Randall Recap

Randall had originally predicted an arrival time Friday night of about 7:30PM.  I know Randall well enough that I immediately dismissed that time as being accurate.  He rolled in about 8:30 which was fine since I had plenty to keep me busy with prep for the race.

Once he showed up Cindy, Randall and I hung out for a little bit but we didn’t want to stay up too late since the plan was for a very early 4:30 AM departure the next morning for the race.  Luckily the forecast for the morning had moderated somewhat, from the low 40’s to the upper 40’s which is still cold but more bearable.

In the morning I dressed warm but not with quite as many layers as last week. We got on site right around 5AM, there was already a lot going on as Humane Society staff had showed up even earlier.  Randall and I hung parking signs, dropped off the equipment for the start line and then headed back to the registration area.  Once we were there we set up everything we could until the GCR truck showed up a little before 6.  It felt cold but tolerable, especially as we were moving around constantly.  By the time the truck showed up we only needed a few things to complete the registration area.

As the sun started to rise the participants and their dogs started to show up.  Having nearly 200 dogs participating meant for a VERY busy and fun registration area.  Prior to the race I sent out an email to all participants warning them that they needed to pick up their packets early to avoid long lines on race day.  My warning seemed to work as somewhere around 75% of the people did pick up early, however another problem arose.

People that picked up early still had to pick up a timing chip on race morning.  Well evidently a lot of pre-registered participants didn’t show up until around 7:30 (race at 8) .  In a very short period of time we had a MONSTER line of people waiting to get their timing chip.  It made it pretty clear that using disposable timing devices for next years race would make more sense where people could pick up their timing device early as well.

Once daylight hit Randall jumped from equipment set up help to his event photographer role, shooting hundreds of pictures using Ali’s nice camera.  I was basically overseeing the day of race entries as we had two other people doing them to free me up.

About 7:45 I told Ali I was ready to head down to the start line, I was taking the Tacoma to make my commute to and from the starting area as fast as possible since the distance between start and finish causes me logistical problems.  As we were on the road I swore loudly, I forgot to grab the laptop I use to pull the timing files from the box, shit.  Ali called back to Christy who was in the registration area and asked her to run the laptop down to me, thank goodness.

I had the club’s new portable PA system in the back of the truck for Ali to make announcements.  One of the important things to announce was people with dogs were supposed to be at the back of the start line group and that they were supposed to wait to start, so non-dog runners had a chance to get ahead.  Unfortunately the crowd size and noise made it impossible for people towards the back to hear.  We wound up having to try to stop a few people with dogs that shot off with the main pack of runners.  It was a bit of a mess.

Even with driving back to the start line I still had precious little time to get everything set up.  Luckily this year the first place runner was slower than years past, clicking in a little after the 18 minute mark.

Timing the event went smoothly except for a power malfunction.  As I was sitting there I heard the motor for our blow up finish line cut out.  In a split second I shot out of my chair and started sprinting towards the building where we were tapping power from.   I instantly suspected the two coffee machines that were tapped into the line as being the problem.  I quickly unplugged those and then ran into the building with an extra extension cord I grabbed.  I hooked it to the existing cord and plugged into a jack on a different wall, hoping it was on a different circuit, it was.  As I walked back outside I saw a number of people standing under the finish arch, supportting it as it was half deflated.   It started to slowly rise, crisis averted.

The rest of the event went well, lots of smiles of both the human and canine variety were seen everywhere.  I got off site between 9:30 and 10. Ali thanked Randall and I for our contributions to the race which clicked in with 750+ participants, the second highest amount ever.

On the way home we picked up some DD coffee to help stave off the inevitable drowsiness that comes with such early morning alarms.  I spent a couple hours working on stuff after the race.  After doing so Randall came with me to go pick up the girls at Ali’s place.  They were quite excited to see Uncle Randall as always.

We both agreed that taking a nap would be a wise decision.  Randall headed into the bedroom around 2:30.  I wanted to quickly uncover all of the landscape stuff that was wrapped in cold protection cloth since it looks like the short term threat of cold was over.  Well it took longer than expected, I didn’t get into the bedroom to shut my eyes until 3:30.

