Craig's Dance

Tango is complete! Great experience. I was much more relaxed about the race this year, but I came into with way too many stresses.

Williamsport trip for Grandma's funeral midweek, started late Friday, tried to stop at Tri/Bike shop in Pittsburgh totally blew getting out of there, missed date with Genine at Rim Rock, wanted to eat dinner with my parents and daughter took a while, almost missed pre-race meeting, went to grocery store ran into people from mom & dad's church that didn't know about my Grandma, spend tons of time talking to them, ran groceries up to house, Shawn & Greg get back from reconnaissance of bike course, ran down to Matt's to have face to face meet with him about race the next day, met Maija, the Johnson's drove me crazy with the smell of cookies cooking, went back to my parents, got a couple things put together for the morning and proceeded to not be able to fall a sleep. Wonder WHY!

Woke up before the alarm, but felt great. Shawn, Greg & I went down to Y to watch the runners start. I talked up Maija pretty good to some old friends I saw at the meeting, I did notice she stepped right to the front with her toe on the start line. My Runner moved to the back of the pack. It was like last year, Thad gave a prayer for the race & athletes, then a very uneventful, "GO". Matt looked good.

I went to the beach. I always think I will have more time to get myself ready. The first dude comes in from the 1/2 marathon. I actually thought, "thank god he wasn't my runner because I wouldn't have been ready". I wait. Talk to Greg, Mr Vashaw, Genine. We wait. I move away from the line to get Genine a compass, here comes Maija. Genine is off. The clock is ticking. 10 minutes later here comes Heather, Shawn is off. I start thinking okay, not more than ten minutes, it was maybe 4 mins here comes Matt. He is fired up which gets me fired up. I take off. I pounded it hard, passed Chris Johnson on the bridge, went by another dude at the turn up Jakes rock hill than proceeded to pick off about 5 others on the way up. Hit the last part of the hill and could see Shawn's large frame in front of me. Rode up next to him, exchanged pleasantries and off I went. Gravity is not Shawn's friend. I then proceeded to attack as hard as I could. I did get passed by two people on the first half. I just kept thinking "no flats, no flats". We were warned about gravel, but the mud is what bothered me. I don't care about getting dirty, but my tires were feeling heavy. Hit the big down hill and I really let it fly. I braked once around the sharp left hand turn. I then could see Genine getting ready to turn off the dirt onto the paved. Pulled up next to her, told her how good Matt did on the run, she told me how much more she likes blacktop, she hung with me until the next little hill. I don't think her seat did her any favors, but she rode very good for not really ever riding a course like this before. A guy came up behind me at the end, saw my Mooseman shirt and said "Are you the guy with the Mooseman Blog?", I said yes rather than explain how many people are on our blog. Very cool blog he said. I hammered hard home, with Matt waiting to start the swim. He took off like a shot. Genine and Shawn were not too far behind me. I was in, no flats, I think about 1:22.

Waiting for Matt for the orienteering was longer than expected. Maija came in first, I was still trying to help Genine figure out where to leave the parking lot, in retrospect I may have helped them too much, more on that in a moment. Shawn gets in, we can see Matt coming behind him. Matt gets in. Just like Shawn before him, a little disoriented (I more than understand why). We took a little time to get oriented. Ran up the hill to get #4 first. We ran right into Shawn & Jim, Shawn was not moving very quickly. Of course I was still checking Matt to make sure he was with me. It was steep, and Matt's legs were not ready to run. Spot #4 was tough to find, but Matt sighted and we were off to the next point. We get there. We were team 3-4, they mentioned 3-5 (Genine & Maija, KB2) was asking about us. The next spot, when we said 3-4, these young guys were, "Man your 3-4, 3-5, the girls are kicking your butt, they were here 20 minutes ago, they looked tough". The last mark, which was a pain to find, they gave us the same story. "You better move to catch the girls". Why did I help girls?

We (meaning I) choose a not so friendly "path" to get back to the hard road. Matt looked and felt better. We were cruising pretty good now. I think we came in 1:40's plus.

I started out on what may be the loneliest run I have ever did. I felt for Casey last year doing it with a hurt leg. I passed a guy on the bridge and never saw another soul in front or behind until I got to the dam. I missed the dirt path and ran the paved road the whole way, which Matt thinks may have lost me a couple minutes, probably just a minute. I think I was 42 mins for the 4.5 mile run. My mom and daughter were waiting with our canoe. The newspaper reporter even let us know that the girls were beating us.

We started out paddling hard, "catch the girls, catch the girls". Then the wind came right at us, Ughhh! We got to the left to stay out of it. We must have been 45 mins or so into the canoe and Matt says, hey is that canoe KB2, I think I can see the pink on Maija's suit. I say, no that can't be them that canoe isn't even straight in the river it is going side ways. It then went sideways the other way. They disappeared around a bend. Once we got to a longer spot in the river we could tell, "It is KB2". We knew at this point we were going to catch them. With their tenacity and if they could pick up canoeing as well as they picked up orienteering, I'm glad I didn't have time to give them proper lessons, because we would have been in trouble. They gave it a shot to hang with us, but as small as they are, the boat was hard for them to control in the wind.

We carried on to assure Shawn wouldn't catch us. About 2 miles from the end, I looked back and saw a canoe coming that looked a little like Shawn & Marty. I didn't want to believe they had caught us, but it was true they were coming. I have a record of never swamping a canoe unless it was on purpose. I can't say the same for Shawn. We made it through the rapids near the refinery, Shawn and Marty, not so. They filled it good. Which gave Matt & I, a little reprieve from the chase. We came in strong at about 9 hours 2 mins. Over an hour faster than last year. Shawn & Marty came in 9 hours 7 mins. I think Maija & Genine were about 9:20, but we need to wait for final results.

It was fun, tons of support from everyone. Shawn's brother, Shawn's dad, my mom and her friends, Jerry Johnson, Scotty, Johnson's, Greg, food was good at Carlson's cottage. Nice seeing everyone. We live to dance another day.