Youth and Beauty

So this morning at work I was overhearing several co-workers talking about their adventures running Grandma's marathon this last weekend -- one of the hottest in the marathon's history. On the one hand it was a fun trip down memory lane since I ran it once -- but then I realized that was 12 years ago and all these people doing it were, yes, probably about 12 years younger than me.

Dammit, I'm old.

I can't imagine doing such a thing today. It's not just the fact that when you have kids, devoting a couple hours a day to running training just isn't realistic -- but moreover the fact is I'm starting to notice that now, when I push my body, it starts to push back. And I know that's probably going to get worse as time goes on.

Still, there is one thing I've found much more inspiring than people much younger than me running much farther than me -- it's the little old german lady, Uta, who pedals her old 3-speed bike into downtown Minneapolis every day. She has a bike locker near mine. She looks to be 75-80 years old, is clearly not a very 'athletic' looking person, and looks to be pedaling a very old, heavy steel bike with baskets, bags and headlight, and always has a smile on her little wrinkled face wrapped in a headscarf. I would be happy to be so spry in another 35-40 years.

We finally have some relief from the weather too -- we had a nice weekend despite the heat -- we went to Como Water Festival on Saturday (I volunteered to man the District Council booth and then we got ice cream cones), and on Sunday we visited Kris' folks in Shakopee. In the 90-degree heat, Kris and her Mom went to the fabric store, Mira played with the Slip-n-Slide, Roger and I just dozed under a nearby tree -- Sparky dug himself a little belly hole in the dirt under a rosebush and laid in it to keep cool.

Today Mira's 6 weeks of tennis lessons started, and she loves it. I can see we're going to be walking over the tennis courts a lot this summer. Here's something else she'll probably be clobbering me at. She beat me again at chess tonight (yesterday I was actually winning for a change, but she cut that game short to go play Slip-n-Slide... hmmmm...)