Giving thanks

It’s that time of year again. I’m not really much for this kind of sappy, cheesy, smarmy post about what I’m thankful for, but I figured since I’ve never actually done one, why not? So here goes. (probably not an all-inclusive list, BTW)

 

Johann gives thanks

• Family first, obviously. My wife, my sons, my parents, my siblings and their spouses and kids, my in-laws, and all the family out west that I love dearly and miss terribly.
• My health. I bitch and moan a lot about eye anomalies, bad knees, migraines, shit like that, but there are a lot of people out there that have far worse problems than I, so I am really pretty lucky.
• That I live in a country protected by the greatest fighting force in the world, the United States Armed Forces. God bless ALL military personnel, past, present, and future; active, reserve, or retired; living or dead. You are what keeps America free.
• My Facebook friends. As full of goddamned suck as it is, were it not for the new Evil Empire™ that is Facebook, there are a lot of people with whom I would not be in contact today. Some of you I’ve only recently met, some of you go back many, many years and share a special/deep/sordid/otherwise significant past with me. Many of you I don’t see nearly often enough, some not at all. You all are special to me- perhaps in different ways and for different reasons, but special none the less.
• My Twitter friends. Some are also Facebook friends, but on the whole, the Twitter folk are simply a different breed. I’ve been fortunate to meet quite a few of you, some of you I am still waiting [im]patiently to meet, but you all keep me very much informed, entertained, and honored to have made your acquaintances. You guys are amazing. I’d love to make and post a list of all of you that have enriched my life, but I’m afraid I’d accidentally omit someone, and doing so would do that person a serious injustice. Hopefully, you know who you are.
• The fact that I will not be doing anything even remotely connected with Black Friday. All them fools getting up at the crack of last week to go shopping all night and day and night tomorrow can do it without me.
• Finally discovering sushi.
• Getting to go watch my dad and my brother-in-law referee their very first state finals football game tomorrow at Memorial Stadium in Champaign.
• Beef, seafood, chocolate, pizza, roasted Brussels sprouts, artichokes, asparagus, almonds, Diet Pepsi, the aforementioned sushi, and beer. Especially beer. There are other foods I enjoy but these are the big ones. Especially beer.
• Music. Without it life would be 1,000,000,000 times the suck it is now.
• Teachers, policemen, firemen, and anyone else who risk their lives and/or mold the minds of our children, and do it for, relatively speaking, damn near free, but because they LOVE DOING IT. Mr. Curry, Ms. Wickham, and Mrs. Stearns, I’m looking at you three specifically.
• My dogs. My stupid, always hungry, stinky, shedding, slobbering, shitting all over my back yard, barking at that which isn’t there, lying around doing nothing all day dogs, without whom I’d be miserable.

I’m sure there’s much more for which I am thankful- maybe I can add more as they come to me- we’re hosting Thanksgiving, and the house ain’t gonna clean itself. If you read this, have a moment, and feel so inclined, leave a note about something or someone you are thankful to have in your life. Be safe. Be happy.

And goddamnit, be nice to each other.

Happy Thanksgiving. Peace.

Jingle Bell Run, SPI edition

Well, okay… Jingle Bell Run Most of It.

As you, the seven people that have visited here the last few months, know, Ian spent much of the fall running on his school’s cross-country team. And doing very well, I might add.

More than his running ability, the fact that he’s been running at all has sort of lit a fire under my large jelly-roll ass to get up off the couch once in a while and do something a little… I don’t know… fitnessy. So since early September, I’ve gotten out and attempted to run 3, sometimes 4 days a week.

I usually don’t get real far before I’m winded, and not much farther past that before I need to stop and walk a ways. Once I start walking, I get shin splints so friggin’ bad that it actually feels better to start jogging again. But hey, I’m making an effort, right? My main problem, though, is that I walk almost as fast as I “jog”. Having bad knees and being out of shape isn’t conducive to good running. But I’m trying. I’ve even gone running “with” Ian a few times, though that usually amounts to Ian running the course and standing around waiting 15-20 minutes for me to finish.

Anyway… as many of you probably don’t know, long before Ian joined the cross-country team, it has been kind of a “goal” of mine to run in a 5K race. I have no illusions of winning, I don’t want to try to get a time that will set the world on fire, I have just always wanted to run one to see if I could. Just to finish it. One of those “as I look back on my life…” things, really.

I have a friend, Gina, that recently ran the Milwaukee marathon a few weeks ago, so I asked her to meet with me over lunch one day so that I could pick her brain about how to ready myself for a 5K. (Marathons are not even on my horizon at this point.) After discussing things with Gina for a while, she basically suggested I just pick a race, enter it, and run it. She gave me a couple suggestions for training regimens and gave me a couple of websites for finding races, and- long story short- I found the home page for the Jingle Bell Run for Arthritis.

A nationally conducted race, the JBR raises money for the Arthritis Foundation. There happened to be one in Springfield, starting on the campus of Lincoln Land Community College, so I showed the Springfield-specific page to Dawn with a “Can I? Can I? Please? Please? Can I? Huh? Huh?” puppy-dog face, and she said, “I won’t run it, but I’ll do it with you”, then we showed it to Ian, and he said he would run it, so we signed up for it and Team Stearns was born. We fairly quickly raised our goal of donations and suddenly became the 5th highest fund-raising team. Not too shabby for a team of three people.

As the days leading up to the race came and went, I started getting more and more uptight about running it. I think I was getting hung up on the term “race”. It is a race in that trophies are given to the top finishers in several age categories for men, women, and children, but entrants can also just run or even walk in it for exercise, for the cause, or just for fun. This past week, I was really out of sorts. My stomach got progressively knotted up as the week went by, and this past Friday, the night before the race, I didn’t sleep well at all.

Yesterday morning was the race. I got up, got ready, and bolted out of the house without bothering to eat any breakfast. Probably not a good move. We get to LLCC at 8:00am when registration began, and wound up being purt’near the only people there for about 40 minutes. People started trickling in, until there wound up being at least a couple hundred runners and walkers there for the 10:00 start.

Ian took me outside a couple times while we were waiting to do some warmup calisthenics that his cross-country team does. Those calisthenics reminded me not only how out of shape I am, but also how uncoordinated I am. He has an exercise they call “karaoke”, for whatever reason, that damn near dumped me on my ass. Later, I found a couple of my Twitter friends, @mrsshoo and @kristiface80, that were also running the race, and chatted with them for a few minutes.

Finally, the call came to go outside and get lined up for the start. I was rather struck at just how many people were in the race when I saw the enormous crowd of people ahead of me. I remember thinking, I am SO out of my league. Soon, the race kicked off, and Dawn started walking and Ian and I started running. Within, literally, about six, maybe eight seconds, Ian was out of sight.

Did I mention he runs a whole lot faster than I?

I found a comfortable (that’s relative) pace, albeit rather slow, and settled in. We turned out of the campus and headed south onto Shepherd Road. The course took us into the Island Bay neighborhood along the lake, wound through there a little bit to the 2.5K mark, at which there was a water station and the turnaround point at which we went back the way we came.

So I’m running, and not feeling too terribly badly (again, that’s relative), doing my best to navigate the uneven surface of the roads, which were also littered with ankle-snapping sweet gum balls. As we turned onto the street that headed through the woods toward the turnaround and the water station, I remember thinking, it’s around this next bend. (No turnaround.) Okay, it’s gotta be around THIS bend. (No turnaround.) Ian high-fives me as he passes me on his way back, so I’m thinking, it’s GOTTA be this next bend. Still no friggin’ turnaround. Now, I’m starting to hit panic mode, thinking that I’m not going to even be able to make the halfway point before I have to start walking.

Finally, after two or three more bends in the road, I spot the water station. That was enough to get me around that post and start heading back. I take my water (like I was going to pass that up!), gulp it down, chuck the cup into the garbage, and decide, okay, I’ve got to walk for a little bit. I glance down at my iPhone and it shows I’ve gone 2.7 km, so I rationalize that since I made half the race in one shot, I can start walking. Right away, here come the shin splints, and they’re hurting. BADLY. Within about 3 minutes, I pass Dawn, who walked the whole way- which really kind of shows just how slow I run. I keep forging on, trying my best to ignore the shin splints. I wind back through the neighborhood, hit the main road that turns back into Shepherd Road, and start running again at the 3.7 km mark.

Shortly, I can see the stoplight at which we turn back into the campus, and the shin splints are at a much more manageable level, so I put my head down and just keep on keepin’ on, as the cheesy saying goes. I continue to play leap frog with the same 8-10 people I’ve been passing and getting passed by for the whole race, and suddenly I’m at the entrance into the parking lot.

It felt SO good to make that right turn onto the parking lot drive. Realizing I had just a short distance to the finish line- which I could SEE- gave me the drive to push through the exhaustion that was setting in. As I got closer, I spotted Ian. I moved over to the median where he was standing, and was met with a high-five and a “Come on, Dad, you’re almost there, you can do it!”. That gave me just enough energy boost to round the final curve and cross the finish line.

