: The day started out with my driving the wife and her running
: buddies over to Utica NY for the Boilermaker 15K run. She didn't
: PR (running slang for Personal Record), but she ran all 15K, so
: I'm proud of her. Besides, the Saranac Brewing company handed
: out free beer after the race. Few of the runners in our little
: group actually drink beer, so I got to have most of it. A man
: ought to celebrate and support his friends, so I took one for
: the team and drank the beer for them. Such sacrifices a man has
: to make... *grin*

Good on her. I have run dozens of races ranging in distance from 5-miles to 31-miles...they are always tough because you go out and push yourself until it's over. Good on you, as well, for your hearty sacrifice. Someone has to do it. I am sure you did the right thing for the runners...a beer immediately after a run does not go down well. A beer one hour after a run is a good thing. Timing is everything.At least they didn't serve HER beer during the race. I remember running the Vancouver International Marathon once. Some idiot had the misguided wisdom to serve runners beer at the 25-mile mark. I had enough stupidity to take not one but two beers. I almost died before I crossed the finish line because all that beer foamed up in my gut and caused me to belch and wretch. I never did that again. Sadly, the beer was just too darned tempting.

: On my way back, though, I found ran into some waves hitting the
: rear quarter of my kayak... those weren't fun, really. They'd
: push the stern one way, raise the boat a second or two later,
: then drop me and pass by the bow, sucking it in another
: direction. I tried to compensate, just for the next wave to hit
: the stern as I was trying to compensate for the movement of the
: bow. It felt like the boat would just settle in and wallow when
: the wake hit. I'm glad only a few waves "in the set"
: would be generated by the passing boat's wake. They'd hit
: quickly enough that it was just a pain to try to paddle... much
: easier to simply sit back and watch them go by while I rocked
: the boat in time with them.

I remember well paddling to Yost van Dyke from St Thomas with Malcolm. I took strong waves from the rear quarter while paddling a tippy kayak (which should have been weighted down with lots of sand but I forgot to do that). I tipped twice. The nice thing about tipping in the Caribbean Sea is that the water is very nice to swim in.

Robert N Pruden