The boy looked like death on a cracker after I dragged him around the Whirly Bird cross course for 2 practice laps. This seemed ominous and I feared that this would put a knife in heart of my "get the boy to love cross" project. Gus arrived in time to see the boy line up with 4 other juniors, 2 of whom looked old enough to drive. Mountain bike kid in the white tee shirt looked like he would be the boy's reasonable competition.
At the end of the race, the boy looked strong and grinned from ear to ear.
It didn't hurt that he finished his lap with the C3 crowd warming up behind him and cheering him on. Or the Visit PA camp in his corner. Or his Guy's teammates. We won't mention my big mouth which was heard enough yesterday.
When his dad asked him if he was ready to go fishing, the boy got that "I think I'm about to disappoint you" look on his face and said he'd rather stay at the race. Score.
My race wasn't until 1, and he made himself "useful" by helping the announcer identify racers and cheering on all the folks who cheered him on. . He even received a shout out of thanks on the Guy's list serve for his contributions. Oh, he belongs to cross now.
He was 100% accurate in his assessment that i don't try hard enough and here's the evidence to prove it:
I look like I'm ready to take a nap. Kids make you want to be the best person you can be. This extends to sports as well. I want to try my best while he's watching to set a good example. It's great seeing father daughter duo BP and Kim share a passion for cross and their opposites L Webb and Jeff B. Now people are arriving with wee critters in tow--Lisa and Baby Daddy, the Yozells (scary DNA in that little dude), Kelly Cline and Haley. The Saint Clairs. The Zeimets. Young Anthony Skorochod and his Dad, capturing cycling. Jimmy now refers to Fatmarc as "Uncle Vanderbacon."
My parents made me play golf.
Everyone is so darn happy at cross races despite a boatload of suffering. Unlike real family gatherings where the suffering is all psycho-emotional and tears us apart, cross suffering is physical and brings us together.
1 comments:
Score indeed! That's hilarious. I'm hoping I can convince my 9 year old to come out this weekend at watch me suffer with hopes of him responding with an "I want to race." While the course this weekend is a bit on the sadistic side, it should be fun watching people slide of into the ponds the course routes around. All off camber and up and down, no flat straight anything this Sunday!
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