The rush I got crossing the line- running- was intense. I didn’t run the whole way, but I ran 4 of the 5km, and crossed the line running. That’s what I wanted. I got through the chute and found Ian, and he gave me a giant hug- in front of everyone!- and told me how proud he was of me. That right there was huge. It was all I could do not to cry. Within about 10 minutes or so, we spot Dawn walking her way toward the finish line so we cheer her on, and she crosses.

Ian ran the entire race in roughly 25 and a half minutes. He said he didn’t see his exact time, and also said that he wished he would have gotten the bib and chip that somehow got reserved for him, as he could have been in the running for an award in his age group. Before the race, when we discovered there was a bib and chip assigned to him, we told him to go ahead and get them, but he said, “Nah, I’m just going to run it for fun”. Then once he discovered that he would likely have gotten third place in his age group, he was regretting that decision. But, hey, live and learn. Next time, he said.

I finished with a time of 45:46, jogging 4 out of 5km, so I was ecstatic. The only time goal I really had was to make it under an hour, and I did that. Far as I’m concerned, I won. Dawn finished up her walk at about 55:50, and we went to the college cafeteria for the “after party”, where we were treated to water and Gatorade, Olive Garden salad and spaghetti (I despise Olive Garden with the fury of a thousand demons, but it was free, so I ate it), bananas, and quite possibly the best tasting oranges I’ve ever had. Terrific experience all the way around, and I can’t wait to do my next 5K.

I owe some thanks to a lot of people. First to Dawn, for allowing me to enter the JBR, and for her and Ian agreeing to do it with me. Next, to the good people at UnderArmour. That stuff rocks. I have a compression outfit and a fitted outfit to wear over it and, chilly and windy as it was during the race, I was plenty warm. Next, to so many of my friends on Twitter and Facebook for support leading up to the race, and also during and after the race. Your support, cheering, and well-wishes meant a lot to me. I owe a HUGE thanks to Gina, for all the advice, support, inspiration, and encouragement she gave me, and continues to give me. One of these days, Gina, you and I are going to run together!

Lastly, and most importantly, I have to thank Ian. His being in cross-country, and being so good at it, is what made me decide to attempt a 5K in the first place. I likely never would have entered, at least definitely not this soon, had he not gotten so into cross-country. He continues to offer support and says he would “keep training me” if it would help me. So I’m going to let him. He told me he hopes one day we can actually run a 5K or something, “not so much with each other as against each other”. To me, that’s awesome. He knows I’ll likely never be able to catch him, let alone beat him, but to have him give me encouragement to want to TRY to beat him means so much to me.

I really intend for the JBR to be the first of many 5K races in which I run, and hopefully I can get to where I can run entire 5Ks, move up to 10Ks, and, perhaps some day, maybe even enter a half or a full marathon.

SOME day.

Right now, I’m still chomping ibuprofen like they were M&Ms.

City meet

Okay, first of all… we were told that the Jacksonville course Saturday was roughly 1.8 miles, so I figured Ian’s finish time would have been about 16:12, had the course been a full two miles. Still, that’s a pretty good race time. I mean, I knew 14:35 was a little too far off his personal best for the course to be a full two miles. Coach said that Jacksonville doesn’t factor in to rankings and personal best times and what not.

Now that that has been cleared up… yesterday was the City XC meet. A very, VERY significant meet pitting Lincoln against Grant, Franklin, and Washington, with sectionals roster spots on the line. Ian went into the meet ranked 9th on his team. Dawn told him to run this race as though it were his last because, if he doesn’t make the sectionals roster, it would be. Jeez, honey… no pressure!

So Adam and I pulled up to the park right about the time the boys’ race was starting. We cheered on the guys as they came around the ball field, then as they came back around and headed towards the woods and down the hill. Adam and I found Dawn and went and staked claim at the finish line. In the mean time, I asked how the girls’ race went. Turns out Marissa, the 8th grade speedster and captain of Lincoln’s team, won the race. Carrie, my neighbor’s daughter, finished 19th.

Anyway, here come the boys, chugging down the stretch toward the chute and finish line. Ian comes toward us, and we’re cheering, and he says, “I started too fast!” as he went by us. Apparently he got a little too quick of a jump. But he said he still ran the whole way. He’s figured out that if he picks a kid ahead of him and at least stays with him, if not pass him, that helps him keep pace. He finished in 37th place (don’t know how many kids) with a time of 15:36, another personal best by about 12 seconds. Sweeeeeeet!

We stayed for the awards ceremony. They gave medals to the top 20 finishers in both races. In both the boys’ and the girls’ race, Franklin runners placed about 15 kids, so they naturally won the meet. But your Lincoln Magnet School Leopards took second place!!

Coach O said she would post the information, along with the sectionals roster, at some point in the evening last night. I finally got off the computer at 11:46pm and they still weren’t posted, so I left a note for Ian in his bathroom to check as soon as he got up, and that if it still wasn’t posted, to plan as though he made the sectionals roster so he’d be ready for practice in case he actually did make it. When I woke up this morning, I came in and checked and he still had the page up– he made the sectionals team as first alternate (ranked 8th on his team)!!! He said that Coach said yesterday that it’s been a while since the last time they haven’t used at least one alternate, for what that’s worth. And what that’s worth, I have no idea.

Whether or not he made sectionals, I am insanely proud of how he did, but even more so that he did make the sectionals roster. So he’ll practice with the “big boys” and the other two alternates this week and they’ll head to East St. Louis this Saturday for the sectionals meet. I’m already nervous for him, but I don’t dare tell him that. Other than fretting over a course being “too flat” to suit him, he doesn’t seem to really get the butterflies before a race, so I don’t want to be the one to give them to him.

Jacksonville Invitational

Yesterday was a big ol’ invitational meet in Jacksonville (it’s about 30 miles west of Springfield, for those of you who ain’t from around here). Lots of schools involved. Grant, Washington, and Franklin from here in Springfield, but conspicuous by their absence, to the delight of Lincoln’s team, was Chatham Glenwood, the team that literally swept the flights at the Franklin meet a couple weeks ago.

When I first got to the J’ville Community Park, right around noon, it was already crazy. Apparently, this invitational is an all-day thing. High school XC teams were running races as I pulled up. Saw Springfield High, but didn’t notice any other city schools in attendance. I have to assume that SHG doesn’t have a cross-country team because all of their athletics money is tied up in buying football players.

So I scout out the course while I’m waiting for Ian’s bus to arrive. It’s a very flat park, much like Rotary Park, the site of Ian’s very first meet this season, except way more {full-grown} trees. The start-finish line was almost in the center of the park. Runners headed outward toward the perimeter of the park, ran around the ferris wheel (I’m ashamed to admit that I never actually saw any ferris wheel), then all the way around the perimeter and back into the center of the park, in the opposite direction in which they started, to the finish line and chute. Kind of a problem, though, in that unless you’re looking for the lines indicating the course, you can inadvertently walk right through the center of the race. Especially problematic when you consider that it was nearly impossible to tell who was practicing and who was actually running the race in progress.

I’ll have you know that I didn’t get “GET OFF THE COURSE!” yelled at me once, thank you very much.

Ian’s team bus arrived somewhere around 12:20 or so (their meet started at 2:00), so I got with them and just sort of hung out. I showed the kids where the bathroom was, tossed out a few “Guys, settle down!” at the ones that were playing grab-ass and what not, and just sort of pretended I was supposed to be there. The kids got their tags eventually, and time was ticking down toward the start of their races.

The 5th, 6th, and 7th grade girls ran at 2:00, followed by the 5th, 6th, & 7th grade boys at 2:30, then the 8th grade girls at 3:00, and the 8th grade boys at 3:30. Times and team rankings didn’t appear to be a factor so much as their years in school.

Around 1:15 or so, Ian decided he needed a hot dog. So we went to the concession stand, and while we were there, my dad made it to the park, and we met up with him. After snarfing his hot dog, Ian and his teammates went to walk the course, so Dad and I chitchatted for a while.

The girls’ race finished up, and a few minutes later, the boys were off and running. Ian passed by Dad and me a couple times, and he was looking very good. The finish was great- it seemed like every single kid really turned on the Flux capacitors once they got within about 200 yards of the chute. In a little while, here comes Ian. He passed a couple kids on his way in, and almost caught one of his teammates, en route to a 14:35 finish.

14:35!!!!!

It’s an unofficial time (natch), but he finished something like 97th, and again, no idea how many kids were in his race. They haven’t even posted the official times from Thursday’s meet yet. Ian’s not really “accepting” 14:35 as “official”, since he and quite a few other kids said they believe the course wasn’t [close to] a full two miles. Ian’s comment: “It couldn’t have been two miles- I wasn’t even tired at the end of this race.” I told Ian that, if they indicate exactly how long the course was, we can figure what his two-mile time would have been, but if they don’t, we have no choice but to assume it was two miles and go with it.

Either way, two miles or not, skewed time or not, I was very impressed with how well he did. He had said several times yesterday that he “knows he’s not going to beat his best time because he hates flat courses”, but he did a pretty good job of kicking this flat course’s ass, two miles or not two miles.

