Can you hear that? its the sound of the citadels collapsing in the distance. Life will not be the same again. I can remember the Berlin Wall coming down, 25 years ago, and this feels the same. Back then, in 1989, I was tremendously excited by the change. We had live pictures on the TV news of East Germans smashing the walls that had held them back, suppressed them for all those years. And the thing was, they weren't being shot. Nobody was stopping it from happening. West Germans were helping; people were sat on top of the wall, singing. People were in the previously-divided streets, dancing. The enormity of this is difficult to get across now, but then Germany - in fact much of Europe - was divided. East versus West; Communist versus Democracy. Suppression versus Freedom. We were afraid of the Eastern Bloc, as it was known. Our knowledge of it was delivered by our press, our TV, and our politicians, and was clearly not an entirely accurate view but it was all we had. There was no internet, no YouTube, to tell us any different. First hand experience was practically nil, and pretty well limited to seeing a few dodgy-looking female athletes with bigger shoulders than my Uncle Bill, a merchant seaman. And bigger beards too, most of them. We found out later how the athlete's camps were like prison camps, and the athletes were all but guinea pigs for the drugs programmes designed to demonstrate Eastern-Bloc superiority.
Anyway, simliar earth-shattering events took place last night on The Embarcadero, with the Young Buck finally taking down the Wise One. For weeks I have been able to keep young Chris at bay with my wily old ways making up for any actual lack of speed, but now it's all over. Chris, Chloe and I were doing some above-race-pace 1K efforts. 5 times I led them out with 3:55s, and I was pleased with that (Its a tad over 6:30/mile pace), but there's an unwritten rule between us that the final rep is a race and Chris had clearly been sandbagging. 5 times I watched him puff wearily up to the end of the rep, like a man about to breath his last. 5 times I witnessed him shuffling along reluctantly dragging his poor aching body to the end of the rep. And 5 times I was quietly satisfied with keeping the young Turk at bay once again. "OK, last rep!" Chris chirruped. I should have known. "3-2-1. Go!" I counted down, it being my role as Senior Man, Leader and Fastest to call the rep timings. BANG! Chris was off, his weary appearance transformed into a running machine all of a sudden. Gone was the shuffle, replaced by high knees, an aggressive posture, straight back, and a decent cadence. He pulled away, and it was all I could do to keep him within striking distance. He maintained his pace but wasn't increasing his advantage and I planned to take him down in the last 100 yards. I was working really hard, and I did have a little discussion with myself about whether "winning" a 1K training rep was really important enough to dig this deep. "Indeed it is!" I concluded, and dug some more, pulling within 5 yards and ready for the final push past as we approached The Ferry Building which marks the finish. Or did. On this occasion the Great God Garmin dropped the flag short. I was beaten! Chris was relatively gracious, to be fair to him, demanding only that I reported his victory to the world but otherwise not gloating too much. OK, Chris, you got it. Now, as Senior Man, I offer you this advice: "Go out and be the triathlete you can be. Drop 10 pounds, increase your running cadence, take some swim lessons and get a decent bike. All your runs should be like that last rep. Stop being lazy. Yesterday's achievement is today's baseline. Commit to your sport, and go out there and do it.!
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