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Throwback Thursday

Throwback Thursday

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This evening, while ripping through my Facebook feed, I had one of those Throwback Thursday moments.  I was stopped by a post titled “Highway One 5K dedicated to memory of Doug White.”

Since Kim and I haven’t been back to the Delaware beaches in few years, I was unaware that Doug White had died of a cerebral hemorrhage in December of 2016.  Kim and I met Doug in 2014 when we were running a lot of races and spending some time at the beach in South Bethany.

Here is a blog post I wrote in September of 2014:

Tomorrow is the last race of the Ten Sisters race series for this summer. The series will conclude with the Barry P. Lister Bottle and Cork 10 Miler and 5K in Dewey Beach. Kim and I are signed up to do the 10 miler and we are sweating it. We haven’t done more than a 10K since the Spring.

My cousin Art messaged me this week. He has been following my posts and said I should talk to his son Charles because he is preparing for a 100 mile race next weekend in Colorado.

Excuse me? Hey Artie, your finger must have slipped buddy! You added an extra 0 on there by mistake! You said 100 miles (chuckle); we are talking about sweating 10 milers here!

 Nope………no finger slips, 100 miles.

 Somehow I don’t associate 100 miles with running races. I relate it more to articles in travel magazines like “Ten Great Day Trips Less than 100 Miles from D.C. by Car” or something like that.

 I can’t imagine putting on my running shoes on a Saturday morning and saying to Kim:

“Hey honey, I am going to RUN over to my mother’s, don’t wait up.”

 I live in Herndon, Virginia.

My mother lives on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

Next Friday, my cousin’s son Charles will participate in the Run Rabbit Run in Steamboat Springs Colorado and run 100 miles. The following is from the Run Rabbit Run website:

“These are not beginner’s runs. The uphills and downhills are fairly steep. You’ll spend a lot of time at an altitude of nearly two miles. There may be snow, rain, sleet, wind, or then again, it may be hot. Please do not try to run this course if you’re not completely prepared.”

No kidding!

 

We love the running community out here at the beach. We ran into some old friends and expanded our cast of characters more. We saw Ambrosia Mike; and Joey Noodles, who is from New York City and comes to Rehoboth every weekend; and Leo who we met at the Irish Eyes race in Lewes in June.

And then there is 72 year old Doug White. Doug decided 41 years ago he wanted to run the Boston Marathon and hasn’t stopped since. He has run 41 consecutive Boston Marathons. He was planning to stop at 40 but with the tragedy of last year’s race, had to go back.

“Last year was just not the time to end my streak,” he said. “It just wasn’t right.”

 

Amazing.

One hundred mile races? 

Forty one consecutive Boston Marathons? 

And Kim and I are trying to figure out if we should opt out of the 10 miler and just run the 5K? 

Dictionary.com defines “wimpish” as an adjective that means “Having the traits of a wimp; soft; weak” 

What’s it going to be, wimps?

 

I guess we will find out tomorrow.

 

I remember Doug as a really nice guy, eager to talk, and easy to like.

After the race, upon receiving his award for winning his age category, he promptly gave the glass to Kim, explaining he had enough of these awards already.  Doug went on, by the way, to run forty three Boston Marathons in a row before the 2011 Delaware Sports Hall of Fame inductee passed away at the age of 74.

 

This evening we also had the honor of remembering another great athlete close to our hearts.  Tonight was the Herndon High School awards ceremony where Kim presented the Donny Soberdash Athletic Scholarship to two young athletes who displayed a similar drive to play three sports and also manage to be a good student and citizen outside of athletics.

Donny packed a lot of sports into his 15 years.  His freshman year he played football, wrestled, and soccer for Herndon High while managing travel soccer, indoor soccer, and league basketball in his spare time. He ran some races too though he never ran a marathon, but I can tell you it was like running a marathon trying to keep up with him.

So,  on this Throwback Thursday, we honor the lives of two great athletes now gone, our Donny and Doug White.