Next meet is tomorrow at Lincoln Park, and then sectionals in East St. Louis on Saturday the 8th. I’m trying not to get too excited about the possibility of Ian making the sectional team, even if as an alternate, mainly because I don’t want to be responsible for him being crushed if he doesn’t wind up making it, but things are really starting to look promising, with the way he’s run in the last 2-3 meets.

Meet #7

Yesterday’s meet was a smaller meet at Lincoln Park. The schools represented were LMS, Franklin, Riverton, Athens, Christ the King, and Johns Hill, which, I’m told, is in (or near) Decatur.

My mom and dad attended this meet. With my dad being an official, he’s got football and/or baseball games just about every night, so he never has a chance to go. But yesterday, his game wasn’t until later in the evening, so he jumped at the chance to come see Ian run.

Only problem was, the bus from Decatur was late, so the start time of the meet got pushed back to 4:00 instead of 3:30. That was great for me, as Adam and I were able to arrive just after the girls’ race started. Bad for my dad, as he had to leave by 4:30 to get to his game, and as it turned out, that was minutes before the boys’ race started. Figures- the one chance he gets to go and the start time gets pushed back. Had the meet started on time, he likely would have gotten to see the end of Ian’s race.

Poopy.

Rewind to 2:30. I was in the shower, and Dawn got a call from Ian saying that he had hurt his back picking up the 87 lbs of school shizznit that he has to carry (backpack, binder, computer bag, trumpet case… poor kid looks like a Sherpa every day), and said that he didn’t know if he was going to run. Yikes- our first injury situation, and it didn’t happen on the course- or even while running period.

So Dawn gets to the park and finds Ian. She pumped him full of drugs She gave him an ibuprofen and some water and kind of rubbed his back a little. She never HeyTelled me saying he wasn’t running, so as soon as Adam got off the bus, we dashed up to the park. Ian found me and came up and gave me a hug (something I thought was very strange, considering that at his first meet he gave me the “Not in front of the guys” speech). I asked him how he was feeling and he said, “Better now.”

Apparently Dawn still has the Mother’s Touch™.

Anyway, Ian’s race gets going, and through much of the early going, he looked about like he always does, running well and in the front half of the middle of the pack, if that makes sense.

Around the ball field, into the woods, back up around the east side of the park, blah blah blah. Leaders start coming in, blah blah blah. Waiting for Ian to make his waydown the stretch into the chute, blah blah blah.

Hey, I’m not a writer; I only have so many ways of describing a race.

Soon, here comes Ian around the ball field, with a couple kids in front and a couple behind. He crossed the finish line with yet another personal best, this one bein 15:48 [by my stopwatch], another six [unofficial] seconds off his best time. He finished 50th (again, I have no idea how many kids ran, since the updated information is still not posted on Coach O’s web page, presumably because she was not at the meet), but I have been within a second of Ian’s official time at every race so far, so I’m going to go with 15:48 until I see any different.

Next meet is tomorrow afternoon, an invitational in Jacksonville. I read on the school website that the sectional team will consist of seven runners and three alternates. We learned at the beginning of the week that, coming into yesterday’s meet, Ian is ranked tenth on his team, so if he at least doesn’t fall any positions, he stands a fairly good chance of making the sectional team at least as an alternate.

Holy crapoli- my boy’s a runner. Who knew?! He sure doesn’t get that from me. I’m not questioning it, though- he’s good at it and enjoys it.

Oh- and did I mention he was chosen as one of the Students of the Month for September? #overflowingwithpride

Meet #6

Today’s meet was at Lincoln Park. I wasn’t there for the beginning- and it killed me- but since Dawn’s only been to one meet so far, and I’ve been to all of them, I sent her and I picked up Adam at the bus stop and then broke several laws of the vehicle code did the best I could trying to get to the park to see Ian finish. Adam and I wound up getting there just shortly after his race started. We caught up with them as they rounded the ball field the second time, heading towards the woods and down the hill. Adam was so cute cheering for his brother.

Ah, if only they were so warm to each other the other 23:58 of the day.

Anyway, after the herd went past, we crossed the course and met up with Dawn, who was with Coach O at the finish line. My friend Kelly, who happens to be one of Ian’s assistant principals, was also there, so as we waited for the pack to start coming down the chute, we chatted about raising our kids, who has the ugliest running gait, and Nutella.

Mmmmm… Nutella.

Shortly, the kids started coming around the ball field that final time on the way to the finish line. I think the first kid finished in the 11:00 range, and every couple of seconds, another kid would cross- sometimes two or three would make the mad dash to see who would finish first and who would come dangerously close to impaling themselves on the rebar that marks the finish line. Hey, the final chute is only about two and a half feet wide, and it makes me nervous when two or three kids all try to finish at once. So a couple minutes later, I see Ian coming down the chute with a couple kids ahead and a couple kids behind, so we’re all cheering him to kick it in gear, which he did, and finished #65 (again, no idea how many kids were in his race, and no way to guesstimate since I wasn’t there to see the start) with a time of…

15:54!!!

That’s right, another personal best, this time shaving 32 seconds of his previous best. He’s close to having shaved four minutes off of his qualifying time in a month. In this writer’s mind, that’s outstanding. And I think he’s starting to really get the taste of blood now- he said to me that he’s got to drop another [approximately] 1:30 off of his time to be able to go to sectionals, so it seems he’s really getting goal-oriented with this running thing. Soooooo, we’ll see what we’ll see in the couple weeks here before sectionals. Next meet is next Thursday. Talk to all y’all then!

 

 

 

 

 

Franklin invitational meet

Yesterday was an invitational meet in Franklin, IL. Hence the post title.

There were [I'm guessing] in the neighborhood of 15-20 schools represented at this meet, including Grant, Glenwood, and St. Agnes/Blessed Sacrament from the Springfield area. It’s at a nice little community on the Franklin-Waverly Lake, tucked in just north of Rte. 104. I dropped Ian off at school around 7:15am or so and then headed out there. I think I was literally the first one there.

Anyway, yesterday’s meet was a flighted meet. What that means is that each team ranks their runners from 1-7, and all the #1-ranked runners race each other (separated by gender), all the #2-ranked runners race each other, etc. All other runners not ranked 1-7 race each other in what’s called the 8th Man (or 8th Girl) flight. As it turned out, Ian’s race (the 8th Man) was the very first race of the day.

Long and the short of it- I know it takes me a month to tell a seven-minute story- Ian finished fairly strong. He had a time of 17:02- not his best, but still a good time. He finished in 124th position, out of somewhere in the neighborhood of 250-300 runners (again, a guess- I was way off last time I hazarded a guess). He said he had trouble because in some parts of the course, the path is slanted, and he isn’t used to running on that type of terrain. No excuses, he said, and he was happy with his time, as was I.

We watched a couple other races, and then just as we were getting ready to leave, Coach O asked if I could stay to help her time the rest of the races, as they were starting about 10 minutes apart, and it was very hard for her to get the finish time of one and then make it to the start line for the next. So I was happy (nay, honored- I’m a dork) to help out. Ian wasn’t necessarily thrilled about staying until the last chicken was plucked, but I had him help me count the runners as they came in, so he was a little better about spending the better part of the day out there. At one point, Coach O came up to me at the finish line and said, “How we doin’, Coach?” I felt all giddy. She called me “Coach”!!

Shut up. I admit I’m a dork.

All I can say is that the Glenwood team must train like absolute beasts. A runner from Glenwood won every single flight of which I saw the finish, which was just about all of them. I don’t know if they ran the table, but it would not surprise me in the least. At any rate, Ian’s best time of 16:26 (which is extremely relative, considering not all courses are exactly the same length, let alone exactly 2 miles) still stands, so his next goal is to try to beat the 16:00 mark. I’m thinking of having him run with ankle weights on when he runs in the neighborhood so that, once he gets down to his normal time with the weights on, he should be able to shave several seconds off his time once he takes them off. He’s not real “into” the idea of running with ankle weights on, but I’ll try to see what I can do to convince him.

Next meet is this coming Thursday at Lincoln Park. His best time there is 16:47, so hopefully he’ll at least break that, if not his personal best of 16:26. I’m probably going to miss the next two meets. They’re on the next two Thursdays (Dawn’s day off), and since she has only gotten to see him run once, I’m going to send her to the meets and I’ll stay back to get Adam off the bus, and then try to see if I can zoom up to the park in time to catch the end of Ian’s race. So I’ll be reporting on those two meets likely second-hand. Anyway, since the next meet isn’t until Thursday, that’s another 4-5 days of respite for you readers, and then an entire week after that!!

Meet #4

Okay, we all know Ian’s not going to break his best time every meet. He didn’t today- but he did today.

Today’s meet was at Lincoln Park, hosted by LMS. There were several schools there, including Grant, Washington, Jefferson, Little Flower, Springfield Christian, Christ the King, and perhaps one or two others. It was quite a bit warmer today than it was the last two meets, but there was at least a reasonably decent breeze. And it also wasn’t that oppressive 100˚ crap we had just a couple weeks ago.

