Rock of the Marne Race Report: September 19, 2010

Allen and I headed up to Savannah, Georgia on September 19^th to race the Rock of the Marne Sprint Triathlon.  I am turning in my race report today.

Rock of the Marne Triathlon Race Report

Fifteen Good Reasons, and One Excellent Reason, Why Rock of the Marne is My New Favorite Triathlon

1.  The name:  “Rock of the Marne Triathlon.”  Even if you didn’t know that “Rock of the Marne” is the nickname of the Army’s 3^rd Infantry Division, how cool is that for a triathlon name?

2.  It’s the oldest triathlon on the US Mainland. First raced in 1979, as a half-Ironman, by a few guys who got together to swim a little, bike a little, drink a little, then run a little.  Apparently, in that order.

3.  Beer.

4.  From a bottle.

5. Served in a glass.

6.  At 9 in the morning.

7.  It was fun watching Allen try to balance his bike and gear on the way to the car after he had his two beers.

8.  It’s a deep water start in Savannah’s Forest River.  And you get to jump off a dock to get into it.

9.  It’s a flat, fast bike course around the perimeter of Hunter Army Air Field.  And it’s a pretty nice tour of the base, too (and, at the speed I go, the bike really is a “tour” for me).

10.  I got to chat it up in the beer line with a bunch of hottie male triathletes (triathletes get better as they age- grrrrr….).

11.  I beat Allen in the swim- again- even though the last time that I swam was about a month ago (but he whips my ass in everything else, including transition).

12. The race director instructed us not to park in the church parking lot across the street (it’s Sunday) – or you will be “struck DEAD!”

13.  There was no pressure to attempt to place in my age group after I saw the Team USA uniforms on a number of the athletes there, and realized that they just got back from the World Championships….

14. I actually beat the girl on the beach cruiser.

15. We parked at the mall across from the base. It doesn’t get any better than that:  triathlon and shopping.

The Most Excellent Reason:

 It really got me, and I got choked up, when the race director announced, after I crossed the finish line, that I was”… racing in honor of her son-in-law (to be), Sgt Charles Gaines, 3^rd Infantry Division, Iraq.”

Lost Loves, Part II: Please Stay in Florida

Ben has a Lost Love now, too.  It is summer, 2010, and our last day of vacation in the Florida Keys.  We are camping on Sugarloaf Key and we are trying to squeeze every last second out of the day, before we have to pack the Scamp and head home.

Allen and I are heading out into the Bay in our kayaks, to see if it’s possible to paddle out to sea from our campground; Libby is reading or writing or texting or doing all three at the same time.  Ben wants to go to the pool.

Although I am Paranoid Mom, Allen convinces me that there will be other people at the pool and I will not find him at the bottom of it after we finish kayaking. 

He returns, having not drowned, as we are beginning to pack the camper.  He is quiet, and he looks sad.  This is not an uncommon occurrence, since Ben is like me, what you’d call “sensitive.”  Having his Nintendo DS run out of power can cause this kind of behavior with Ben.

Today, we are unable to pry the reason for his angst from him.  He just won’t tell us.  This is serious.

Finally, we throw out a wild guess: “Ben, is this about a girl?”

Bingo.  The gates open up, and the story spills out.

She’s from Arkansas.  She’s on vacation with her parents.  They have come to the Keys for Mini-Lobster season, a yearly 24 hour grab for Florida Lobster which precedes the actual Florida Lobster Season.

Ben met her at the pool.  They swam, and they talked a lot.  They both love video games.  She knows a great app that Ben should put on my iPhone:  “Bowmen Attack.” They are, obviously, perfectly suited for each other.  Ben is falling for her, fast.

Her parents call her.  She jumps out of the pool.  She’ll be right back, she tells Ben.

But she never comes back. 

Ben rides his bicycle over to the pool a couple more times, to see if she’s come back.  He rides around the campground trying to catch a glimpse of her.   But she’s gone, probably off in her parents’ boat to go diving for lobsters.

As we pull up to the office to check out, Ben jumps out of the truck, for one more look at the pool, just in case…

Will Ben think of her every time he plays “Bowmen Attack,” like Allen thinks of his BC co-ed when he hears “Please Come to Boston”?  Probably.  That’s how Lost Loves are. 

Author’s Note: 

Oddly, after talking about all of this, I realize that I don’t remember having a Lost Love.  Ok, maybe one, now that I think about it.  I met him during a 2:00 a.m. fire alarm, at Landis Hall at Florida State University in 1986.  We talked, we laughed, it was wonderful… but then the Fire Department gave the all-clear, and we lost track of each other in the crush of students going back into the dorm to go back to sleep until someone pulled the fire alarm at 3:00 a.m.  I moved out of the dorm right after that, sick of the college idiot freshman  fire alarm pranks.  And I never saw him again…

Any lost love stories out there?  I’d love to hear them.