And congratulations to Riley Ball and Azhar Ramadham, the young woman and young man who helped to keep Donny’s competitive spirit alive by earning this year’s Donny Soberdash Athletic Scholarships.

 

Oh, and in case you were wondering, we ran the 10 miler.

 

Doug White in 2014
Kim and I before the race
Doug’s Gary P. Lister 10 Miler award given to Kim

 

My Eulogy for Jimmy

My Eulogy for Jimmy

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Later today we will celebrate the life of Jimmy McLaughlin.

But I would like to share with you now my favorite Jimmy story.

Most evenings when the weather is nice, you will find Kim and me out on our deck unwinding from the stress of the day and catching up with each other.  If you are not familiar with where we live, our yard backs right up to the Herndon High School athletic fields.   There is a fairly thick wooded area between our yard and the more elevated fields, which are enclosed by a chain link fence that is probably a good 7 or 8 feet tall.  Because of our close proximity, if we are on our deck, we are hearing whatever game, practice, or band event that is occurring on the fields.

On this particular evening, if I remember correctly, it was a Powder Puff game that was taking place.

So there we were, on the deck just talking and sitting at the table under the umbrella.  That’s when it happened.

All of a sudden there was this great commotion in woods behind our house.   We could hear bushes and leaves rustling loudly; branches snapping and cracking…..and I mean cracking, these were obviously no small branches being broken.

What the heck could it be?

We were startled…was it a huge deer?  A Big Foot?

What could possibly be snapping large branches like tooth picks and causing all that commotion?

Should we go to safety inside the house?

Seconds later, we saw it.

It wasn’t a giant deer.  No and it wasn’t Big Foot either.

It was a human.

It was a human in his underwear.

And it was Jimmy.

As Jimmy emerged from the trees and the underbrush he quickly bolted across our back yard.  As you would expect with Jimmy, he very respectfully acknowledged Kim and I on the deck with a greeting, never losing a step as he raced across the yard.  We watched in confusion and disbelief as Jimmy crossed the neighbor’s yard, then the common area, and finally disappeared around the tennis courts.

Later I would learn that in the moments  just before the commotion in the woods, Jimmy had streaked across the Powder Puff Game field and had a couple of adults in hot pursuit as he scaled and leaped the high chain link fence and went crashing through the woods.

For Kim and I, left looking at each other thinking what’s to disbelieve?

It was Jimmy in his underwear crashing through the woods and running through the yard.

Why not?

And we laughed.

 

I recently read a book by Elizabeth Gilbert called Big Magic.  You might be familiar with Elizabeth Gilbert because she wrote Eat, Pray, Love; which was pretty popular.   In Big Magic, Gilbert introduces the concept that inspiration is a living thing.  And as a living thing, inspiration is constantly looking for a place to live, a place to develop.  Left idle, that inspiration would move on looking for someplace else, someone else, where it could continue to live and grow.

That may be hard to imagine, but I believe inspiration found a home in Jimmy.  Jimmy was inspired to do great things with his life.  After college something motivated him to leave his comfort zone and join the Navy.  But not just the Navy, he took on Navy Seal training and ultimately became a Medical Navy Diver graduating at the top of his class.

Something in Jimmy drove him to want to take on the most challenging and be the best at it.

And he succeeded.

I propose this to you, because I want you to consider that what if Ms. Gilbert’s theory has merit?  What if the inspiration that found its home in Jimmy, is now idle and looking for a place to live?

And wouldn’t it be an honor and a privilege if the inspiration that was alive in Jimmy, found its new home in one of us.

But maybe we think that is a bunch of crap and don’t believe that inspiration is a living thing looking for a place to grow.

Maybe we don’t need to.  Maybe we just need to consider Jimmy’s life…. not his death, but his life; and maybe that would be enough  to inspire one of us  to strive to do something we have never done before, something outside our comfort zone, and be the best at it.

And do it with the same good nature and passion that Jimmy would have done it with.

I think so.

And for Jimmy, who did all the hard work to provide that inspiration for us, that would be an honorable way to be remembered.

But for now Jimmy,  rest……. in peace.