Triathlons don’t usually start with roaring scary thunder storms. But ours did this morning. G’s, I mean—it wasn’t mine. I don’t do triathlons. And neither did he, actually, this morning. Here’s how it went: up at five thirty, he was dressing in the come-and-go light of excited electricity—I slept on between bouts of splitting thunder. He left hopefully—in his swimming suit/bike shorts, promising to call me as the event unfolded. If it was going to.
I came downstairs before he left, shivering and freaked after one especially rollicking, house-shaking crash. Came down to make sure that all the electronics were unplugged. To sit in the living room with trembling dogs, too big to curl up in my lap, but doing it anyway. G ate something, gathered up his stuff. And I went back to bed.
I woke, feeling half sick, an hour later to a mad volley of gunshots. At least, I thought they were gunshots. Or maybe someone was setting off fireworks. But no, clusters of three, five, six reports, slicing through my dreams, over and over. It was mad.
G called me – told me not to try to come to the first bit, the swimming, because they weren’t sure yet how it was going to go.
Then Murphy called me. The bike part of the race was going to pass just a block east of his house, and he was going to stand at the corner and wait to see G and Cammon go whipping by. So I dragged myself out of bed, still hearing the gunshots – surely I’d have heard sirens long before, if this was some terrible gun-battle going on? A gun battle at seven in the morning on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend.
I forwent the treadmill and the shower, combed my hair with my hands, grabbed the camera and my stuff and jumped into the car to drive up to the lap of the mountains, to stand with Murphy and watch the madmen bike by.
Murphy, learning to handle Gin’s first real digital camera, now a hand-me-down of greatest love.
We waited a long time. The racers were scheduled to swim some 350 meters, then slosh-foot it over the the transition area to find their shoes and their bikes. Then they would ride in the chilly, windy morning about twelve and a half miles over the slopes of the mountain neighborhood’s roads – two loops – there and back again twice. Finally, we saw them and started shooting.
Fresh riders, still grinning. And off they went – uphill past us.
There were all ages, some very young. Some older than we are. (It’s increasingly difficult to be older than we are.)
Laura came out to wait with us, book in hand. Suitable for a spanking-new grad student who is majoring in creative writing and teaching Freshman English.
Murphy demonstrates the intense focus of a serious photographer.
And here they come back down the hill. About twelve minutes out, then twelve minutes back.
The bearded man.
There are three ducks who live in this neighborhood. Every morning, they cross the street, dominating the early traffic. This morning, the traffic left them puzzled and astonished. Astonished ducks move erratically and, finally, urgently –
M—waiting for the boys to come back up for the second loop.
And there they are.
Hoofin’ it.
And there they are again, coming back down for the last time.
At this point, they were going to dump the bikes at the transition area and begin the run along the mountain trails. Murphy, Laura and I left them to it, retired to the kids’ new house and had gluten free pumpkin/honey pie for breakfast. I am considering joining their household; great pumpkin pie, it turns out, is the very best kind of breakfast.
After some lovely conversation, M and I got back into the car, hoping we had not missed the boys at the finish line. We drove down the hill, following snaking roads I’d somehow missed when I was living up in that neck of the woods, found the parking lot and literally sloshed across a soaking expanse of grass toward the arch at the end of the run. Our timing had been near perfect all morning, and it did not let us down at this point.
Lightning began to lick at the clouds as we dashed through the spongy grass—and I couldn’t help but wonder if every person who’d ever been hit by lightning had been sure it wouldn’t be them – not at that point in time – not this day.
It didn’t get us. Or anybody there, even as the thunder crashed overhead and the rain came down. (We hid our cameras under our jackets.) We got to the finish line about two minutes before the boys did. By then, it was dark as gloaming, and we were shooting wide open – still didn’t get much but blur.
The old man going full bore, the son behind him running in his own traditional style –
with a Go Pro camera in his hand.
They made it. It was only then we found out there had been no swim. Here, I’d been so sympathetic – soaking wet riders, chafing through twelve miles of biking. But people who face liability are not likely to ask you to get into a mountainside swimming pool as lightning licks at the deck chairs. So it wasn’t, in the end, exactly a triathlon.
But close enough, G. Really. And what is Cammon doing?
A very professional cool down routine, evidently.
A very serious routine.
Sad that the only thing in focus is (are) his feet – his face was priceless, silly dude.
This was the mountain right above them.
I drove home after that, but had to prowl the valley, shooting the storm as it moved through. It’s the first real storm we’ve had since May.
There were scarves and shreds of cloud, caught on the rough bits of the mountains.
I am blinking. The light this morning was like Wabi’s. Finally, in my hands, that rich, strange light.
I drove down toward the lake – and every turn was a slightly different sucking in of the breath.
This tiny slip of white cloud – I saw it coming over the new bridge toward my tiny farm – had to chase it down the airport road.
I fell in love with this sky. Couldn’t stop trying to comprehend it.
This was actually how dark it was – those shots of the boys riding and running – they were all so civilized, coming through the kind and compensatory computer that runs my camera’s automatic systems. Morning gloom, glowering storm, muttering and rumbling in the background of everything that happened today. I loved it so much.
Then, finally, a shot of my horses from behind my place, a perspective from the airport road. You can’t see much, but what you can see? Beautiful. I was so tired after all this, I went straight home, kicked off my soaking sandals and decided to clean out the pantry. Eight hours later, we finished up – a job well and doggedly done. And watched We Bought A Zoo, a movie I am now recommending to you.
And that’s the whole story.
Oh – in the end, G seems to have placed third in his age division (and Cammon did, too – placed third in G’s age division, considering how faithfully he stuck to his dad). And the gunshots? My farmer raises pheasants – and a couple of times a year, he sells dudes the chance to come and shoot their dinner. So I was right, it was a gun battle, but armed only on one side. This makes me sad. And now we both know, you and I, what woke me up this morning.
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