. I am sore in places on my legs where I have never been sore before. It is my own fault. I did not do any stretches before I began my walk on Friday. Elizabeth wants me to do an entire triathlon in July. I am still, unbelievably, thinking of doing it. It is the Dilloman on July 27. I wonder if I need to rearrange my cupboards on that day. I will have to check my schedule, there has to be something that must be done!..Jennifer and Stepan came into town for Father's Day and lucky me, Benny had to go to work. So, instead of going to Mass today at 8AM all by my lonesome, I went at 9:45AM with J & S. Fr. Jim, who is retiring at the end of this month, gave a wonderful homily. He always begins with some item in a brown paper grocery bag that he takes guesses from the children of the congregation as to what the item may be. He always ties that item into the readings of the day. Today's item was a fishing lure on a stainless steel leader. He spoke of a fishing trip in Alaska where he was trying to catch pike and the pike kept breaking his leader. After 3 broken leaders and thus lost lures, he switched to a nylon woven type and had a very successful day. He said: "I even caught one that was 41 inches long". And I thought: "Yeah right!" At that point he switched to the problems of the Catholic Church. He said that though it would seem the problem is pedophilia among some if it's priests, the real problem is leadership. The one thing that really stuck with me was when he mentioned a story about Kruschev. It was the first assembly after Kruschev took over after Stalin. He said that Stalin was a very cruel leader. At that point some man in the assembly yelled out: Where were you when Stalin was killing all those innocent people? Kruschev then demanded that the person who just spoke up to show himself. There was silence. Kruschev then said, I was where you are now! I am really going to miss Fr. Jim.
Posted by Rita at June 16, 2002 07:53 PMThat is a great story re Khrushchev! Powerful. And I haven't heard back from you yet as to the final decision . . . you can do it! I think I am definitely going to do it; Dale was very encouraging, and I felt so good on my ride yesterday. Have you swum since the triathlon yet? I bet if you do, you will feel stronger than you did before.
Posted by: Elizabeth at June 16, 2002 09:38 PMI wouldn't listen to Elizabeth, Rita! She just wants someone else to be needlessly suffering along with her :-)
Seriously, though, personally I wouldn't dare doing a full triathlon on just six weeks of training if you're not used to all three disciplines. I'm sure you would finish the whole thing and you wouldn't have a problem with the swim. But if you're suffering two days after a 5K walk, then I don't think it would be wise to do an entire Tri on such a short notice. If you have your heart set on a Tri this year, Jfer can find you one later in the season. Otherwise, I'd focus on the Danskin next year, because you know you'll enjoy doing that one.
Plus at a Danskin you can't embarass Doug, Michael and me with a faster time ;-)
Posted by: Stepan at June 16, 2002 11:29 PMRita, I have been thinking about Stepan's comments for a hour or two now and I have to say that I disagree. First of all, you are ready for the swim--so you just have two events to focus on, not three. And you have six weeks to train--that's as long as Team Danskin took, that Meredith and Jenny did. Finally, if you focus on doing it at a pace that's good for you (rather than aiming for a specific time and trying to push yourself too hard), I see no reason why you couldn't do this. You just need a bike. May I add that I have talked Felicia into doing it too?
Posted by: Elizabeth at June 17, 2002 12:16 AMUpon even further consideration, if you were that sore for so long, perhaps you should spend more than six weeks building up your stamina. Certainly don't rush into anything that would hurt yourself.
Posted by: Elizabeth at June 17, 2002 04:08 PM