Last night, as Ian and I (mostly Ian) were running around the neighborhood, I met up with him on his third lap around the block. He was walking, and said he “heard and felt a pop” in his stomach and now it hurts and he can’t run. Where he showed me it hurt, the first thing I thought was appendix, but he wouldn’t be able to even stand, let alone walk.

So we walk back home, and Dawn and I bombard him with questions and prod his abdomen. We decided his hip joint probably just popped a little, and also that he wasn’t properly hydrated. He took it easy the rest of the night, and said this morning that he felt better. Then at the meet today, while the girls were running, he said that his stomach was starting to bother him again, so I told him that if he needed to, to pace himself and save enough energy for the chute. Right before his race, I checked on him again and he said he felt fine again, but I reiterated the “pace yourself” speech.

His race started, and as he rounded the baseball field he looked like he was running fairly strong. I didn’t think he was running as fast as [I thought] he usually does, but he looked strong. So he comes around the back side of the ball field, heading into the woods, and he still looked strong, so I stopped worrying.

Um… as much.

A few minutes later, here comes the pack around the baseball field again and into the chute. Shortly after that, here comes Ian- again, looking strong- with a kid from a different school closing fast. My shouts of support changed quickly from, “Looking good, Ian!” and “Finish strong, Ian!” to “He’s catching up to you, Ian!!”, to which he responded by opening his eyes as wide as turkey platters (Coach O said, “I love the crazy eyes!”) and absolutely opening it up.

He wound up finishing with a 16:41, a fantastic time. Not as good as his personal best of 16:26 from Saturday, but he did beat his best time for that course (17:03). So he beat his best, but he didn’t. Either way, he ran a very good race. He finished 50th, out of around 100 kids in his race. I say “around 100″ because I heard several numbers between 94 and 105. So he either finished just in the top half or just out of the top half, depending on how many kids were actually in the race.

Next race is Saturday, so you Twitterers and Facebookers that I force to read about his meets will have a few days’ respite. Saturday is an invitational flight meet in Franklin, IL. Probably won’t be nearly the amount of teams there that there were in Normal Saturday, but still should be fun.

Where does the time go?

That’s what I’ve asked myself each time Ian has run a meet.

Yesterday there was a big invitational meet at Maxwell Park in Normal. Great park, nice and wide open, and more or less flat, save for a small and short uphill run at the start line (well planned, course layer outers, well planned). There were at least 20 schools, if not upward of 30 or possibly closer to 40, at this meet. Lots and lots of runners. There was a team from East Peoria there that had personalized warmups and nice- REALLY nice- matching gear bags. Someone has a lot of PTO money. Quite impressive. Glenwood Middle School (Chatham) and Grant Middle School (Springfield) were also in attendance. If any other city or area schools were there, I didn’t consciously notice them. There was a BUNCH of kids there. According to Ian’s coach after the meet, there were about 1700 total runners. I estimated possibly 500. I was WAY off.

Anyhow, it was a beautiful day for a cross-country meet. The girls’ “varsity” teams (the seven best runners on each team) ran first, followed by the boys’ varsity, the girls’ open race (everyone else not on varsity), and then the boys’ open race. Ian was somewhat hopeful he might make the varsity for this meet, but he was in the open.

This course, according to several people we talked to, is somewhat known for personal bests. Apparently, a lot of kids tend to do well at Maxwell Park. Ian said prior to his race that he feels like he does better on fairly hilly courses, like his home park of Lincoln, and since this course really wasn’t very hilly, he said he doesn’t think he’ll have a “great” race time, but still hoped to beat his personal best of 17:03.

When Ian’s race started, I swear I thought I was having a heart attack. My heart instantly started racing (pardon the pun), my stomach started churning, my mouth went dry, and I was breathing incredibly hard. You’d have thought I was running this damned race. I was antsy right from the start. Couldn’t stand still. So anyway, the race started, I turned on the stopwatch, and Dawn and I staked a claim along the chute to watch the finish. Within about 11 minutes or so, the first wave of kids came down the final stretch. Of course, the place is going nuts.

We’re watching for LMS kids- the kids had to wear their numbers up high on their shirts, so we could not read the “LEOPARDS” that is printed on their jerseys. We had to look for the gold leopard’s head on their shorts to distinguish them from other black uniforms. So I spot a leopard head, and it was J.D., their usual leader. A little while later, the unmistakable thick blond mane worn by Will came into view as he came up the chute. Then, the pack got thicker and thicker, and it became harder and harder to make figures out, let alone to identify anyone. All of a sudden, I spotted Ian’s face as he was attempting to make a move on our side. So I slap Dawn a thousand times on the arm, saying “Here comes Ian! There’s Ian!”. I think I may have bruised her. Sorry, Honey. I grab the stopwatch (didn’t look at it), he runs past us as we are ska-reaming our support for him, and as he crosses the finish, I hit the button on the stopwatch. Dawn says, “Is that a personal best??” I looked at the stopwatch and about pooped.

16:27.

He knocked more than 30 seconds off his best time- again! He’s gone from a team qualifying time of 19:38 to 18:32 to 17:06 to 16:27, in the span of sixteen days. According to Coach O’s report on her website, Ian’s unofficial time was 16:26. Hopefully they’ll have the official results up soon and I can update this post. I don’t know in what place he finished, nor do I know how many kids ran in his race, but he again knocked the crap out of his personal best by 37 [unofficial] seconds. I reiterated on the way home that it’s going to be even harder still to beat his personal best- naturally, the lower his time, the harder it becomes to beat- and that he can’t be discouraged if he doesn’t beat his best every time, but he seems to seriously have the drive to work at it.

I truly believe he has really found his niche, sports-wise. He still wants to play baseball, and still enjoys it- in fact, he even asked if we’d be “mad if, at some point whether in middle school or high school, he tried out for baseball and didn’t do cross-country, and then went back to it [XC] the next year”. I told him of course we would not be mad, not in the least. I did say that if he wants to do that, I think his freshman year in high school would be the best (or, at least in my mind, the most logical) time to attempt that, but I didn’t tell him that I really kind of hope he sticks with cross-country, as much as I cringe to hear myself say that.

I’m a baseball guy. I played little league baseball for nine years, I was the “manager” (i.e., scorekeeper) for the junior varsity team in high school (I wasn’t nearly good enough to attempt to make the team as a player), I umpired baseball for a few years, and, of course, I coach Ian’s summer team. I love baseball and would love nothing more for my son to play baseball for as long as he enjoys it. But here’s the thing- after less than three weeks of watching him run cross-country and seeing not only how legitimately good at it he is and how much positive effect it has on him, I believe I can honestly say that I would be perfectly at peace if he gave up baseball to focus solely on cross-country.

I never thought I’d get excited over watching kids run, let alone get SO excited that I would be okay with Ian never playing a single pitch of baseball again. I am not sure how he feels about it completely yet, but I genuinely believe- again, even only after three weeks- that his true calling in the realm of sports is to run cross-country. And it is so much FUN as a parent and spectator. Maybe it’s just because I coach him, but in baseball, I am so stressed the entire game. But with cross-country, I get an excitement that I just don’t get- or, perhaps, as yet haven’t gotten- with baseball.

Weird. But awesome. Keep it up, Ian.

Somebody appears to have found his groove

Meet number two was today at Lincoln Park.

Ian said that his coach wanted all runners to try to cut 20 seconds off their times. Twenty seconds… in a cross-country race, twenty seconds is a friggin’ eternity. Like I explained to Ian: picture yourself crossing the finish line. Now count to 20 and picture someone else crossing the finish line. That is a LOT of time. But hey, that’s what Coach wanted, so that’s what they were shooting for.

So I said that in the meet on Tuesday, Ian ran an 18:32, right? That was at Rotary Park, a very flat course. Yesterday, he had practice at Lincoln Park, which has a fairly sizable hill. He ran that course in 18:22. Well, I got to thinking (to myself) that if he knocks 10 seconds off his time from a flat course to one with a hill, maybe that twenty seconds isn’t so far-fetched.

I gave Dawn the choice today. I let her choose whether she wanted to go to the meet at the beginning, or whether she wanted to stay and get Adam off the bus and then come to the meet straight from the bus stop. She chose the latter, since she didn’t really see much of Adam this morning, as she got up early for an 8:00am massage and pedicure. Bad choice that wound up being; they ran the boys’ race first, for whatever reason. (Yeah, I’m guessing I’m in the doghouse for that one… but in my defense, I DID give her the choice.)

The boys get lined up on the northeast corner of the park, ran through the outfields of the softball fields, ran a full circle around the “big field”, and head south into the woods and down the hill toward the pond. Then they ran back up the hill along 5th St., back around through the softball field outfields (more or less where they started), and around the far side of the “big field” again, with the finish line being at the edge of the Nelson Center parking lot. (Those of you not familiar with Lincoln Park, it’s a good long two miles.)

