Nay, we are but men. Rock!

I just got home from one of the most incredible sights of my life.  My wife just finished her first half-marathon and it was awesome.  First you have to take in the whole scene.  This race is called the Hippie Chick Half Marathon and encompasses women, and yes it is an all-female race, from every and I mean every walk of life.  There are you twenty-somethings that are obviously at the top of their game.  The winning time was something like 1:31.31, which is pretty impressive.  There is the sixty and over crowd, which is inspiring enough as it is.  There are the baby-boomers that run the whole race arm in arm. And there is everyone in between.  One of the most amazing aspects of this race is not necessarily that all of these women, totaling somewhere around 900, from all of these walk of life are here together but that they all want to see each other do well.  As they are passing each other those being passed are cheering.  I saw multiple women stop and get out of the way of other women in their sprint to the finish line.  It was a competitive atmosphere that I have never experienced before.

Then there is my wife.  She is the mother of my two children and probably the most amazing woman I have ever known, and I know so great ones.  She didn’t run the race fast but she finished.  She ran 13.1 miles and was able to smile at the end.  She uses the same tenacity in loving and raising our children and in being married to me, neither of which is easy.  She is the best woman I know and this race is merely the latest piece of evidence that proves what I have known all along.  She is awesome!!!

There is only one down side to today.  I have to run my half-marathon in July and I do not think I will beat her time.  Frankly put she is in better shape than me, which makes me love her more and go get on a treadmill.  Although 900 women can run a race and only wish the best for all of those involved I do not believe that is something men can do. We can cheer for people to do well as long as they finish behind us.

I’m not pretending to have been a great basketball player, but it is my first love when it comes to sports and the sport I know the most about.  While my knees (weight gain) keep me from playing the way I want to, I still feel like I could/can teach the sport to others.  The following is a conversation I had the other day with my middle son that led me to believe otherwise.

(Walking home after playing baseball, and with a play ground ball which he had been dribbling.)

Me: “You are a good dribbler.”

MS:  “When I’m a dad, I’m going to play basketball.”

Me:  “I could teach you everything I know about basketball if you would like.”

MS: “DAD … I already know more about basketball than you!”

Me: “Oh …”

MS:  “Barney can do a cool trick with a basketball.” (He then went on to describe the trick.)

Me: (In my head) “I don’t like Barney.”

Taking a fastball off the chin is not on my list of things to do.  Nor was it on umpire Kerwin Danley’s list either, I’m sure.

OK, so I have something I need to get off my chest.  I was in my most manly mini van today and I turned on ESPN the Radio.  I guess I am a little bit of an addict when it comes to sports talk radio.  I can’t even remember when the last time I listened to music on the radio was.  It goes to show you how addicted to sports radio I am when I have been getting more and more frustrated over the past couple of months and still see fit to keep going back.  I was listening to Kevin Cowherd (sp?) and he talked for literally twenty-three minutes about day-time dramas.  He is supposed to be talking about sports during a time of year when we have the NFL draft this weekend, the NBA playoffs happening, the NHL playoffs (from what I have heard) going on, and baseball underway.  Why do we need to know about his stories when I would really like to know who is going to go with picks 3-12 in the NFL draft and who the Broncos are looking at in round seven.  It does not make a licks difference to me who is sleeping with who on Days of Our Lives except when a so-called sports analyst is supposed to be giving me the Pirates chances for not finishing last in the division this year and instead is filling my time with pointless mind diarrhea.  Literally the only thing that kept me listening was the little voice that kept telling me, “Surely this is the last point until we get back to sports.”  Alas, my little voice was wrong.

While taking my oldest to school this morning my life somehow lost its bearings and started morphing into the world of NASCAR. As I pulled up to the curb to drop my son off, the five cars previously unloading their, oh so precious cargo, simultaneously pulled away from the curb, in line towards the exit. For a minute, I thought they were leaving pit row at Daytona, and that if I didn’t hurry I might get off the lead lap. Instead of driving the standard NASCAR car of today, I was stuck in my Dodge Grand Caravan, and most of my competition was women in over-sized gas guzzling SUV’s.

As I was stopped, ready to exit the parking lot watching the crossing guard do her job of stopping traffic and saving kids lives, the guy parked next to me actually looked at me gripped his steering wheel, clinched his teeth, and gave me the classic head nod signaling to me that he wanted to race. He followed this maneuver my laughing, which was good for his sake, because I would have killed him off the line.

I rolled down my window, and jokingly said, “I was just thinking that dropping kids off at school here is just like a pit row for NASCAR.”

“I was thinking the exact same thing,” he replied.

We laughed together, knowing that our deep longing at that very moment was to be on an oval somewhere going 180 mph.

“Good times,” he yelled to me as he drove off.

Good times indeed!

So about two months ago my wife came to me to pitch the idea of both of us running half-marathons.  At the time I had visions of reliving past athletic glories by doing something that sounds impressive when thrown out in conversation.  I had visions of getting “wow’s” and “that’s great’s” and “I could never do that’s” from friends and total strangers when I would let it ’slip.’  This was how everything worked out when I started “training,” which included the occasional three mile run or twenty minutes on the elliptical, basically just enough to allow myself to say I was staying in shape.  I was brought sorely into reality the other day when my actual training schedule started and I ran five miles with my wife.  Not only did I realize that, for the first time in our married life, she is in much better shape than me but that running sucks.  I woke up the next day and tried to get out of bed and I thought my legs were going to vomit out of protest.  I have realized that this decision to run is not only foolish but actually detrimental to my health.  I know that all of the “experts” say that exercise is good for you but I don’t think they know what my legs felt like the other day when I foolishly tried to get out of bed when I obviously should have stayed exactly where I was and had my office come to me.