Weather and the Weekend - Part 2

After a post-race shower and a short rest, we headed south toward home. On the way, we stopped at Indianola, Mississippi, birthplace of the blues legend B.B. King, and Wifeunit's childhood summer home. By coincidence, this day was also the opening of the B.B. King Museum.

We found the little town full of visitors and the downtown section closed to traffic. The streets were lined with food stands, crafts for sale, and musicians. The new museum was a bit too crowded for us, so we didn't go inside. We make it to Indianola several times a year, so we'll be checking out the museum on another trip. My sister ML later told us that there were probably some high profile entertainers there like Eric Clapton, but we didn't notice anything special but 3 large customized busses from the Gibson Guitar company.

Wifeunit had to sign the big birthday card, ending our adventure for this day.

Weather and the Weekend - Part 1

The weather here lately has been influenced by a couple of hurricanes. Not unusual for this time of year, but more creepy than in my memory since Hurricane Katrina changed so much of our world in the Gulf States. I read an email at work that mentioned an Ohio city was experiencing power failures and school closings from Hurricane Ike this week.

Ike was a factor at the Delta State University Triathlon this past Saturday. It was windy and humid. I had a great swim - it was a 500 yd pool swim - and I was one of the first out of the water. I even had to get spectators out of the path to the transition area. The bike ride was really strange, with a 25 mph wind from the hurricane blowing from the southeast. The ride was an out and back zig zag route, so half the time the wind was helping, but boy when it didn't it was a struggle. One of the guys who finishes in the top 5 every year said his bike leg was 6 minutes slower than his worst. I ran poorly in the high temps and humidity, but enjoyed the race. Everyone involved in this race seems to have great fun, even though they seem to have trouble with the timing and awards. This is not an official USAT race, just a fun thing put on by the DSU Swim and Dive Team.

Ag Museum

I began this beautiful Sunday with some canoe paddling to a spot at least a half mile from any houses, at the east end of Pelahatchie Bay in the middle of the huge expanse of lotus pads. The weather had the first touch of Fall about it, and the forecast promised low 80's for the day. This spot in the pads was so quiet. There were very few boats out. I think the high-tech fishermen with their obnoxious bass boats must have gotten interested in college football or dove hunting. Or maybe they knew the water was a little muddy from Hurricance Gustav last week. The only sounds were an occasional flock of geese honking by or the sound of a far off truck with obnoxious loud tail pipes. Must have been the fishermen heading for the dove field.


Later, Wifeunit suggested we go to the Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Museum, where this weekend the Celtic Fest was going on. We paid the surprising $24 for two of us to get in and found the fest pretty weak. There were some interesting people playing unusual instruments but not much else, so we decided we'd seen enough.

We were headed back to the truckster when Wifeunit picked up the scent of a horse, her favorite animal. I picked up the scent of what the horse leaves on the ground. Anyway we had to investigate........

Here she's getting some of that horse smell on her, and she may not wash her hands for days.

Another irresistible critter gets as much massage as possible through a fence.

Wifeunit got a sloppy kiss from this guy, but I missed it. You can still appreciate his good looks and charm.










A goat. No less important, loved and admired.














This was the only farm animal Wifeunit didn't notice or spend time with. I could only think of my chocolate milk.



Best of all, the family had a great day!

One Year Totals

I've been recording my workouts on the Buckeye Outdoors site since September 1, 2007. Results....

450 miles of running

120 miles swimming

770 miles biking

1340 miles total

I know some of you readers may have done twice that distance. Actually two of you for sure, but I'm still pretty proud of myself. Blogs are all about bragging sometimes.

I'm about to check the radar again and decide whether to run in these remnants of Hurricane Gustav.

The Fun of Triathlon

The Cotton States Triathlon in Lake Providence, Louisiana has survived for a 23rd year. The 24th is in question. The down home friendly nature of this little race is what makes it dear to me. It's perfect for beginners and comfortable for those of us who have no high ambitions to qualify for Kona, or even spend the grueling hours to train for an Ironman. The race is a major fund raiser for the small farm town of Lake Providence and deserves to survive.