I told Randall that we could nap until around 4:30 since we had tentative plans to go to the movies Saturday night.  I set my alarm and got up at about 4:45 even though it felt like I could have slept much longer.  When I came out Randall’s bedroom door was still closed.  I knew he said he didn’t sleep great the night before so I just let him go.

It turned out that Cindy was stuck working too late to make going to the movies viable so I continued to let Randall slumber.  He didn’t come out until around 6:15PM.

We spent some time outside with the Phantom.  After I got the quadracopter in the air I handed the controls over to Randall to let him see just how easy the thing is to fly.  Randall was amazed at just how easy it was.  Within a few minutes of flying it he said he would definitely be getting one.

Instead of hitting the theater we had a good in home night.  We drank some beer, enjoyed a fantastic grilled cheese and tomato soup dinner Cindy prepared, played some Xbox Kinect Sports 2 and then watched the latest Riddick movie.

Randall and Cindy were surprised that I never saw the first two Riddick installments, it seems like the type of movie I would like. I don’t think coming in late really affected my digesting the movie much.  The flick was pretty good.  I was not a big fan of the animal violence, especially the dog like creatures.  The action through out the flick was steady otherwise and delivered a solid B+ viewing experience.

Our Sunday morning started on the slow side, with everyone sleeping in somewhat.  Sadie was the alarm clock when she started whining to go out.  We had plans to go do the long Ave Maria ride but were in no rush to start early, hoping the pretty chilly temps in the low 50’s would go up a few degrees.

Cindy and Randall really bundled up for the ride.  I did not, wearing just shorts and a t-shirt.  Although the air felt chilly, the sun felt warm so I thought it would be ok, it was.

The ride out there was not easy, it felt like we were working into a moderate head wind for a most of the way.  I was looking forward to having that wind push us on the way back in.  Randall had brought his GoPro with and had it mounted to his handle bars.  It made for some interesting perspective when we watched it back.  The wide angle and superb video resolution really makes for some sharp video.

Randall had also used the GoPro for some mountain bike riding, I was surprised how relatively smooth the video was just using the stock GoPro mounting system.  I had plans to later try the camera on the Phantom.

After fueling up at the Ave Maria with chocolate milk we headed back home.  I was quite disappointed when I turned back onto Oil Well Road and felt like I was still working against a head wind. Damn it.  We let Randall pull for awhile.  On the ride back we encountered riders doing an organized event, some of them riding as far as 100 miles total, no thanks.

Cindy hit something on the way back and got a flat tire which we fixed by the side of the road.  She wanted to do as much of the repair herself as possible, she just likes to fix things herself if at all possible.  She had a tiny, sharp metal shard in the tire that Randall discovered when it pricked his hand. For the 30 miles we averaged a very tough 17.5 mph.  My legs felt pretty dead by the end of it.

After eating lunch we headed outside to play around some more.  I took out the Phantom and attached Randall’s GoPro to it.  I shot in total something like 20 minutes of video.  The quality of the video was much improved over the rigged FlipCam video I shot before.  There was some of the “jello” effect which is common with aerial video but not enough to be too distracting.  It cemented my desire to get a GoPro of my own.  I’ll be posting the edited video of the flights this week.

I also tightened up the slackline so Randall could take a shot at it.  Cindy, Randall and myself took turns crossing the line.  As expected, Randall struggled mightily at first and got better as time went on, even getting almost all the way across on one attempt, albeit in a mad dash manner. Cindy’s daughter and her friend stopped out during our session as well.  Unfortunately we only could get Cindy’s daughter up on the line for a single attempt before she called it quits.

Randall had mentioned he wanted to head out sometime during the afternoon but he also wanted to stock up at the local Trader Joe’s before doing so.  I suggested it would be a good excuse for he and I to take the SSR out.  We both filled up our respective carts with TJ goodies and had to make an auxiliary stop at Publix for me to grab a few other items.   On the way back I gave Randall a demonstration of the SSR’s burn out ability.  It was a pretty good one.

Once we got back Randall had to pack up and head east.  It was a fun weekend. The fun may be repeating next weekend since Randall is going to try to head back over for the Super Bowl party I am hosting.