Okay, remember that whole thing about the kids trying to shave 20 seconds off their times? That would mean Ian would have had to run the course in 18:02. Yeah, well, he did it in 17:03!!! An entire 1:19 quicker than his best time thus far. That was amazing. He wound up finishing 18th out of 40 kids in his race, so better than half. The kid that won the race was also from LMS; he ran it in 12:50.

The girls’ race was just as exciting. The girl that won Tuesday’s meet (by a large margin) won again today (by a large margin). She finished in 13:11, and neighbor girl Carrie finished 5th. The LMS girls took 12 of the top 20 finishes, and the LMS boys took 13 of the top 20 finishes in their race, and LMS very handily won the meet over Washington and Jefferson Middle Schools.

I have told Ian that, in knocking well over a minute off his time at once, it’s going to get harder and harder to get personal bests every time now, that it only gets harder and more intense from here. He seems ready and eager to take it on. This cross-country stuff is pretty damned cool.

Big, big meet in Normal on Saturday. Probably 20-30 schools will be competing. Hopefully I’ll get to go. Dawn’s sister has offered to take Adam (bookoo early) Saturday morning so we can follow the bus to the meet. We’ll see how that goes. But at any rate, it’s gonna be a pretty insane time up at Maxwell Park!! Wish Ian luck!

 

First meet in the books

So today was Ian’s first cross-country meet.

Okay, technically his second, but his first one was canceled last Thursday do to the heat being equivalent to that of… say… Alderaan’s those last few moments before it evaporated.

It was at Rotary Park, with Lincoln (LMS) apparently being the home school, since Ian’s coach ran the meet. Rotary is a relatively new park here in the Patch, very open, very flat, not much in the way of trees yet. A perfect place for Ian to get his XC feet wet, metaphorically speaking.

It was scheduled to start at 3:30. Being an excited new XC parent (and not knowing any better) I got there about 2:50 or so, and there was nobody there. So I waited. Finally, about 20 minutes later, buses started showing up. There were teams representing Franklin Middle School (a public school on the city’s near southwest side), Washington Middle School (a public school on the northeast side), and Little Flower School (a private school on the southeast side). Finally, the bus arrived which contained the runners representing [insert homer announcer voice] YOUR LINCOLN MAGNET SCHOOL LEOPARDS!

The first thing they did, after the bladder evacuations, was to walk the course. It was a two-mile course- again, very flat. From the start-finish line in the center of the park near the ball diamonds, they would run to the edge of the park along Iles Ave., then run the perimeter of the park twice and run back to the start-finish line.

The girls ran their race first. The girl who finished first was from LMS, and she ran it in 13:12. That’s thirteen minutes, twelve seconds. I’m not completely sure I could drive it that quickly. I was very impressed. A pack of about seven FMS girls finished next, then the rest of the field trickled in, one by one. I was cheering for my neighbor’s daughter Carrie (Carrie is in 8th grade and went to Ian’s grade school), who wound up finishing with a time of 17:38. Yay Carrie!

Then it was the boys’ turn. They got lined up, and I was so busy snapping pictures of the start of the boys’ race that I completely forgot to start the stopwatch around my neck. Dumb ass. So anyway, they took off, and I went around to a place about a quarter of the way around the park to get more pictures of Ian as he went by. When he got there, he was about 3rd from dead last. I got to thinking, he’s not going to be in a good mood after this race if he finishes that far down. He ran past me, so I went to stake a claim at the finish line. After about 10 minutes of waiting- which, honestly, seemed like seconds- the first kid came down the final stretch.

He was a boy from FMS, and he finished with a time of about twelve and a half minutes. Again- most impressive, my young padowan. More kids started rolling in, occasionally two or three at a time, and then I saw Ian. I snapped a picture of him about 50 yards from the finish and then screamed myself hoarse for him. Out of 67 boys in his race, he finished 52nd with a time of 18:32. His base time, which was the time with which he qualified for the team, was 19:38, so he beat his base by over a minute. Granted, Rotary Park is flat, while Lincoln Park, where he qualified, has a pretty good-sized hill, but still.

I was beaming.

I told him before his race started that whether he finished first or dead last, I was extremely proud of him, and I was. For his very first race ever, to finish ahead of nearly 23% of the runners was outstanding. I know he won’t necessarily do that well at every meet, but he has shown himself that A, he can finish a race, and B, he can do it with a respectable time.

And then after the race, he dropped a bomb on me. He chastised me because, when I told him that no matter where he finished, I was proud of him, I apparently did it in front of his buddies, “and some of them were 7th and even 8th graders!” I mean, he is in middle school now, but I honestly wasn’t expecting the “not in front of the guys any more” speech until at least next year. So I have that to deal with now.

But in the mean time, I take great pride in how well my oldest son ran in his first-ever cross-country meet. There is another meet this Thursday, the 8th, at Lincoln Park, so we’ll see how well that time compares with this one. This Saturday, the 10th, is a massive meet up in Normal, IL, with lots and lots of schools from all over the state. The LMS athletic director says it’s just insane. Hundreds of people screaming… he says it’s simply awesome. I don’t think I’ll get to go to that one. Dawn’s work schedule won’t let her see very many meets, thus, I kinda got overruled since she’s off on Saturday. So she’ll be attending that meet, while I take Adam to his soccer game.

Man, did I draw the short straw on THAT deal.

I just hope I didn’t lose the pictures I took today. They’re still in the camera, but my stupid iPhoto program didn’t show any photos to import when I hooked the camera up. So once (if) I figure out that little issue, I will [hopefully] have some pictures to accompany future XC posts.

Great job, Ian!

My son has the runs

Not THAT kind. I’m just not good at coming up with pithy puns for my post titles, like newspapers (especially the sports sections) do with their story headlines. This post isn’t about lower-intestinal problems, it’s about running.

Actual running.

Ian’s been playing baseball for four seasons now. He’s not one of those kids that is a natural athlete, the kind that has MLB scouts coming to watch him play at age 9 or anything like that, but he’s a decent player. He’s been his team’s starting second baseman for all four seasons. His major drawback is his confidence in himself. His own worst enemy, that type of thing. He started middle school (Lincoln Leopards, baby!) this school year, and tried out for the school’s baseball team. There were 22 kids trying out for 15 positions. Daddy bias aside, while he was not the best player at tryouts, he was by far not the worst either. There was a kid trying out that I’m guessing had never picked up a baseball bat before. Alas, the tryout gods were not smiling upon him, and he didn’t make the team.

That was a huge blow to his confidence. When the school’s website posted the list of the kids that made it and he saw that his name wasn’t there, it completely deflated him, both emotionally and physically. I felt horrible for him, not so much for not making the team as for how hard he took it. I never actually saw him cry over it, but it was obvious he was in cry-at-any-time mode.

Rewind to last March or so for a moment. Once he had gotten accepted to Lincoln, and had gone to his open-house, at which he learned of some of the multitude of sports and extracurriculars that LMS has available to students, he suddenly announced that he wanted to attempt to join the cross-country team. This was a complete surprise to me- I had no idea he was even remotely interested in running. But I was obviously supportive of it, mainly because this was something in which he developed an interest seemingly on his own (i.e. without any parental “suggestion”), because he seemed to be driven to do it, and also because I simply want my kids to be happy. I’m funny that way.

The only thing I was concerned about was that he’s not a strong runner. Cross-country is about stamina as opposed to speed per se, but he’s not really a strong runner. Around age 5 or s0, he was “diagnosed” as having underdeveloped hamstrings. He spent much of the year between his fifth and sixth birthdays wearing leg braces designed to help stretch his hamstrings. He hates doing hamstring stretching exercises (does anyone really like them, other than the really crazed “Running is life” types?), so he hasn’t exactly been very diligent in trying to develop them in the time since.

Throughout the rest of the spring and the summer, I kept telling him (which is to say, nagging the piss out of him) that if he was going to try out for cross-country, he was going to need to start running, so that he could start building stamina, work on his cardio, that kind of thing. But to my knowledge, he never actually started running until about 5 days before school started this past Monday.

Dawn hopped in the car and odometered (I know that’s not a word) out for him that, starting from our driveway, a mile is basically two laps around the block and then to the stop sign at the west end of our street. So the last few days before school started, he would use his stopwatch function on his iPod and go time his run. I have no clue what is considered a “good running time” for a mile for an eleven year old, but he was averaging about nine and a quarter to nine and a half minutes. I do know that that’s a hell of a lot better than my fat doughy ass and nearly cartilage-free knees could even think about doing. Once or twice he did two miles, finishing in the 20-21 minute range, and he did a mile and a half(-ish) in a little over 15 minutes.

His first practice was Wednesday. It was pretty hot and humid that day, and he said that they ran outside for about half an hour and then went inside and ran around in the gym. Then yesterday was the first actual tryout. There is no practice today, because of the “Welcome Back Dance” after school (I can’t imagine how awkward that at least theoretically will be, especially for Ian and his fellow 6th graders), then there are tryout practices next Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, with the first meet of the season on Thursday next week.