The swim and transition area are across the 2 lane highway from the host Lakeside Motel where room rates are $30 regular and $35 for deluxe. Signs in some read, "Please Don't Clean Fish in Room".

The phenomenal fellow Flowood Fighting Flounder, KE, in her second full official triathlon without being on a relay team, won Top Masters Women. She was awarded one of the coveted Cotton Bale trophies pictured above.

Fish Fear Me

On my rest days, I love to get out on the water in the canoe and paddle silently around Pelahatchie Bay, early in the morning before many boats have messed up the glassy surface and the wind is calm. This old canoe has been in the family for over 40 years, and paddling it around remembering its long life is part of the pleasure. It's aluminum and makes a little noise when the water is choppy, but it's like driving an old classic car or swinging an old golf club, maybe like using an old baseball glove that's been put away for years.



This day was a bit overcast but calm, and there was hardly a ripple as far as I could see. I remember being taught canoeing skills in Boy Scouts, and the importance of being very quiet, not banging the paddle against the gunwale. My uncle and brother and I would sometimes paddle out at night with a bright light and sneak up on beavers. We could get within just a few feet of them if you kept the light in their eyes, then the tail would slap on the water and they'd be gone. That was a thrill for a 10 year old boy.





Approaching my favorite fishing spot, I don't see the alligator on this day. It's only about a 5 or 6 foot gator, and keeps a good distance from me. It will disappear under the water when you get too close. I always take my camera and fishing stuff, since you never know which you'll have the most luck with.







Here's proof that I do actually catch fish while I'm out. I mostly fish with a fly rod since it's the most fun and you don't have bait to hassle with. I rarely keep any fish, mostly since they're too small, or I only catch a few on each trip.

I'm out for a couple hours at the most, since the wind will pick up to a point that makes handling the canoe a bit of a challenge.

Feeling Good in August

All my injuries have finallly healed and I'm happy to be back to my modest weekly workout schedule - run two mornings 3 or 4 miles, swim 2 mornings 2000 + yards each day, a Friday high paced spin class, and a bike ride on the weekend. I should be in plenty good shape to drive over to Lake Providencc next Saturday for the Cotton States Triathlon. Depending on who shows up in my age group, I might even win one of those miniature trophy cotton bales. I wrote about this tri last year, and this year I hope to get some pictures so you readers eagerly awaiting more exciting news can fully appreciate the awesome wonder of this event.

Fun T-Shirts (4)

I guess since I'm better at swimming than biking or running, it is, by far, my favorite of the three triathlon sports. Most of my childhood summers were spent in and around a pool or lake. We lived across the street from a park with a swimming pool, and later spent lots of days at our lakeside trailer fishing, canoeing and swimming. My sister, ML has made a career of swimming. She's taught swim teams, led water aerobics and arthritis therapy, and has been an aquatics director at several venues. Swimming is fun, and you don't get too hot, (although I have been known to sweat during some of our Flounder swim team workouts).



Here's our Flowood Fighting Flounders Masters Swim Team uniform T-Shirt. This is what we wear to intimidate the other teams at swim meets.

Our team is registered with US Masters Swimming, and we compete in the Southern Masters Swimming Dixie Zone. We got a nice warmup jacket at the meet in New Orleans last December.





We're participating in the USMS 2008 Check-off Challenge, wherein you complete 18 different events using each of the four strokes - freestyle, breaststroke, backstroke and butterfly - at various distances. Some are routine for most swimmers and quite easy. Others are a bit more challenging, such as the one remaining event we haven't completed, the 200 yard butterfly. Last Thursday we checked off the 400 individual medley, a feat I wouldn't have dreamed possible a year ago.



A fun thing our local YMCA sponsors is the English Channel Challenge. You simply record your swim distance each day on a big chart, and if you complete the English Channel distance within a specified time frame, you get a free T-Shirt!