Lost Loves, Part I: Please Come to Boston

Lost Loves:  those individuals who inhabit our lives, and our hearts, for a brief moment in time.  The world shifts, somehow, and for a little, you are Meant to Be; then, suddenly, the world shifts again; and as quickly as they come into your life, they go out, never to be seen again.

My favorite Lost Love story is Allen’s:

Please Come to Boston

“Come here-I have something to play for you.” 

I dragged Allen into the living room the other night.  I had a surprise for him.  My iPhone was hooked to the stereo.  I pressed the button, then took his hand and led him to the center of the room (fear not, the story isn’t going to get any steamier).  I slipped my arms around his neck and gazed up into his eyes.  I love that I can actually look up at a man—this almost never happens to 5’9” me…..

So, in the center of the living room, I drew Allen close, and gazed up at him, and began to sing along to the music:

Please come to Boston for the springtime

I’m stayin’ here with some friends and they’ve got lots of room

You can sell you paintings on the sidewalk

By the café where I hope to be workin’ soon

Please come to Boston

She said no

Boy, won’t you come home to me

He was speechless for a moment.

“Oh…. my…. gosh…..”  he finally said, a dreamy kind of smile appearing on his face.  He looked down at me, and held me tighter, and sang with me:

Hey ramblin’ boy, why don’t you settle down

Boston ain’t your kind of town

There ain’t no gold and there ain’t nobody like me

I’m the number one fan of the man from Tennessee

Libby, on the couch, watched this whole scene with teenager skepticism.  There were two middle-aged people slow dancing to lame ‘70s music in the middle of the living room.  This was somewhat odd behavior— but her mom and her step-father were somewhat odd.  It was she who coined the term “Nerd Love” to describe our romance, after all.

“She doesn’t know the story, does she?”  Allen asked.

“No, I don’t believe that she does,” I replied.

So, shuffling around the living room rug to the strains of Dave Loggins’ “Please Come to Boston,” Allen told her the story.

It was 1975, and Allen was in Submarine School in Groton, Connecticut (while I was in Elementary School over in Hamden, Connecticut, I enjoy reminding him).  He had a rare day off, and he and a fellow sailor wanted to go check out the area.  So Allen drove the fabled ’67 Firebird over to Cape Cod. 

The Cape was another world to my sun-bleached surfer boy from South Florida.  It was cold, and windy, and barren.  There were high sand dunes which obscured the view of the grey Atlantic from the road.  But, when he climbed up on one of those dunes, there were whales—whales—breaching offshore (the only whales that we have in South Florida wear Speedos on the beach).  He watched their huge forms surface for just a moment, then disappear beneath the waves.  The sight was extraordinary.  For Allen, it was like a sign:  extraordinary things were going to happen today. 

Of course, some things will always remain the same, no matter how unusual the circumstances.  Sailors must go steamin’.  They stopped in town for the night to eat lobsters, drink beer, and look for female… company.

… She was sitting at a table in the bar, laughing with her girlfriends.  She was pretty, sweet-looking – not glamorous by any means, but Allen liked looking at her.  He liked looking at her a lot.

He came over to her table and struck up a conversation.  She was with her friends on Spring Break.  She told him that she was a co-ed from Boston College.  She was smart and funny, and soon the two of them were sitting alone, talking about anything and everything.  Could it be that The One, the one that he was meant to be with forever, had suddenly entered his life? 

Allen doesn’t like to dance, but she wanted to, so she took his hand and led him to the dance floor for a slow dance. 

She drew Allen close, and she gazed up at him, and she began to sing along with the music:

Please come to Boston for the springtime….

That was it.  It was over.  My sun-bleached surfer boy sailor from South Florida was in love.  Here she was, a co-ed from Boston College, singing, asking him to come to Boston for the springtime….

This may be the best day of his life.  This was beyond extraordinary. This was a miracle.

After the dance was over, she stopped back at the table to check on her friends.  Her friends wanted to go walk around the town, see what else was going on, she told him.  She’d be back in a little while, promise, she told him.  He’d be waiting, he told her.  She squeezed his hand, and she smiled.  He watched her leave, and anticipated the moment that she’d walk back through the door again, to him.

It seemed to Allen that the night dragged on forever, shooting pool and drinking beer- and waiting for her.  And waiting for her.

She never came back. 

The next morning, he drove the Firebird sadly back down cold, gray Cape Cod and back to Groton, to finish sub school. 

He traveled around the world, then came back here to Waresboro, Georgia, and to me.   

But, all these years later, in the middle of the living room, I am the brown haired girl in the minidress on the coast of New England.  And he’s going with her, to Boston in the springtime.

Libby admits that this is, indeed, a romantic story of Lost Love.  Lost Nerd Love, maybe, but still romantic.