Crazy?

For some reason, this is the ear-worm in my head this morning.

Which will mean more to those you eligible for the next World Masters Games than the next Canada Games.

No, I can't tell you why this song is in my head either. Am I hankering back to bangles, big hair and baggy ripped T-shirts. Perhaps an earlier, easier time? And if this be the case, then I think I'm deluding myself; what was so easy about being 15?

Maybe I'm just trying to relax after another busy week or so. I got to TD/HR my second LC Tri in as many weeks the other weekend; the Bridgetown event. The town really gets behind the event, as you could see from all the "Welcome Triathlete" signs in town. As for the designation "TD/HR", well in reality at provincial events one ends up being the TD, the HR and the Team Leader as well as being at least one sector chief; usually TZ but often swim as well as no-one else will dare to take it on.

Honestly though, what's so hard about the swim? You lay out a perfectly geometrical shape on the water without having to worry about inconveniently placed corners, buildings or on-coming traffic. Then all you have to do is have a touch of the Brian Hanarhans and "count them all out and count them all back in".

Compared to chief bike, which is hanging on for grim death as your pilot has delusions of MotoGP grandeur, you get to swan about in a boat and do Grade 1 math. Oh, and you can knock off early as you'll be the first one finished, unlike the poor sod lap-auditing at the LC turnaround.

It's also been a month of contrasts as for a while there I seemed to alternate between taking Daniel to short-track MTB races midweek and then being at a Continental Cup or National Championship at the weekend. On a Tuesday I'd just be "another Dad" and go take myself off to an unstaffed corner to "keep an eye on things". This usually means picking kids up off the trail when they wipe out and fixing their brakes/saddle/handlebars/ego. I know it happened to Dan one race, he said his brakes were rubbing after a chute but someone elses Dad sorted it for him, and I overheard another kid say to his Dad as I passed "that's the nice man you got me up after the crash".

The whole ambience is friendly and non-adversarial, which is odd as the kids are actually racing and people most decidedly win and lose. This was exemplified at the post-race draw-prizes one week where all the older kids, those in Cyclesmith jerseys who were leading the series by ten laps, were the ones to be picked first. Statistics, that's all, a fluke of the draw. Yet they all, to a boy and girl, gave their draw-prizes to the smallest kid they could find. Sportsmanship of the highest order I think.

Compare this to the bigger races I found myself at during the weekends, which whilst rewarding in their own right, had slightly fewer smiles and slightly more high-maintainance Brazilian women.

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