Then & Now! Looking Back!

Throughout this blog I have tried to look back and share things from the past while at the same time sharing what's going on now. In this post I am going to do both. I got back to racing in California the weekend that I returned from my trip to New Jersey. The first race back was probably the worst race I've run since I started back racing in 2008. While it was only a mile I felt so weak at the halfway point I actually walked a lot in the second half. Everyone wanted to attribute it to the fact that I was still worn out from my cross country travel. When I raced again the next weekend, also a mile race, and ran as good as I ran there last year I decided that I had simply gone out to fast and that I put myself into oxygen debt and never recovered. The irony is, despite the fact that it was the slowest I have raced a mile, I still won my the 60-69 age group. If there is a lesson here it is to not quit because you never know what anyone else is going through.

Manteca, California

 My next race was the "Run for Health" 1 mile in Modesto, a really well run event.

What I didn't know on Saturday was that I would be back at the same park in Modesto the following Tuesday to run in a "Boston Strong" Tribute run. It was a really powerful event with over 300 people showing up to "Run for Boston". Being a Boston native made it even more personal for me. I enjoyed the fellowship of the running community. The next morning there was a picture on the front page of The Modesto Bee of my feet. It was a cool picture.

My next race was special because it was at Mount San Antonio Junior College in Walnut, California, a school that I ran for during cross country and track during the 1966-1967 school year and received my Associates degree in 1973 after serving in the Navy. When I first returned to California I went online and tried to find a race at MSAC simply for nostalgic reasons. There were no races that I could find. Earlier this year I saw on Twitter that they were bringing a 5K to the Mt. SAC Relays weekend and I jumped at the chance to sign up and run the race. One of the things that made the race special is that part of it was run on the same cross country course I raced in both high school and college, additionally the race finished on the track.

MSAC "Where the world's best athletes" and a few old men "compete"

THEN & NOW

While I was in Southern California I took the opportunity to visit some places from my past.

My Parent's Home - I lived here from 8th grade until I went into the Navy

Los Altos High School - Hacienda Heights - Class of '66

The first home we owned and the last home we lived in in California, Valinda.
This is the realtor's photo when we sold it in 1975.

Our home in Valinda now - 2014

Rimgrove Park in 2014. Where my sons started sports and I started coaching.

Coaching at Rimgrove Park in 1975

I've been blessed to still be able to travel and run races and in the process see family, visit the past and visit new places. Hopefully there will be more opportunities in the future.

New Jersey Trip - Priceless!

There is a commercial for a credit card company that tells prices for various items and ends with the final item being "priceless" While I was in New Jersey taking my final run before returning home I thought about that commercial in terms of my visit because it summed up my feelings about the trip. "Airfare - $$$$$" "Race Entry Fees - $$$$" "Racing on consecutive weekends with my son-in-law and my daughter - PRICELESS". While I was in New Jersey I had the opportunity to race a 20K with Tom on my first weekend there and then race a 5K with Stacie the next weekend. Special memories.

The race with Tom was held in Piscataway, New Jersey and we raced on a nice loop course in a park across the street from the Rutgers Football Stadium. It was cold for the majority of the race and overcast but there was no wind so we both had good races.

The following weekend was cold again, (it was cold the entire time that I was in New Jersey), when Stacie and I ran at Duke Farms, a beautiful conservation facility. The highlight of the race for me was finishing, turning around to get ready to watch Stacie finish and hearing her say, "Hey Old Man" as she was the next finisher behind me. We had run a race together last year in St. Louis and she was several minutes behind, and I ran about much faster this year. I was so proud of her.

Another highlight of this race was meeting and spending time talking with Joetta Clark Diggs a four time Olympian.

While the races were highlights of the trip the certainly weren't the only ones. It was such fun spending time with my grandson and granddaughter, watching movies, reading, and playing games. Being with them reminds me why it is a good thing that young people have children. They can flat wear out an "old man". :)

And then there was time with "Barley". What a livewire she is!!!

The pictures from my first training run are quite a bit different from my training the last time I was there in October.

Two other highlights of the trip were Chase's musical program of "Charlotte's Web" and a rainy day trip to New York to visit the USS Intrepid Museum. The USS Intrepid visit brought back some amazing memories because it was the same class of Carrier that I first shipped out to Vietnam on, The USS Oriskany. Despite the rain we had a great time. We went after Stacie and I got back from our race. Chase volunteered and was chosen to be part of an educational presentation, we were so proud of him.

USS INTREPID MUSEUM

NEW YORK CITY

It was like living in a rat maze!

The trip was "PRICELESS"!