The “official” tryout consists of running a two-mile course laid out at Lincoln Park (not affiliated with Lincoln Magnet School, besides being a namesake, but it is the “home park” for most of the city schools’ cross-country teams) in 24:00 or less. While I have absolutely no knowledge of the actual route they use, Lincoln Park has a fairly steep hill on its south half- one up which I wouldn’t even consider skateboarding or skating, let’s put it that way- and it’s definitely reasonable that said hill would be part of the course. Ian had only run on the flat sidewalks of our neighborhood, never on a hill, through any sort of wooded area, etc., but regardless, he was going to have to run the two miles in less than 24 minutes.

He did it in 19:37. That’s nineteen minutes, thirty-seven seconds- close to 25% faster than was required.

So, on his first attempt, Ian became a member of the Lincoln Magnet School cross-country team. When he came home afterward yesterday afternoon, his poker face absolutely sucked. It was immediately apparent that he made it. I kinda teared up a little bit when he made his announcement. He really, REALLY needed this to boost his confidence back up. I’m looking forward to it for him because, while it is technically a “team” sport (hence “cross-country team), it is far more an individual sport. True, they are races against other runners, and the idea is to win the race, but when all is said and done, you essentially are only “competing” against yourself and your best time. That’s something that I really think will help Ian with his overall self-confidence as he sees his time decrease, and also, the running and all the exercise he’ll be getting just may help him get to sleep at night a little easier.

Suffice it to say, Daddy is absolutely beaming. Whether he sets state records or never finishes a single race, I cannot be more proud of him right now.

Things kids do- or should

Last year, the family took a vacation to North Carolina to visit the Earthshine Mountain Lodge. I wrote a post about it here. We had such a good time that we decided to go back again this summer. It was just as enjoyable this summer as it was last time. I wanted to post pictures and accounts again this year, but I didn’t, for three main reasons. A, I just kept putting it off and putting it off and now it’s been a month since we’ve been back; 2, it would essentially be nearly identical to last year’s post (same place, same basic photos, just different people with us); and D, I just had to say something about these boys that were there during our stay.

There was this family from South Carolina. It was a mom, her father, and her four kids (three boys, ages 10-13, and a daughter who was probably 7). The three boys were the most obnoxious little buttheads I’ve ever seen. First of all, the very thick Southern accent was spine-cracking (“Maaaaw-ma? Maaaaw-ma? Maaaaw-ma? Maaaaw-ma?” constantly!) and, being brothers, they were constantly rough-housing and playing grab-ass to the extreme, but the big thing that made me want to douse them in honey and stuff them in an anthill was the fact that they bitched and complained about everything, and either couldn’t or wouldn’t do anything for themselves.

I can’t really describe examples, simply because I’d have to provide background information on everything, and I’m going to be rather long-winded on this post as it is (shocker, right?). I don’t know the family dynamic- maybe there was some… issue… I don’t know if Dad just didn’t come, or if there wasn’t a dad, or whatever, but holy crap. Mom was an enabler, for the most part, in as much as wiping their noses and tying their shoes every time they asked instead of making them do something for themselves. The grandpa did somewhat “discipline” them at times, though not nearly enough and not nearly harshly enough. If they were MY kids…

After we got back home, Dawn and I were telling people about these bratty little bastards so often that I decided I was going to write a post about kids being able to do things on their own. So, here is a list- not a complete list, but a list none the less- of things I think all children need to learn how to do at least by the age of 18, many of them sooner than that.

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First, the important ones. Very basic things that are very basic things to help get you through life.

• Manners. I don’t know at what point possessing and demonstrating manners (and politeness, for that matter) suddenly became considered a “weakness”, but kids need to know how and when to use phrases like “please”, “thank you”, and especially “I’m sorry”, without being told to do so. It’s even worse when adults lack this basic skill. COMMON COURTESY IS NOT A CHARACTER FLAW, PEOPLE!
• Win- AND lose- with grace. I hate trash talk, especially from punk-ass little kids. Just as obnoxious as the kid that bawls and throws a fit when s/he loses is the kid who does the “nanner nanner naaaaaaa-nner” dance and talks a bunch of shit. If you win, shake the other guy’s hand, say “good game”, and walk away. If you lose, shake the other guy’s hand, say “good game”, and walk away. If you can’t win without rubbing salt in the other guy’s wounds, or lose without throwing a hissy, you’re nothing but a little bitch. The same holds true for adults, by the way. Even more so, because adults should know better.
• Laundry. I started washing my own clothes when I was 12. And no, I don’t just jam everything in the machine and pour in three-quarters of a box of laundry soap, a la Bobby Brady. In fact, I’m just the other direction- I’m rather OCD about laundry. Right after we got married, I told Dawn I will take care of all the laundry- hers, mine, and that of any kids we wound up having. (Dawn can’t fold clothes to save her life. Love you, honey.)
• Cook at least simple food. I’m not saying someone has to be able to make lobster Thermidor, rack of lamb, and creme brulee (sorry, I don’t know how to make the little accents on my laptop, nor do I know which ones go on which vowels) by the time they are 18, but kids should at least be able to make something more substantial than ramen noodles and cold cereal. Brown hamburger, make pasta, scramble and fry an egg, that kind of thing. And for something that is more “advanced”, they should be able to follow a recipe. PERSONAL NOTE: I absolutely suck at cooking. I’ve tried to cook things many times, but I just can’t get the hang of it. Hell, I need a recipe to make ice cubes. I’m invoking the “do as I say, not as I do” rule here. Shut up.
• Hand-wash dishes. You can’t eat off of paper plates and plastic silverware all your life. I mean, I guess you could, but that gets expensive. Most people don’t have a maid that cleans up after them, and at least when they first start out on their own, most people don’t have an automatic dishwasher- or if you DO have one, you better hope it doesn’t break down. And some things HAVE to be washed by hand, lest they melt or otherwise become compromised in the dishwasher (see thin plastic cups, cooking- especially serrated- knives, and certain brands of cookware). You wouldn’t think so, but there is a “right” way to wash dishes. Soap, hot water, actually scrubbing, rinsing, using the “proper” washing implement for the type of dish you’re watching (I found this one out the hard way… stupid non-stick cookware).
• Change a tire. This doesn’t really “fit” with the others above, but everyone- male and female- needs to be able to change a tire. Tires don’t typically go flat during business hours when you can call the motor club. Sometimes you have to do it yourself. On the car theme, you need to be able to check your oil. Not necessarily change your oil- I am perfectly fine with making the Jiffy Lube staff do that for me, and if you can change your own oil, bonus points to you- but you should at least be able to check it.
• Use proper grammar, punctuation and spelling. I’m not saying people should be walking dictionaries and thesauruses (or, thesauri, if you prefer), but come on. Use of the English language nowadays is pathetic. Text language (“TTYL”, “IDK”, typing “u” for “you”, “2″ and “4″ for “to” and “for”, respectively, etc.) makes me cringe enough- it’s lazy- but worse than that is when people display an [apparent] ignorance of basic grammar and punctuation rules and spelling. Not knowing the difference between “your”, “you’re” (and “yore” now, too, it would appear) or “they’re”, “there”, and “their”, for example, or proper use of apostrophes, is simply unacceptable. We all make typos. We all make grammar mistakes. It happens. But when a person’s email, blog post (and yes, I am trying to proofread this post with extra scrutiny), or whatever they are writing is littered with misspellings and grammar and punctuation mistakes, it makes that person look incredibly unintelligent. It’s your language; LEARN IT. Oh, and it’s “SUPPOSEDLY”, not “SUPPOSABLY”!!
• Learn how and when to dress properly. I’m not going to turn this into an argument over fashion and what “looks good”/is “cool” and what doesn’t/isn’t. If you want to wear baggy drawls and Butthole Surfers t-shirts under dirty flannel shirts and hoodies every day, that’s fine. But for Christ’s sake, if you’re going to wear said Butthole Surfers t-shirt and droopy drawls to a job interview, for example, don’t be shocked and offended when you don’t get the job. It’s called a suit and tie. And that’s another thing: learn how to tie a necktie.

Then there are things that are not necessarily “vital to survival” but are still important to know.

