Arbor Day and Potentially Poor Life Decisions

Yeah buddy.  It’s getting hot up in these parts.

Hope you all had a wonderful Arbor Day.  Spike and I walked down to the Arboretum, where they were giving away free indigenous trees. Paul has been talking about these trees for about 4 months, so we picked up a Kentucky Persimmon.  His mother picked up an Eastern Pine and gave it to us…which can grow up to 160 feet.  Not sure where in our little yard that will go.

The Persimmon tree will reach it’s peak fruit-bearing in 8 years…but who knows, maybe we’ll get some little persimmons before that.

So I’ve been trying to shake this flu/cold thing that took over at the end of last week. Getting back into training hasn’t gone smoothly.  My run this morning was…kind of terrible.  I was tired.  Sore.  Not feeling it mentally.  So what did I do to break myself out of this funk?

Signed up for not one, but TWO back-to-back races the weekend of May 19th.  A sprint triathlon Saturday (400 swim, 12 mile bike, 3 mile run) and an olympic triathlon Sunday (1.5K swim, 40K bike, 10K run), both in Memphis.

Why?  The short answer is: Allison made me do it.

Memphis in May is actually an international festival in Memphis with all sorts of music and performances and exhibits…and two triathlons!  Allison encouraged me to sign up largely because I missed the race in Florida last weekend and she wants me to do at least one race before Hawaii.  I told her fine, but only if we can go to Graceland and possibly Dollywood on the way home.

This race is notorious for being brutally hot.

(this is a real picture from a finisher at the race last year)

…which is part of the reason Allison was pushing for me to do it.  Hawaii is going to be brutally hot, and I don’t tend to handle the heat very well.  So it’s kind of like heat training.  Which most likely means I’ll be regretting this decision on the run course.  Twice.

The good news is, after the races, there will be some world class BBQ.

The World Championship BBQ Cooking Contest will be happening when we’re there.  HECK YEAH.

Summer is heeeeere…