Fun T-Shirts (3)

Here's the T-shirt design of our local big bike ride. Paul and I do the metric century - around 66 miles. On my first ride I was very new to cycling and had just bought my bike a few months earlier. I had a flat tire nearly every time I rode. So on the 06 Century ride a had my usual luck and more, changing a probable record 6 flat tires. Now, you may be thinking "wasn't there something obvioius that was causing the flats?" Well, we had a SAG group from a major bike shop patrolling the route, and the guys just kept giving me new tubes and eventually a new tire. They even did the fix a couple times themselves. As it turned out, the lining around the rim was plastic and very old, and had cracked unnoticeably. After only a short while under pressure, the liner would cause a split in the tube, and POW!! - another flat. Soon after the ride I purchased new liners and another new tire to match my freebie.

Fun T-Shirts (2)

The Heatwave is our hometown race. Three years ago, the week after I did my first "beginner" tri, I volunteered to help at the Heatwave to get an up-close feel for what it was like. Finishing the next year's Heatwave was my goal, and I began training, a routine I continue today. Since then I've done the race 3 times.

It's an Olympic distance race (sort of). I think the bike leg is a mile or two short.

There have been problems with the routing of the bike and run legs and with the local traffic, and a buoy even broke loose once on the swim leg, causing swimmers to chase the buoy some extra distance as it drifted wider from the original course. I would love to say it gets better every year, but there always seems to be some problem that goofs something up. This year everyone had vastly improved swim times because the course was not laid out accurately.

Fun T-Shirts (1)

All my triathlete friends rave about the health benefits of our sport and look forward to the thrill of competition, but don't be fooled - we all do it primarily for the cool T-shirts! I thought it might be fun (at least for me) to post pics of most of the recent shirts Wifeunit and I have collected.


This one was from my very first tri, a short beginner race created by the Jackson Triathlon Association. The race got me hooked, of course, but I realized it would take lots more training to move up to a longer distance.

I trained for a year and did the second SUTS without much problem.

Now I help out at the race as a volunteer, and it's almost as much fun as being out there with them. And we all know you've got to give something back.

Getting Older

I hate to be a whiner about my physical ailments, but my body has been letting me down lately. I know I've asked a lot from it in the last 3 years since I've been doing triathlons. After the two half-marathons this past winter, I was excited about improving my running times at the summer triathlons. Thanks to a knee that would not cooperate, I had to take 3 weeks off from my running and the half-marathon endurance gains evaporated. My knee problem also caused me to miss the Memorial Day Weekend Annual Red Creek trip with ML and the river gang. Next, I had a blood pressure problem the week before the Heatwave Triathlon and worried that I wouldn't be able to participate, but my doctor changed my prescription and said, "if you've been training all this time and have that lifestyle, doing that event is where you need to be." Well, Heatwave was pretty tough for me this year with the knee not back to 100%, but I was happy just to be there.

Here's a success story: Fellow swim team member KE did her first complete tri, the Soak Up the Sun Triathlon and won her age group and beat the times in the age groups above and below. She did the bike leg on ML's 20 year old Peugeot, only having ridden about 30 miles on the bike before the race. (I will add that she can hang with anyone in our advanced spin class). The following weekend she does the swim leg on a relay team at Heatwave and her team wins the mixed relay. That was her second Heatwave relay victory. Her triathlon career stats - 4 races - 3 1st place finishes. Note the eager participants checking the results posted behind me.

Above is the complete Flounder team with Paul's daughter, who cruised through the swim leg at an amazing 10 minutes, 20 seconds , a top 30 finish in a field of over 300. KE was in the top 50 at 11:13, and I made the top 100 at 12:35. Paul rode the bike leg this time.

My next injury, a sciatic nerve flare-up has caused me to miss 2 weeks of workouts. I've had bouts with sciatica before but one morning the pain had me crawling back to the bed. Wifeunit built me a pallet in the back of my 4Runner, and I crawled in and laid out for the trip to the ER. They gave me a shot and some drugs and I'm almost 100% again. I'll see a Physical Therapist Tuesday and go from there.