• Sweep and mop a floor. It’s not rocket surgery, but I’ve seen people who can’t sweep or mop without leaving dirt on the floor or missing spots. And vacuuming something quite simple to do but some people aren’t real good at it. Perhaps it’s a matter of “if I do a shitty enough job, maybe they won’t ask me to do it again” but, if that’s the case, that’s a pretty piss-poor way to go through life. Stop trying to take the easy way out all the time!
• Clean the bathroom. Along with washing dishes, most people won’t have maids (or their mom) following behind them to clean up their pee dribbles, poop smears, toothpaste stains and bathtub rings. Cleaning the shower/tub, toilet, and sink are important skills to learn. If you get lucky enough to move into the college dorm rooming with the Felix to your Oscar, that’s fine and dandy, but if you are both Oscars, one of you is going to have to clean. It’d be better if both of you did it. Two other things regarding the bathroom, each of which will likely be the source of most of the feedback (if there even is any) on this post: change the toilet paper roll when it is empty. Regardless of what many people say, it makes absolutely no difference which way it hangs off the spool; as long as there is toilet paper, IT DOES NOT MATTER. The other thing is that it is no more the man’s responsibility to put the toilet seat than it is the woman’s responsibility to check whether it is up or down before just plopping her ass down. Yes, even in the dark at 3:30am. Also, it is no more “gross” for a woman to have to put it down than it is for a man. You wash your hands afterward anyway, don’t you? Well, DON’T you? And ladies, if the seat IS up (heaven forbid!), it isn’t going to harm you in the least to put it down. Just put the seat down, do your business, and shut up. As with the toilet paper, at least there is a seat there to be used. (And let the firestorm of comments begin in 3… 2… 1…)
• Start a fire. Unless you’re going on Survivor some time soon, chances are good that you’ll never have to build a fire- and the Weber grill doesn’t count. I’m talking about building it from the ground up, kindling and all, and get it lit and keep it going, without the use of matches. I know it’s not very likely, but wouldn’t it be a huge feather in your cap if, in case you get stranded somewhere some day, you were able to build a fire and keep warm and… oh, I don’t know… survive until help comes?
• Sew on a button. It’s really not that difficult. Even I can sew on a button.

Finally there are a couple things that, before long, probably won’t even be around to need to be learned, but in the mean time, I think they should still be learned.

• Drive a stick shift. Do car makers even make cars with manual transmissions any more? Other than the higher-end midlife crisis cars, like BMWs, Porsches, Lamorghinis, etc.? I think kids should be taught their behind-the-wheel driver education on a car with a manual transmission. If they can drive a manual, they can drive an automatic. Not necessarily true vice versa. As long as there are cars available (especially older-model cars that people buy used, often to serve as their “first car”) that have manual transmissions, I think everyone needs to know how to drive them.
• Write a check and balance a checkbook. Checks are possibly going to be obsolete in a few years, between debit cards, online banking and bill paying, and the fact that you get treated like a leper when you write a check in a store any more, but until they’re gone, people should know how to write a check properly and to balance the register. It’s not that hard- I suck at math and I can do it.
• Use a can opener. So many canned goods nowadays are going to pull-top lids or some other type of “easy open” device, but I seriously know people who have no clue how to use a standard hand-operated can opener. That’s crazy.

I’m sure there are some I’m missing, but these are the main ones that come to mind. How many of these things can YOU do [properly]? Do you disagree that any of the things I’ve listed “should” be learned? Can you think of any other tasks, whether “important” or not so much, that YOU feel everyone should know how to do?

Elementary school no more

Today is Ian’s last full day of school (technically, the kids get out an hour early, but they only go for 90 minutes on Monday–provided I decide to send them) as an elementary school student. I went to school today to see Ian’s author project, a report on his favorite author, that he’s been working on essentially all school year. He chose J.K. Rowling, as he read (and thoroughly enjoyed) all seven Harry Potter books between the beginning of September and just after New Years.

Their report consisted of a quote from their chosen author, a brief biography of their author, a brief synopsis of the representative book (Ian chose “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”, in case you’re wondering), and why he would recommend it to someone else. He was the first kid to present, and he did a smashing job.

Unfortunately, my lack of computer techery knowledge prohibits me from figuring out how to post the video I shot of it to this blog. But trust me- he did a great job.

We listened to all the kids’ reports, and then we were able to eat lunch outside with our kids (I picked up Subway) over their lunch and recess time. Ian and I had lunch, had a nice little chat, talked with a couple classmates and their moms, and then he decided he wanted to go play with his friends. Dads are only fun for so long.

Anyway, at that point I decided to go find his teacher. Mrs. Schackmann was Ian’s 3rd grade teacher, and this school year she moved to 5th grade. When we found that out late last school year, Ian was hopeful all summer that he would get her again, and sho’ ’nuff, he did. She is an absolutely outstanding teacher. I know (and have known) a great many teachers, good and bad, and I don’t think I have ever met one- or had one myself- quite like Mrs. Schackmann. She truly, truly loves her job. She is wildly passionate about teaching, about learning, and about her students. She calls her students her friends rather than her students. She responds to them and, in turn, they respond to her. Not only was she his teacher, she was one of the advisors for IMSA, the Illinois Math and Science Academy, an academic club for 4th and 5th graders that met once a week after school to do projects, play games, and conduct experiments involving scientific and mathematic principles.

Ian and Mrs. Schackmann

I went back into school to find her, and couldn’t. I looked in her room, I looked in the office, I looked in the cafeteria, in the teacher’s lounge, and could not find her at all. She had said before the reports got started that she’d gotten choked up a couple times already that day, so I was wondering if maybe she was off in her car having a breakdown or something. I probably would have been. Anyway, I was just about to leave when I found her in the back of the school with the other 5th grade teacher, filling up buckets with water. Something told me there could be some mischief involved, and I was quite fine with that. So I thanked her for everything over the last three years, and she and I both were choking back tears. She told me how she hopes to get Adam as a student in a few years, to which I wanted to reply, “Be careful what you wish for”, but thought better of it. Without saying anything, we decided mutually to end the conversation for fear of winding up bawling in each other’s arms.

That’s when it hit me hardest. This is Ian’s last hurrah in grade school. He goes back Monday for 90 minutes- I told him he doesn’t have to go, but I think he actually wants to- but this is essentially his last day. I got back to the car and cried. Luckily I wasn’t the only wussy parent- I did see some moms crying as well. I thought about Ian’s first day of kindergarten, which was, simultaneously, just yesterday and yet so long ago, when I put him on the bus for the first time and cried.

Yes, I’m a big baby. Shut up.

I thought about the school events, the music programs, the ‘Sports Days’, the fun fairs, the class projects, and the library periods of which Ian and, consequently, Dawn and/or I have been a part for the last six years, and realized that all comes to an end at 2:30 today. Yes, he goes to middle school next year, but that’s a whole different era of his life. It’s the same but completely different. And yes, Adam is just finishing kindergarten (by the skin of his teeth- not academically so much as behaviorally) and has 5 more years at Owen Marsh, but my firstborn is done with elementary school.

I’m not sure I’m ready for that yet. I’m not completely sure he is either. Today at lunch he told me he’s been looking forward to this moment, yet dreading it at the same time, for the last six years. Something that occurred to me just this second: when Adam finishes at Owen Marsh in 5 years, Ian will be getting close to getting his driver’s license. His driver’s license! Oh my freakin’ GAWD! What happened to my little Monkey that I just put on the bus for kindergarten? How can he be heading into middle school already?

To next year’s assistant principal, Ms. Wickham (a personal friend of mine), I am very much looking forward to Ian’s opportunity to receive your direction, wisdom and guidance for the next three years at Lincoln. He is a very bright kid with a ton of potential, and I know enough about you and your passion and love for your students to know what you can do with that potential. All I can tell you is… get ready.

And to my oldest son, I just have these words:

In the last six years, I have seen you grow from wide-eyed kindergartener into a mature 5th grader with an amazing mind and limitless potential. You have no idea of the tools you possess. Tap into them- REALLY tap into them. Discover what they can do for you, and what you can do for them. Don’t be afraid of challenges, and don’t let failure, or the fear of failure, deter you. It is these failures that are essential to success, strangely enough. The only way to truly fail is not to have tried. Continue what you’re doing academically, making your mother and me extremely proud parents. I love you so much, Ian.

And I’m sorry if my crying over your grade school career ending embarrasses you. You should see me right now as I’m typing this. And, being my son, don’t be too surprised if at 10:30 Monday morning, you’re wiping tears away yourself.

Walk a Mile in Her Shoes recap

In my last post back in February (I am obviously still not posting as often as I should), I said that I would be participating in the Walk a Mile in Her Shoes walk to benefit the Prairie Center Against Sexual Assault (PCASA). This organization provides help for ALL victims of sexual assault (men, women, AND children) and seeks to prevent it as well. The idea of the walk is for men to literally walk a mile in women’s shoes to raise awareness of sexual assault. Anyone is allowed to walk, but the whole point is for men to put on heels and walk a mile in “her shoes”.

SIDE NOTE: I have been told on several occasions recently that pretty much any act done “under the guise of ‘raising awareness’” is an “empty, meaningless gesture”. I take very serious issue with that statement. True, simply “raising awareness” of a disease or social problem (or whatever) doesn’t really do anything to actually combat said disease or social problem (or whatever), but raising awareness is where it starts. I concede that the simple act of, for example, my wearing a pink shirt on Fridays in October does nothing in the fight against breast cancer, but if my wearing that pink shirt gets one woman to seek medical attention or to start doing monthly self-examinations, then I strongly argue that the gesture was neither empty nor meaningless. Similarly, if my walking in a mile-long parade in high heels causes one person even to just stop and think about how serious sexual assault is, then it has meaning. Again, I realize that giving money goes far longer than does putting on a shirt or a pair of women’s shoes, but to say that those gestures are meaningless is, quite frankly, rather insulting to me. But enough with that little pet peeve of mine.

Anyway, yesterday was the Walk a Mile walk. Walkers met up at Caitie Girl’s restaurant downtown at 9:30am to register, turn in last minute donations, and get their shirts and shoes (the organizers provided shoes for walkers that asked in advance for them, so they didn’t have to buy them).

