I stayed up until 1:30 a.m. frantically reading "The Pillars of the Earth" and got up at 6 a.m. to continue reading. I finished the lengthily book at 9:58 a.m. My book club meeting started at 10 a.m. I made it under the wire. I adore my book club members. It's a small group made up of Department of Defense school teachers and Navy spouses. Everyone had great insight into the book and I recommend it to anyone who wants to do some heavy reading. Now I need to start reading "Water for Elephants" for our July meeting on July 1.
After book club, Benny and I went to the furniture store and bought a reclining love seat. It will be delivered on Wednesday. Yeah!
We awoke before the sun today (Sunday morning) and drove north to a Marine Corps base on the east side of the island. Benny participated in his "first of many" triathlons alongside several super serious athletes. Okinawans completed a sweep in the competition, taking the top three spots in the 18-29 age bracket. Benny did well, especially considering he didn't train for this event. I told him to run without a shirt even though every other shirtless guy had colorful tattoos on his arms and backs. A shirt would so slow him down. Now if I could only get him to wear a Speedo for the swimming portion ....
There aren't pictures of Benny biking, running or swimming because he is too fast for our digital camera.
In the afternoon we went to our first Harrii (the Okinawan word for dragon boat races) in our neighborhood of Kadena-Cho. It was nice to walk to the festival and not have to worry about parking for a change. I enjoyed watching the children paddle while drinking Orion with Benny.
In the late afternoon we were surprised by a message on the magic phone from Dre and Chris. They were apparently drinking some cool beverages in Reno together. I need to figure out how to upload their message, so you can all hear it and laugh too.
Benny and I wrapped up a wonderful weekend by watching the Twins crush the Diamondbacks in a taped delay Sunday game (local time.)
Sadly our "first of many" weekend is coming to a close. I hope all of you in the States have a great Sunday.
5 comments:
you guys crack me up!
sounds like everyone had a great weekend. I can't wait to blog about out turtle adventures and 40mile bike ride.
maybe when my knees stop hurting.
sucks getting old...
When asked this morning what we did last weekend, I remembered the triathlon... but couldn't quite remember what I did Saturday... after picking up a road bike for the triathlon and stopping by the bakery and farmers market... but it was relaxing.
Any bikers who know of any good cycling books, I could use a hand. I tried "fine tuning" the road bike at the advice of my friend who let me borrow it, but I could not get the chain to shift to the lowest sprocket without falling off the sprocket completely. Eventually I gave in and just left it in the same speed the whole race, and got passed going up each hill because I could not maintain my speed. Lesson learned, I should have stuck to my mountain bike and joined the mountain bike division (I didn't know this until I showed up, nor did I know the pain that was coming with the rolling hills). I should have done more "recon" as I overheard the Marines discussing the course.
Overall it was a blast, and the course was reversed, run first (5k), then bike (15k), and swimming (400m) was last. Sticking to my goal, I didn't get passed in the end. Thanks for putting me in swimming lessons Mom and Dad, they came in handy and I felt great doing the front crawl while a few others were struggling with the breaststroke.
Camp Hansen Triathlon Results: http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/okinawa-multisport/message/8979
I don't get the magic phone???
What a fun weekend, although you'll have to point benny out in the pictures; I'm having difficulties seeing him.
Benny it sounds like your chain might be too long and you should take a few links out of it. Mine keeps coming off as well and we think that's the problem. Jason is pretty bike savvy and can probably help you out.
Benny is not in the photo ... I thought he was until I got home and looked at it again. Oh, well.
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