One thing I did while resting was take another field trip with the Jackson Audubon guys to Harrell Prairie, a big open area in Bienville National Forest with some unique plants and good birding opportunities. The trip gave me a chance to practice with my new digital SLR. Now I don't have to tolerate the inconvenience of getting film processed at Walgreen's.

Also, several cyclists helped support a local Half Marathon yesterday. We just rode along with the runners, helping them be seen on the lonelier stretches of road and ready to call in medcal support on cell phones if needed.

Flounders Open Water Swim

Our glorious Flowood Fighting Flounders Masters Swim Team has once again challenged the waters of Lake St. John and emerged victorious. May 17th we rode to KE's family's house on Lake St. John and swam across and back. We're not sure of the distance, probably a little over a half mile across. We don't go straight across since the best building to sight on is up the lake a little from where we start. When you're in the water looking for a landmark a half mile away, bigger and brighter is better. It's an odd feeling being so far from shore just swimming and not seeming to get any closer to the other side, but persistence pays off and it's over in about 20 minutes. Then we explain to the somewhat shocked onlookers on the other side that we're just swimming across and "thanks for letting us rest at your pier", and we're off again for the return leg. Another 20 minute swim and it's over. After a cool lunch and fun conversation with the family, we're headed for home.

Red Creek Cleanup

April 26th was the annual DeSoto Ranger District Cleanup, a big effort by volunteers to pick up trash at the many recreational sites in DeSoto National Forest. Dozens of people organized into teams at different locations work together to restore the natural beauty that some have chosen to treat like a garbage dump. Niece Bethany was our team leader, and our group cleaned the boat launch area at City Bridge on Red Creek. We also canoed down the creek and picked up as much trash as practical, though cleanup from a canoe can be a precarious task at times. ML and I worked together and had a good time, but my knee injury decreased my mobility and made a lot of my efforts painful.
A misunderstanding about our canoe take-out point and some nasty thunderstorms in the area made the mission potentially miserable, but luck was on our side and Bethany used her local connections with camp owners on the creek to get us out of the storms and back to our cars safely. The canoes and johnboat had to be towed out of the forest for 3 miles over slick mud trails. This was quite an effort and may have been the only time I will ever be thankful for an ATV being on hand.

Natchez Trace Century Ride 2008

Saturday, April 12th, Paul and I and 300+ other cyclists participated in the annual Natchez Trace Century Ride. The ride is hosted by the City of Ridgeland and is very well supported by the local bike shops and other sponsors. Lots of snacks and water along the way, a good meal afterward and pretty nice T shirt make the entry fee worth while. A cyclist can ride north on the Trace to turnaround points to total a 10 mile, 25, 50, 100k or 100 mile out and back. Paul and I do the metric 100, or about 66 miles. This was my third ride since I began cycling, and it gets better every year. The experience of starting a ride with hundreds of other colorfully dressed cyclists is unique and exciting. On the down side, we continue to have groups of riders from out of the area who will not obey the rules, riding in 2 and 3 abreast groups, making it dangerous to pass and in clear violation of the parkway "single file" rule.

End of Spring Update

I'm hoping to do a better job of updating this blog, at least for the next few days. There are some notable events that need to be documented, mostly for my benefit. I went to our kitchen calendar and made a list of the items we had marked to remind me of what has happened lately.
Late in April a major storm roared through the Jackson, Ms area. There were 5 tornadoes officially reported, causing extensive damage to many areas. The storms were not so strong to be deadly and devastating, but more widespread and destructive to property than usual.
We were not completely spared, as one of the many huge pine trees behind the house was blown toward the house but was caught in the upper limbs of other trees. The situation was dangerous, since a subsequent moderately windy storm could easily cause the tree to fall onto the house.
To the rescue comes my brother with his years of knowledge and cool equipment, climbing 60, 80 feet into the treetops, fastening ropes to trunks, over limbs, down to an anchor point, and the two of us lowered a huge tree to the ground in pieces, neat as sausage links.