Walkers convening at Caitie Girls before the walk

[Click on images to see larger picture]

Walkers could be individuals or in teams. There were a few teams there that I saw, but I was there as an individual. Strangely, I didn’t see anyone I knew there (that’s rather odd for me to go somewhere in town and NOT know someone), so I just sort of spent the next hour or so just sitting there and feeling rather like I was at my freshman homecoming dance, at which I sat by myself watching all the cool kids socialize.

Molson and Josie from Alice-FM’s morning show were there, and while they weren’t actually doing a remote from the event, the station’s programming was being played in the restaurant, so I just kinda hung out there and listened, trying hard not to look too much like a groupie or something. I’d seen their pictures lots of times before, but this was the first time I’d ever actually seen Molson and Josie in person. Johnny Molson is about my size, and Josie is actually quite a bit taller than I thought she would be. And also quite a bit better looking.

Molson (in ball cap with hands in pockets) and Josie from Alice-FM

They were handing out “string packs” with the station’s logo on them, so I asked Josie if I could have one, and when she gave me one, I proceeded to confirm my dork status and give her the old “I’m a big fan, I listen to you all the time!” shpiel, that I’m sure she’s heard over and over, before I could stop it. So I took my string pack, stuffed it into my backpack, and slinked away, feeling every bit the loser I am sure I appeared.

While I was ticking away the minutes until the walk started, I was approached by two girls, probably around 12 or so, asking if I wanted a couple strands of beads. I figured, why not, and accepted them. Then I noticed people walking around with PCASA beer cups, so I wandered over to this table that was loaded with them and, whether I was “supposed to” or not, I grabbed one. It also had a PCASA clicky pen (LOVE the clicky pens!) and a purple “Stop Sexual Violence” lanyard, so I was all, “Oooooh, free swag!” Anyway, I put my event shirt on, and eventually, it was time to start the walk.

For the benefit of those that don’t live in Springfield, the weather yesterday was rather ugly. Friday night we had some pretty strong storm cells come through the area (multiple tornado warnings, but nothing major, that I ever heard), and yesterday’s weather wasn’t really much better. Right around start time (10:45), it was all of about 43 degrees with very gusty winds, and was misting, after having rained fairly steadily for about 10 minutes prior to that. Not exactly the best weather for walking outside. At a couple points during the walk, I swear it even sleeted a little.

Anyway, we went outside and lined up along the sidewalk, and then right before the walk started, several of Springfield’s finest blocked all the intersections along the route and we all went into the street and started walking.

Outside, just before we stepped off

Starting at 5th and Washington, we marched east on Washington St. (i.e., the brick section along the north side of the Old Capitol mall complex–whose sadistic idea was that?!), and turned south onto 7th St. As we walked, I was noticing the drivers of the cars that were being blocked by the roughly 500 people walking. Most appeared quite perturbed. I loved it. I gave the more inconvenienced-looking motorists my best parade wave. I’m sure that helped.

Turning onto 7th St.

Along 7th St., about a half a block north of the Hilton (The Penis of the Plains, for those familiar with the area), a woman with a megaphone shouted “Halfway, people… HALFWAY!”, which resulted in cheers and hooting from the already haggard walkers.

Passing the Hilton on 7th St.

During the course of the walk, I noticed that some of the male walkers were wearing women’s flip-flops and slip-on shoes. Technically, there’s nothing wrong with that, but I inwardly judged them as cheaters for not wearing heels. That was the whole idea. Bottom line, they were out there walking, raising awareness, and raising donations, but I still labeled myself “better” than they because I was wearing three-inch stilettos. So there.

So after a couple blocks down 7th St., we turned west onto Capitol Avenue (again, walking over two blocks of bricks) to end up at the State Capitol building, an easily recognizable structure with a dome on top, in which nothing productive seems to ever be accomplished. But I digress.

The home stretch to the Capitol

Saucy!

As we got to the train trestle, under which Capitol Ave. goes, there was a group of about 15 men [in heels] that proceeded to sprint the last block or so toward the Capitol, where the walk ended. Idiots. From what I heard, one poor bastard stumbled and bit the asphalt pretty hard. Myself, I chose to continue walking, and stayed upright. The steps of the Capitol were in view, and I wanted to get there with the least amount of shame possible.

About a block to go!

The finish line!

Literally the last guy in the walk (red sweater). He was struggling, but he finished!

Along that final block, Janet, one of my friends from high school who had come out to support me and the other walkers, met up with me and walked the final couple hundred feet with me to the finish. We stepped up onto the curb, up the steps, and I was relieved and rather impressed with myself that I had just walked a mile in high heels, and still had all my ankle and knee bones and tendons in the same condition as they were when I started.

I made it!

They are all deteriorating anyway due to my middle age, but at least I didn’t snap an ankle or tear an ACL or anything, which, to be perfectly honest, I was somewhat expecting to inadvertently do. But still, upon reaching the Capitol steps and successfully finishing the walk, I changed back into my tennis shoes. The sensation of walking in tennis shoes, after having spent about 90 minutes in heels, was really kind of bizarre at first. Actually took me a minute or two to get my legs back under me.

Fellow SSHS alum Randy Flood in his fishnets

There was a “rally” on the steps of the Capitol, at which the organizers thanked all the participants, gave a speech about the importance of stopping sexual assault, and even had some sort of bizarre “Jersey Shore”-based performance. They had a Best Heels contest, the prize for which was, I believe, nothing more than bragging rights, but was still pretty cool that they did it. There were some pretty bitchin’ shoes. Some really, REALLY high heels, some go-go boots, and all manner of pumps and heels, some thick, some spiked, some wedges. (Yes, I know what wedges are, ladies. I’m not a complete idiot!)

These were friggin AWESOME!

Then there was an “after party” back at Caitie Girl’s, where we started, where they had beer and mixed drinks available, and a foodservice warmer of chili available. We had left the rally before it had actually ended, and by the time we got to Caitie Girl’s, the chili was nearly gone. I drank a couple Miller Lites for lunch (it was that or Bud Light, so I chose the vortex bottle). Once the rally was over and everyone was back from the Capitol, they handed out prizes for Most Funds Raised by a team and by an individual (over $1100.00!!), and by a child. The winner of the child category was this cute little guy with Down’s syndrome. He was absolutely ecstatic to have received the trophy. He held it over his head and jumped up and down… it was SO sweet. They drew names from the walkers and handed out “need to be present to win” prizes, like GCs to restaurants and other places that sponsored the walk. I hung out for a little while, then I left to go pick up the boys from Grandma & Grandpa’s.

Be jealous, haters.

First off, let me say that I did quite well walking in the shoes Dawn picked out for me. Don’t know where she got them, but they were only $10 (score!) and were FAAAAAAAAAAAbulous. I even had one woman ask if she could buy them off of me. I had a few uneasy steps, but didn’t do any ankle rolls or stumbles, even on the brick, but all in all, I did quite well. In fact, the only ankle roll I did do was back at Caitie Girl’s afterward in my tennis shoes. So go figure. Anyway, we weren’t being judged on our form, so I figure as long as I made it, I did what I came to do. I had practiced walking in them a few times, with Dawn giving me “pointers” like “You need to shuffle a little more”, “Try not to lead with your heel”, “Stop swinging your arm so much”, things like that. I told her, it’s a charity walk, not a female impersonator contest. But then she reminded me that if I want to last the entire mile, working on form a little bit wouldn’t hurt. I wasn’t exactly Heidi Klum on the runway, but I at least felt like I did well enough. I felt more confident and comfortable than some of the other guys looked like they felt.

My shoes. Yeah, I know the socks look stupid, but I dont have any blisters today.

I put the pictures up on Facebook and, as expected, the comments came from the woodwork. Some teased, some said I had more balls than brains, but most were very supportive and congratulatory. One of my friends even thanked me for “making a difference in the world”. I don’t feel like I even remotely “made a difference” at all, but I understood what she meant and was most humbled by that comment. Sexual assault is a horrible, horrible crime and needs to be eliminated. If my lumbering about in high heels for a mile can even potentially help put an end to sexual assault, I’ll gladly lumber about.

I had wanted to do this walk for a while. I first heard of it a couple years ago and thought, “I could do that”. Trouble was, I never heard anything about it until the day after the walk, when a picture appeared in the paper. Then this past February, I saw something on Twitter about it, and clicked on the link, which took me to the registration page. I didn’t even think about it- I instantly signed up. It’s a great cause, it was actually kinda fun (even though my calves are STILL pissed off at me), and I will do it again next year, and every year until it is no longer necessary. And will be asking you for donations again, hint hint hint. I raised right around $375.00- way, WAY more than I ever thought I would- and I hope to break that next time. Whether I do or not, though, this is something that is important to me and the support you gave me (and that I hope you will give me in the future) is immensely and profoundly appreciated, from the bottom of my heart.

And now I can start scanning the ads for new, totally cute shoes to wear. That Best Heels title will be MINE!