Crazy full weekend

Wow what a weekend.

Randall came over Friday evening and actually beat me home by a few minutes.  We had to do prep for the Shark Shootout 5K the next morning.  The race had turned into the most successful first year race our club has ever put on.  We wound up with almost 460 people registered for the event.  We took some time to relax and eat pizza but other than that we had a lot of data entry to do.  Randall actually sat at Ali’s computer and helped me do the entry while Ali was doing some baking for the party Saturday night.  Since Randall does accounting by trade, data entry is second nature for him. We tried to get to bed at a reasonable hour due to a 4am wake up call.

We drug ourselves out of bed and headed to the beautiful grounds of Tiburon where the event was being held.  This was the first race that I was the main contact from our club.  As a result I was more or less in charge of making sure people from the running club and things got where they needed to go.  I had to balance those responsibilities with making sure the timing system was set up and ready to go.

The layout that the staff of the Shootout put up for the race was great.  Everything was organized, well marked and lighted.  We were concerned that the off site parking arrangements could be an issue for the runners but the coach buses did a nice job of shuttling everyone to the start area.  Luckily this race did not have a TON of walk up entries, only 50 or so which made things easier on me.  Randall jumped in and help Ali with putting entries in and he finished up while Ali got loose to run the race.

As the race time approached the mass of runners moved towards the start.  At the last minute we decided to shift the start line out onto the main road instead of using the entrance to the development.  There were wire covers in that area that would have been a pain in the ass to have 400 people safely navigate.  The only downside was shifting the start line actually made the course short of a full 5K, oh well.

Greg Norman showed up a minute before the race started.  The plan was for him to say a few words and then actually start the race.  For some reason I just assumed that Greg would be talking for awhile.  I figured a guy that owns a half dozen companies has to be used to giving speeches.  Instead he basically said “Thanks for coming, go!”  It took everyone by surprise, luckily I had my finger on the stop watch.  Greg walked at the back of the pack for a bit but didn’t complete the course.

All that was left was for the runners to come streaming in.  The winner of the race was actually from Ohio.  He completed the course in just over 15 minutes, a blistering pace.  The timing system worked well once again.  I did have a few reports of people with no times after the race but I had no way to verify how their chip was mounted except for one runner who admitted to having his chip pinned to his bib number instead of his “sneakers” because he wears these weird looking things.  When I double checked the problem runners chips later they all tested out a-ok.

Randall and I were actually hanging out after everyone else had left.  Ali was supposed to run 8 miles on Saturday so after running the 5k she went out with her running buddies and did another 5 miles.  By the time she got back the spectators for the golf event had started to stream in.  All in all the event went quite well.  I was proud of the role Ali and I served in making it all happen and the Shootout was very happy to surpass their initial goal of 300 runners by more than 50%.

Once we got home and after I had stuff put away and the web site updated, all three of us laid down to take naps.  With the first annual Duffey xmas party scheduled for that evening even I, the adamant anti-napper, realized I needed one if I wanted to be functional.  I allowed myself roughly two hours of shut eye, setting the alarm for 2:20.  Ali got up a little while after I did.  Randall must have been super sleepy, he slept until almost 5.

Once I got up I dug into the final party prep, picking stuff up, running the vacuum and getting food and alcohol stations set up.  Ali was in charge of all the hot food prep which kept her hopping for quite awhile.  She did a good job of keeping it all flowing.  We had set up both an indoor and outdoor area.  I expected the majority of the action to occur indoors with people just hanging outside briefly to grab a beer.  I fired up the outside tv that hasn’t been used in a couple years, fully expecting it to not work.  I was surprised to see I was wrong and outside of some flaky behavior from the volume controls, it still seemed to be fine.

So the 6pm start time came and went and of course nobody was there.  It’s normal to not show up right at the gun.  As the clock was approaching 6:30 and still nobody but Randall, Ali, the dogs and I were under the roof, I wondered if the party was going to be a big flop.  Then our first guest finally arrived, one of our fellow running club members.  After he arrived we had a pretty consistent stream of party goers coming in.  Except for a couple people, almost everyone that said they were going to come showed up.

I quickly noticed that the outside pool area was being utilized much more heavily than the indoors.  It was nice out there with mild temperatures, the tv, and dim lighting provided by some citronella candles, the fire bowl (first time I used it in 4 years) and the pool light.  As one of the hosts I tried my best to flow throughout the festivities, trying to participate in many conversations but not get locked into just one.  You want to try to make everyone feel welcome.  Luckily for me I didn’t feel like I was in those funks were every other word out of my mouth is a garbled mess.  The light beer I was drinking definitely helped me manage the situation as well.

