Buckhead Sizzler and Tri for Tourettes Recap

Stephen Peterson — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 13:19:00 GMT

When I was single (I'll be honest here - desperately single), and visualized what a weekend would look like with a wife and kids, my fantasy looked a lot like the weekend I just completed. Today I find myself wishing that the rest of my life looked a lot more like my weekend.

Saturday morning I awoke at 5:00 to head to the Chamblee MARTA Station in Atlanta for the Buckhead Sizzler 10K with hopes of setting a new personal record. I'd set my previous PR in the same race two years ago when I clocked in at slightly over 50 minutes. Prior to that race, my only 10K experience was in the Peachtree Road Race, which I hadn't so much run as endured several times, so my 50 minute mark two years ago was a quantum leap from prior performances. On Saturday I was looking to do better still. Forty eight minutes was my goal. Everything was aligning nicely. I had slept well, it was cool, and I had no problems getting into a restroom before the start -all things that had hindered me in the past. The gun fired, I shuffled through the first fifty yards or so until the crowd thinned, and then I started weaving my way through the slower runners. I had this notion of running the entire race in timed intervals, but I discarded that after the second mile. I just didn't have enough kick left for the faster intervals, so I settled into my normal run pace. I somehow managed to mess-up my stopwatch, so I was dependent on the volunteers at each mile marker to tell me my pace. At each mile I heard the times I needed to hear. I was on pace. As I turned right off of Peachtree Street onto Piedmont I tried to muster up a good kick, but I was already spent and fortunate to hold on to my pace. The finish is configured such that I really couldn't see the clock until I was quite close to it. I feared I had let my goal slip past. But as I saw the clock it was just rolling over to 47. I ran underneath the banner at 47:17. The official times aren't out yet, but unless they are way off of that mark, I well exceeded my goal. You six-minute milers can chuckle at my modest achievement, but I was ecstatic.

From the finish line, I navigated my way to the car and ultimately to the soccer fields where I coach my oldest son's soccer team. He's 8. He's had a tough couple of years in school, and this past spring he was diagnosed with some learning disabilities. For whatever pain and frustration we endure in life, when we see it played out in our children it's magnified a hundred times. I find myself aching for him to experience success. To compound things, he's perceptive as to where he falls short. Athletics has been a good outlet for him, but like his father, he's not a standout. As a coach and father, the season had been frustrating because the team had yet to win a game, and we'd been shutout in the previous two games. It's not that I hold out winning as an essential element of a positive athletic experience, but let's be honest, it can be pretty demoralizing to never win, and more so to never score. Well, we won. Not only did we win, but my son scored the lone goal on the winning end of a 1-0 shutout, on top of having some nice defensive plays.

Late that evening, after the kids were in bed, my wife and I sat on the deck in front of a fire, recapping the wonderful events of the day. Saturday was a glimpse of Eden.

Sunday started out as it typically does in our house - frustratingly tension-filled as we sought to prepare four kids (8, 7, 4 and 2) for church. As usual, the van ride started out quiet until my wife and I recognized the absurdity of driving to church while harboring feelings of irrational hostility toward one another. I'm blessed with a wonderful wife, and all it takes is a couple of soft comments, a touch, a look and we're back on track. Once we got there, I taught, we sang, we prayed, we learned. It's a good thing to reorient the mind toward higher things, but quite honestly my mind was already on the afternoon's planned activities.

After church my wife and I engaged in the delicate choreography of feeding everyone, delivering a meal to a sick friend, getting our youngest to bed for a nap, getting our third child to his soccer game and our oldest to his first triathlon. I'd like to say it was an unusually busy afternoon, but they're almost all like that. It's the life we chose. The division of labor was such that my wife took the three younger kids to the soccer game. My younger son (4) has demonstrated some surprisingly good athletic ability. I say "surprising" because there's not a lot in his gene pool that would have predicted it. I was a mediocre high school athlete. My wife was an enthusiastic, but not overly acrobatic cheerleader. This is his first year playing soccer, and from the moment he took the field, he showed an aggressiveness and ball awareness that set him above his teammates. He scored three goals in his first game, five in this third, and he scored twice on Saturday. He's in the unenviable third position in our house - two older siblings to answer to, and a cute baby sister stealing the attention. But the soccer field is his domain, and you can see it on his face.

Meanwhile, I was with my oldest son guiding him through packet pickup, body marking, and setting up in the transition area. There are few greater delights in my life than passing on a bit of knowledge and experience to my kids. He stuck close to me until the start, repeatedly asking questions about where he would start, where he would finish, and exactly what he was supposed to do in between. He was every bit as nervous as I was for my first tri, so I talked him through it and ultimately left him alone with the rest of the competitors by the pool. I knew all too well the thoughts that were passing through his mind as he waited for the start.

I found a good spot to watch the swim and readied my camera. My wife and other kids arrived just before he got in the water. One of the many things I love about my son is that he's no slave to peer pressure. It was a zigzag pattern, single start swim, and he watched every single other kid in front of him swim freestyle, but he knows that his best stroke is the backstroke. As soon as he hit the water, he was on his back, stroking with determination. The wonderful volunteers kept him from cracking his skull on the pool wall. I thought he was petering out at the end of the swim, but he sprinted to transition with vigor.

I believe that our kids are, to a large extent, a mirror for their parents. Sometimes the mirror is unflattering. When my children speak in frustration or with discouragement, it's often my words and intonation that I hear, and I cringe. It's apparently the same with biking. In my first, second and third triathlons I performed horribly on the bike. In my fourth (and most recent) I performed pretty poorly. It's not my son's strength either. The bike course was riddled with speed bumps and unlike some of the kids, he didn't see that as a perk. He rode his brakes most of the time, gently easing over each speed bump for fear of falling. I waited for his return to transition for what seemed an eternity. But once he got there, he transitioned quickly and sprinted onto the run course. I took a quick bit of video from that segment, and I attach it here. There was something effervescent about his smile, his confidence, even his stride. He was proud, confident. When he heard us cheer he stepped up his pace, determined to finish strong - and he did. We haven't gotten the splits, but by my calculation he blistered the run.

For whatever strengths I bring to the table as a parent, I lack the natural overt enthusiasm that his mother brings. I met him at the finish with a smile and a hug, but his mother smothered him with embraces and kisses and exuberant praise. He glowed. I've never seen anything like it, particularly not in him. He wore his medal the rest of the day and to school the next day.

I've watched this little video clip over and over again, several times each day since the race. I don't know what it is - the cheers, the smile, the little body striving mightily to do well, but something about it strikes me to the core. I see myself in him, just several stages behind. Like most parents, I want him to experience success, but I recognize that he's got to experience setbacks and overcome adversity to develop into the man I know he can be. On Sunday I saw perseverance in him that encourages me that he'll get there.

So, it was more than a good weekend. It was somehow significant, a benchmark - perhaps mostly for me. I can't pave his paths, I can't make his decisions. He's 8 now, and I've moved from a caregiver to a coach. Like any coach, I'm learning more about the game now than I ever could have when I was playing myself.

In life I seek to spend my time engaged in things that will remain, actions that will echo in eternity. At present I am at my desk finishing-up a day of work, and I have to do that to feed and provide for my family. It's noble and necessary. But when I tabulate the things I do that will remain, I count moments like I had Sunday afternoon, when I took my son to his first triathlon, and he entered as a timid kid and emerged feeling like a champion.

Blog Posts From Things That Remain Tagged With tri_for_tourettes

Buckhead Sizzler and Tri for Tourettes Recap