed a plan. There are five or six holes within a nice easy walk from my house that have lots of places where people hit balls that are difficult to get to because they tend to be thick or behind water. With a little ingenuity and the use of Google maps I figured out a way to get to many of them. I'm sure the real ball hawkers have also figured it out, but these were probably places they didn't get to often. The first time I went out I managed to get into a spot where I knew lots of balls ended up and that I had a feeling was hardly ever gotten to. Within about 20-minutes I found almost sixty balls, most of them in very good condition. Since then I've taken a few other walks, never coming back with less than twenty balls. Today I took a short walk just before dark and found thirty-one. I've even found two with my own marking on them.

Many people mark their balls in some way or another: a red circle around the trademark, three blue dots, a triangle, a smiley face, etc. Some people put on their initials. Today I found one that may belong to a friend of mine. It's his initials. The thing is, he has only a two handicap, so if it is his, I'm going to give him a bit of flack for loosing a ball.

Almost everyone marks their ball with permanent marker, but I've found a few with printed on id's. I really liked the one that said, "Fia's Grandpa's Ball". Today I found a rather unique one: "IF FOUND RETURN TO GINA CECIL ATTORNEY AT LAW'. It's a nice, new Top Flight  XL Distance. Just for fun, I Googled her. It turns out she's a local attorney with an office about 10-minutes away. I'm debating whether I should stop in and give her back her ball. I would be more inclined to return it if her printed message had included the word "please".

Postscript: I've since found two more of Gina's errant golf balls, the first two of which I have already lost.

It's been a wonderful holiday week in NY. Up until today it's been perfect weather. The funny thing is, even though today is overcast and damp, it's 15-degrees warmer here than back in North Carolina. I think the world is upside down.

Of course, the best part of the trip is seeing the grandkids. The only downside of that was, Hazel, who is usually full of energy and non-stop fun was suffering from a nasty cold. She really wanted to play with her cousins, but was feeling so lousy that she couldn't muster the strength.

Madison and I took a nice walk and spent a long time playing Pooh Sticks, a game Winnie the Pooh invented. It's a nice feeling to pass along a game you played as a kid to one of your grandchidren.

Until today I didn't know her name. I've seen her from a distance many times, late in the afternoon, oft times at almost twilight, walking the golf course with a fist full of clubs. Never being close enough to tell, for a long time  I wasn't sure if she was a man or a woman. I finally decided that with the diminutive stature she must be a woman. Yesterday Marlene and I were out for a twilight walk and I spotted her leaving the seventh green and heading down the cart path to cross the road not too far in front of us. As she strode across the road, holding her clubs behind her in two hands, I was finally able to count her clubs – four. Later that night, lying in bed attempting to sleep with a stuffy nose and racking cough, I wondered what her four clubs were. Then I tried to figure out what four clubs I would carry. I decided first on my three hybrid iron. It would serve as my driver and my fairway long shot club. I don't use any woods at all, so it was an easy choice. For my second club I was stuck between my six iron and my seven iron, finally deciding on the seven. The third club would have to be a wedge, either pitching or sand. I decided the pitching wedge would work best for me. The putter for a fourth choice was easy.

As good fortune would have it, when I showed up at the clubhouse today at 3pm to walk nine holes before it got dark, guess who came walking out the door. She looked at me and said, "I'm going to walk in front of you. Don't worry I won't slow you down." Now I'm not certain how old she is, but I am certain she' s older than I am. I smiled and told her I had often seen her walking. Then I asked her what the four clubs were. She carries a three wood for off the tee, a six iron for all  her fairway shots, a sand wedge and her putter. Her comment was, "That's all you need."

When I checked in to play, I asked Bill, the man working the counter, what her name was. "That was Betsy. I told her she had to start right away because you were coming in to play. She said not to worry, I won't hold him up." She didn't!

I've had some nasty colds in my life. I can't remember one as nasty as this one.

This blog was originally titled Run Tuff Running Reflections, but somehow the top of the banner seems to be cut off. I'm not sure when that happened. Maybe it coincides with the onset of my case of plantar fasciitis that has put a stop to my running since June.  Since that time there have not been many posts about running so maybe the title just felt kind of superfluous and made itself disappear.

Back when I was running and blogging more about running, I often made reference to battling on despite getting older, slower and more injury prone. Sometimes I even touched on why I felt us aging warriors continued to lace up our racing flats. Well, one of my favorite bloggers of all time, who now writes for Running Times, has written a piece on just that topic.

You can read Pete Magill's article here.

Although I'm not a big TV fan, back when my kids were younger I often watched some shows with them. There were some favorites – Little House on the Prairie, Dukes of Hazard, and Family Ties were among them, for very different reasons. Little House was good, wholesome, family values, Dukes had Daisy and Family Ties had this short, smart, wise cracking kid played by Michael J Fox. He was a guy I could identify with, especially the short part.

When I saw him in Back to The Future I was even more impressed. The guy could skateboard and play the guitar. Little did I know that the music from the scene (one of my favorites in the movie) with him playing Johnny B. Goode was actually done by a studio musician.

It was really a shock when he announced in 1998 that he had Parkinson's Disease. As you probably know, he has pretty much dedicated himself to working to help find a cure for the disease. What you may not know is that he's also dedicated himself to learning to play the guitar. Check out this video of him actually playing Johnny B. Goode at "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Cure Parkinson's" event recently. Read the short article first, then watch the video. Like the person who wrote the article, it gave me chills. http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Watch-Michael-J-Fox-Rock-Out-Johnny-B-Goode-Back-Future-Style-27889.html
 

It's good to have goals. Of course when you accomplish them, you then have to set new ones. Today was a day for attaining one of my fitness goals, the one about doing a set of push-ups equal to my age. When I got down this morning to do my push-ups for the day, there really wasn't any thought of going for the sixty-five. I've been hitting sixty on my first set pretty regularly, but since I had just come in from a pretty serious thirty-seven mile bike ride, the idea of getting sixty-five today never crossed my mind. That changed when I made it to thirty and realized I felt better than usual. My mind-set immediately switched to, "today is the day" mode. When I got to sixty I knew it was going to be close. After the sixty-fifth I even had thoughts of trying to add on a couple more. It was not going to happen. I gave one more a rather feeble try before collapsing on the floor. I did finish up with five more sets of twenty-five. So where to from here. This all started with the long abandoned attempt at the 100 push-up challenge. I don't think this old body is ever going to make that. Trying to work up to seventy seems like a good goal.