I had the pool heater running for a couple days to get the water temp up in the off chance that someone wanted to go for a late night swim.  Well nobody took me up on the offer so eventually I had to just do it myself.  I put on my swim suit and jumped in.  Sadie was thrilled I was in the pool and immediately started running around the perimeter excitedly, waiting for me to splash her.  By the time I went into the pool it was probably after 10 and a few of the guests had already hit the door. The people that remained made up for fewer bodies by turning up the fun meter.

The later we went, the  more alcohol was consumed which opened up some very interesting topics of conversation.  There was a lot of laughter going on which is the best gauge of how well a party is going.  We had a good mix of personalities present that seemed to feed off each other.  A little after 11 most of the rest of the crew headed out with my co-worker Mike being the last to leave after we loaded him up with left overs.

Once the last guest had left Randall and I decided to start up an impromptu pool physical challenge session while Ali started doing some of the clean up.  As evidenced by the prior week’s tailgate jumping challenge, we like to compete in almost anything.  Well after Jeremy had steered me towards the video of BJ Penn jumping out of the shallow end of a pool, we had it in our heads that the pool opened up a whole new realm of possible competitions.

We had various jumping events,  jumping out of the water, jumping off the pool deck and finally jumping on to the pool steps.  Ali actual came out and shot the last part of the event with her Iphone. (it was very dark)  The video is actually funnier if you know the back story.  We were trying to jump from the floor of the pool on to the second step ( jumping on to the pool deck was already tried and we failed miserably).  After a few misses, Randall was able to successfully jump on to the step.  I however was not quite so lucky.  I could get on the step but not stand up, I would instead fall backwards.

  I could not stand that Randall was able to do something I couldn’t so I tried again and again and again.  I tried so many times that my feet were getting sore from the textured pool surface.  When Ali came out to film I literally had to be my 15th or 16th attempt.  The fact that I actually was able to finally make the jump when she was shooting the video is what caused the drunken, loud celebration.  By the time we finally ended the pool olympics it was damn close to 1 am.  I fell asleep happy that the two major events of the day, the race and the party went better than planned.

I woke up Sunday morning with some sore legs after the endless pool jumps from the night before.  However I had to pop two Advil and suck it up.  Randall and I discussed the night before that we would continue our physical challenges outdoors at the local middle school.

We had a rough idea of the some of the events we would do and brought the equipment to do so, most importantly the video camera.  Jeremy repeatedly has told us that “unless there is video, it didn’t happen.”, so we wanted to make sure that all events were documented.

Once we arrived we got our first event out of the way, Tacoma tailgate jumping.  After successfully jumping on Randall’s Dodge Ram’s 36 inch high tailgate the week before we knew clearing the Tacoma’s 31.5 inch platform would be no problem. Both Randall and I made the jump with room to spare.  Since we both completed the challenge we both were awarded a point, the score was 1-1.

The next event was the Basketball Rim challenge.  The object of the event originally was first to see who could touch the rim, if we both touched the rim then we would move on to trying to dunk objects of increasing size starting with a cloth baseball and moving up eventually to a volleyball.  We never got past the baseball.

When I was younger one of my focuses was dunking.  I never was great at it but I have cleanly dunked a basketball a few times and I could jam a tennis or volleyball pretty consistently.  Of course I knew had a big advantage in this competition since Randall is only 5’10” in his high heels at best.  He also is carrying some extra heft that gravity would have fun with.  I won the competition easily although I could just reach the 10’1″ rim.  Randall only could make it up to mid-net.  After failing miserably on the baseball dunking we decided there was no point moving on to larger objects.  Despite winning I was disappointed in my efforts in the event.  Score was now me 2, Randall 1.

The next event was the broad jump.  The tape measure once again came in handy.  We laid it down along the court lines and then used a yoga block to mark our distance.  This was a best jump out of three competition.  I think Randall actually thought he had a chance in this one.  He utilized his typical trash talking regimen to try to affect my performance but in the end I out jumped him by 6 inches, hitting the 8 foot mark.  Score – Shawn 3, Randall 1

We spotted a small set of three stairs which wound up being event number four, appropriately called Stair Jumping.  The steps were about two and a half feet high and to the top we would have to jump forward slightly more than 5 feet.  Randall made both his practice and official jump.  On my first attempt I actually over jumped to the point where my feet were way ahead of my body.  I had to grab the railing to keep from falling over backwards.  Undaunted I immediately made a second attempt and landed it cleanly.  Score was now Shawn 4, Randall 2

Next up was a Nerf Football throwing challenge.  We had noticed earlier that we appeared to be under surveillance.  There is deputy station on the grounds of the middle school.  There was a police car that pulled up along the track and was just sitting there.  There was nothing else he could have been observing but us.  He was there for quite awhile, I assume he wanted to make sure we weren’t up to anything shady.  The cop’s presence actually scuttled another potential event, foul pole climbing.

