The High School Runner - Ironman Training - Long Running and Family

Do you remember high school when upper classmen would graduate and move away? Our son Marco since he was a freshman has made friends with the upper classmen mostly through running but in other ways too. On Saturday he and another gave a farewell send off to one of their buddies. They did this by inviting him on a 14 mile run. Now the Boost Boys (as they were called last year) are down from 5 to 2. It was sad for Marco to say goodbye. It is awesome to watch him grow in front of my eyes.

That's Marco on the right and the graduate on the left before the run.

 

Here they are 14 miles later. Happy to be done, a bit tired and a bit bummed to be saying goodbye.

 

 

That afternoon my friend Shawn who is training for the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii asked me to ride with him. I'm never one to shy away from a long ride especially when it's helping someone prepare for the big race. The only problem was Shawn couldn't go until noon, on a very hot Saturday afternoon. But ride we did and 5 hours later we were wind blown and exhausted. Highlights included putting Shawn in the front in the big wind and saying "this is Kona wind". We got flipped off by a woman on the back of a motorcycle. I guess she didn't like our skinny butts in the middle of the share lane (You know the lane where bikes have right of lane). Then we hooked up with another rider for about 5 miles. It was nice for me to get a break from being in front most of the day. The only issue is he was a big boy and when he pulled I could see nothing but his back in front of me.

 

 

Quick change and Mary, Marco and I were off to Hillcrest a funky fun community of San Diego where  we had dinner with a former student of Mary's. We had a great dinner at a Spanish Tapas bar and then had outstanding Gelato to cap the night off. I was so hungry I ate three Tapas on my own.

We were playing around with Mary telling her hair was messed up. I took this picture while she was using my phone as a mirror. She is just as stunning today as the day I met her.

 

Sunday is long run day. I've been meeting a group to start the run and as I showed up I was trashed and not really looking forward to run. But then my friend Greg showed up and everything was good. We had run the previous week together and we were both happy to do the same run again today. Solid pace but easy enough to talk, laugh and have a general good time. The run went by fast and it was good to get it done. It's hot in San Diego county right now and what is typically a moderate temperature run was filled with heat and humidity. I drank three bottles of water after the run to cool down and hydrate.

 

Sleep was simply outstanding Sunday night.

 

It's a good life...