Spring Fever and Injury

I haven't posted in nearly two months and here are my excuses:

• It's no longer winter and it's fun to be outside.


• Nice spring weather makes me want to do things other than write blog stuff


• I hurt my knee and I've been depressed about that


• Sometimes the blog side of me goes away

My knee has really been the main problem for the last month or so. My left knee was really sore, but now it feels about 90% back to normal. I'm wearing a brace thing whenever I swim, bike or run and it seems to help. I really don't know for sure what caused the injury, but I suspect it was some speed drills I was doing, plus the delay in giving the knee a rest after it started to feel sore.

Anyway, the bike season is finally here, and I've enjoyed a couple nice group rides - the Jackson Metro Cyclists Flora Ride, and Ridgeland, Mississippi's Natchez Trace Century Ride. Paul and I did the 30 mile Flora ride and the metric century (60 something miles) on the Trace ride.

The Flowood Fighting Flounders Masters Swim Club - all three of us- have set a goal to swim a 200 yard butterfly by the end of 2008. When we began our quest in March, we were struggling to finish a 50 yard distance. Now we are up to a modest 75, but we do 2 with about 30 seconds rest followed by a 50 yard. We hope to make it to 100 yards by the end of June.

Wifeunit and I have started another hobby, Geocaching, that fits right into our birding and road trips. If you're not familiar with the sport (as some call it), check it out here: Geocaching.com. It could be considered a nerdy, goober thing to do, but so is birding to many. We've found that the fun and knowledge gained, plus the interesting people we meet have been very rewarding.

Speaking of birding, last weekend I joined a few Jackson, Ms Audubon Society folk for a field trip at Mayes Lake and we were able to view and identify a good number of beautiful birds passing througH the area on their annual migration journey. Call me a nerd, but I really get a thrill out of seeing a new specie of bird for the first time.

Well, ribs are on the grill and a fine weekend is almost done.

Mid March, Spring Arrives

It's hard to believe it's been a month since my last post. We've been busy as usual, but with mostly mundane household activities. I cleaned out a storage building, we moved stuff out of a rental storage into the clean one, etc.. We've been to a home improvement products show and a garden show.

I've cut back my running and increased the bike rides since the weather has improved. I'm still doing 10K distances for my runs, but this week I decided to run one of the local 5Ks. It seems there's at least one going on nearby every weekend. And as I suspected but hoped differently, the ability to run a half marathon does not translate into any speed gains in a 5K. The race just ends sooner.

This race precedes the parade that has become somewhat famous. Revelers come from all over the country to participate in the parade and festivities associated with Jill Conner's Sweet Potato Queens. I knew Jill in Sunday School as a child, and I participated in the first Jackson St. Paddy's Day parade 26 years ago, when it

consisted of one flat bed truck followed by a few dozen people drinking green draft beer. So I really don't get caught up in the spirit too much. A nice afternoon nap is more appealing.

Mercedes Half Marathon

It must have been an omen. I chose another back roads route to our destination and we spotted a Bald Eagle circling overhead about 5 miles into Alabama.

We spent the Febraury 9th & 10th weekend in Birmingham, Alabama for the Mercedes Marathon. What a fun race this was! We had great weather, 35 degrees and a clear sky to enjoy a tour of downtown Birmingham and the surrounding neighborhoods. It was really exciting to take off running without any idea what lay ahead - really a fun adventure. I only ran the half marathon, and I didn't get a PR, (2:18) but this course was not flat. Check the website for course maps and elevations if you're interested. I hope we can do it again next year.

We stayed at the Redmont Hotel, a restored, very old building with some interesting history, and at least one toilet that didn't work very well. The race host hotel was full, but the Redmont was only three blocks away from the start. Packet pickup, race support, roadside cheering and water stops were great.