So anyway, once again it would have been a miracle if Randall would have beaten me in this competition.  I’ve seen Randall throw football many times, he had no shot.  Randall went first and although his distance was average at best, he did have a pretty amazing second throw.  I had marked his first 45 yard or so throw with a yoga block.  On his second attempt he reared back, threw the ball and managed to hit the block perfectly.  Now of course this wasn’t his intention but it still made for some pretty impressive video.

When it was my turn it only took me one throw to best Randall’s efforts by at least 10 yards.  My second attempt was my best, Randall walked it off as approximately a 62 yard throw.  The challenge was turning into a lopsided run away, the score now stood at 5 for me, 2 for Randall.

Randall then suggested we do a goal post to goal post sprint on the soccer/football field.  I wasn’t thrilled with the event, I had images of me tearing a ham string or ripping a groin since sprinting is something I never do.  However Randall was losing badly so I wanted to throw him a bone although I was pretty confident I would win this event as well.  I set up the camera at the finish line and pointed it back towards us 100 yards away.

Randall started us on a 1,2, 3 count and we were off.  He jumped out to an early lead and held it the entire way.  I probably didn’t utilize my stride like I could have since I was more concerned with hurting myself than maximizing my velocity.  Of course Randall celebrated his first outright event victory wildly however I delivered the best one liner of the entire event at the end. The score was now 5-3, me.

We had ideas of maybe doing a pull up competition but after seeing Randall in action we decided it wouldn’t be worth it.  He isn’t in pull up form currently.  Just to make a point I did 10 slow, full range of motion pull ups on the cross bar.

Randall suggested the next event , a soccer penalty kick competition.  Once again I knew Randall thought he had an edge in this one but I was willing to play along.  This event was an utter failure on both sides.  Both Randall and I failed to make a goal, in fact I only had two kicks that were even on the net, Randall only had one.  The event wound up in a ho-hum 0-0 tie so we both got a point.  It was now 6-4.

I came up with the final event of the day, a 400 meter run, one lap around the track.  Despite losing decidedly in the 100 meter dash I was pretty confident that Randall would gas in a run of longer duration.  Again we set up the camera facing the finish line.  I passed Randall before the middle of the first turn and pulled away consistently from there.  I knew I had a lead but I wasn’t sure how big it was since I could still hear Randall’s feet behind me.  When I entered the final straight away I looked back and saw Randall walking.  At first I thought maybe he pulled something but it turns out he just stopped once he realized he couldn’t catch me.  I did my best to serve up Randall a big dish of trash talk as the final 7-4 score established that at least that day I was clearly the winner.  We were both pretty damn tired, despite it being mid-December, the temps were in the mid 80’s.

After telling Ali of our athletic adventures which she rolled her eyes at we sat down to watch A Christmas Story while we ate lunch.  Incredibly, Randall had never seen the Christmas classic, he said in fact he never even heard of it which amazed me.  Well I figured this would be a real treat for him since it is one of the staples of my favorite Xmas movie collection.

At the end of it I asked him what he thought and he said he didn’t like it!  Blasphemy!  Not like A Christmas Story???  I was dumbfounded by Randall’s thoughts on the film.  He must just have different tastes in movies than I do.  Hell he didn’t think Idiocracy was that funny and I almost broke a rib laughing at that one.

The rest of the afternoon we relaxed mostly.  We spent some time in the 95 degree pool.  Randall was having a blast playing with Sadie by the pool.  He always enjoys the company of our dogs.  I also spent some time working on editing the video I shot in to something presentable. After playing back the footage I knew I had some gold moments in there.  Sure the entire thing is silly, that is what makes it funny.  In many cases the audio of the verbal sparring back and forth is the funniest part.

Late afternoon Randall packed up and headed out.  We loaded him up with some left over alcohol as well as some of our cat equipment that we no longer would have any use for, including our automatic litter box.  We thanked him for coming and his help with the race.  We all had a good time.

Sunday night the Eagles were on.  I only saw about a half.  The weekend of non-stop activities couple with limited sleep had really caught up to me.  I almost felt like I could fall asleep standing up.  As soon as I went back to the bedroom to watch the second half I was out like a light a few minutes after putting my head on the pillow.  I was very happy to see the Birds pulled off a win in a high scoring shoot out this morning.  They are now in sole possession of first place.  It seems they are once again establishing a pattern of playing better as the season winds down, just like last year.

You know it was a great weekend when you wake up Monday morning depressed that it is over.