Aunts and Trips

Halifax Track...Blue!

I think everyone has an Aunt Sue (I guess unless their Mom is Sue, then they have an Aunt Barb (I’m lucky enough to have both…boo yah, double parenthesis)). I bring this up, because this summer brought back a ton of my Aunt Sue memories.

I went on two long (there were plenty of other short ones that included her teaching us how to throw up on the tilt-a-whirl at Boblo Island and other amusement parks) trips with Aunt Sue. One was to Ireland and the other was to Nova Scotia.

On a kayaking/canoe trip in Ireland, Aunt Sue informed my brother and I that she had once been on a river excursion through Colorado with rock star Alice Cooper. On said trip, Cooper tried a backflip off a cliff and ended up with a serious concussion. Aunt Sue then stayed up with him to make sure he wouldn’t fall asleep. To this day I have no idea whether 0% or 100% of that story is true.

Then in Nova Scotia we found ourselves driving along some seriously steep cliffs along the ocean. Aunt Sue was a little afraid of heights. “LEAN!” she would yell at us as the rental van veered and steered along the curving road. Through the laughter, we would lean, as at that point we were 95% sure she was being serious.

The trips were a little different this year. When we were driving from the airport to Halifax for the race last Tuesday, I saw some cliffs near the ocean. I started chuckling. The other runners in the car with me looked at me. I almost told them to “LEAN!”
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The race in Nova Scotia was an odd one. I won 300 Canadian bucks. However, I only ran 3:47. It was an odd race where I got out pretty hard and by 800-meters in I was in 2nd place and ahead by about 25-meters from 3rd. We were out pretty quick but then both the leader and I started to rig. The problem for me was that he rigged less.

I didn’t live a great week leading up to the race, and I think it finally caught up to me with 300 to go. Having slept in the Atlanta airport the Wednesday before and then moving out of my apartment and missing a day of training didn’t equal a great race. But 300 bones, what can you do?

I am hoping for one more race this year. Still waiting to hear back from a few people to see if I can get into one. As always, Let’s Go!

ps - the meet was the Aileen Meagher Invitational. It was about a Canadian sprinter who was an Olympian in the 30s. I was reading the bio of her beforehand and started cracking up at this sentence... “By 1932 she was part of the Canadian contingent at the Los Angeles Olympics. Unfortunately, a leg injury (charley horse) prevented her from competing.”
AHAH...now injuries aren’t funny, but charley horse?? Come on.