Prayers Needed, Reno Air Races Crash

On my way to the Iron Girl Lake Tahoe triathlon this weekend, the plan was to stop in here at Reno and meet up with hubby who is down here for the Reno Air Races. He works in the aviation field and was at the races with many colleagues. He called me while I was still driving, very shaken up. An airplane in the Unlimited Class (the very very fast, 450+ mph planes) had some sort of mechanical failure, pulled up, wobbled in the air and came straight down into the crowds, about 100 feet away from my hubby. This photo is one I took last year when we were both at the races. You can see how fast and how low these planes are flying, it is truly incredible.

So for those of you who knew I was going to be there, I wasn't, and I'm fine. I'm so very grateful that my hubby is fine too, although I know that "fine" isn't really the word for it. When you see something like that, it sticks into your heart and your mind. The families and the children that were there need all of our good thoughts and prayers as they come to terms with injuries, loss, and trauma.

Another reminder that life is short and what we do today is what matters. Hug your spouse and children a little closer.

My heart goes out to the pilot of the Galloping Ghost, his family and his friends. This is the poem that is most often recited at the funeral of a pilot. May it wing his way speedily heavenwards.

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

— John Gillespie Magee, Jr

I'm Not Sure if That Was the Way to Taper

So I've read plenty on tapering, and even written up a Tapering Guide myself. You'd think I'd be smart enough to follow it, right? Well.....um.....

I spent my last week in Reno, in a very very nice VIP tent provided by Dassault (makers of the wonderful Falcon jets), eating from really tasty buffets. They even brought in a Haagen-Dazs ice cream cart every afternoon just chock full of goodies, and I cannot tell a lie... I didn't stop at just one Haagen-Dazs bar a day.

So let's see, who tapers by training almost not at all and overeating sinfully rich desserts? Well, that would be me. Okay, I did go running, and I did do laps in that ridiculous hotel pool. And maybe if I'm really lucky, the altitude of 5,000 feet gave me a little burst of the altitude training that elite athletes do and will hand me a few more red blood cells for race day.

But other than that, this is what I spent my week doing: eating, enjoying the hotel hot tub, and watching really really really fast cool old airplanes fly twenty feet overhead doing five hundred miles and hour. It may have messed up my taper, and I guess I'll know how much come race day. But just hearing the roar of the engines on planes like this Curtiss P-40 Warhawk was well worth it.