Day 55: Cooler and wetter - yes!

 

Lush and green!  That's the idea... I woke to the sounds of thunder overhead and rain on the roof.  We definitely needed the rain, especially after an exceptionally hot week.  The photo is from my morning walk, during which I thought about my own version of "twisties" (nod to Simone Biles' condition)... only in my case it's more the paranoia/fear of slipping on damp sidewalks.  Consequently it was a slower walk, and no jogging intervals.  Safety first, my friends.

The photo is of one point of drainage through the neighborhood, and more active due to the rain.  No, it's not close to the entrance to the park, this one is a ways afield. 

Meanwhile, on the TV, I've been watching Olympics.  Yesterday it was my own favorite sport - triathlon.  I managed to watch the men's individual triathlon and the women's earlier in the week.  Yesterday evening, it was the mixed relay.  

Believe it or not, I've actually seen one of these in person, a few years past, when Major League Triathlon came to Lincoln, and put one on.  I believe that was in 2016, but I went back in Facebook history and could not find any photos or posts.  

Sure enough, I went back and found my race report from that day, in August 2016 in my Spark blogs.  Mind you, I did the individual Sprint triathlon that day, I was certainly not part of the Major League teams!  But I have now printed the race report off to PDF, and one of these days I'll add it to OKM's Blog Archive.

In this sport, teams of four, two men, and two women, each complete a super sprint distance triathlon, as a relay team.  So first, it's a woman, then a man, then a woman, then a man.  Each athlete swims 300 meters, bikes 8 Kilometers, then runs 2 kilometers before tagging the next team member to take off and do the same.  First team to have their fourth athlete finish wins.  Oh, and in the Olympics version of this relay, each of the athletes has to have qualified for the individual triathlon event, so they could not put super-sprint specialists on just for this event.

Keep in mind those athletes had competed at 1500 meter swim, 40 K bike and 10K run, earlier in the week.  Consequently, it was quite an exciting contest, with the UK winning gold, USA got silver, and France got bronze.  In typical OKM style, I was rooting for them ALL.

The service that writing this blog has done me this morning is that it booted my rear off dead center.  I hadn't copied any more blogs since July 9th.  I had become pretty much resigned to losing whatever I hadn't already copied.  But this morning got me copying both the MLT race report, and the 2016 Age Group National triathlon series of seven blogs.  I can see by going back and reading these blogs how much the Olympics affected my training and racing that year.  It's a periodic event that energizes so many of us, around the world, to become fitter.

Now let's go out and live that Olympic spirit today, in our own little ways, this one and only Saturday, July 31, 2021 we will ever get.  For Life is good!  And each of us is needed, in this world, and a needed asset must be well cared for!  ✨💖  Spark on!