A taste of Ferric.

Libby and I did 1 k's today..that no mans land of purple lipped grimace. 1k's... a distance handed down to us by the French, and which is a one 40 thousandth part of the circumference of the earth, and lies partway between a half mile and a mile...
Libby is my Goddaughter, the eldest child of my friends who were borrowing when they should have been repaying, and as her parents continue to sink into a morass of financial distress, so I have been requested to take over her triathlon training.
It hasn't been an been an especially smooth road. For Libby, I held no consequence. Just an old fat man who showed up occaisionally, drank tea with her folks and then left again. Then one day Ant and I took her out for a bike ride, we did 55 miles through the hills, it took every ounce of what she possessed to stay with us... the scales fell from her eyes.
The Ironman followed, and while it crucified me, and made my feet bleed...I didn't let it cow me, and it showed Libby that I could walk the walk. Her demeanour towards me changed completely. I was no longer someone who merely wrote a schedule and told her to hurt herself. I was someone who could hurt as she did, and who could metaphorically bleed and suffer as she did.
So today, for the first time in some 15 years I did 1 k's. Three of them and Lord did they hurt. My hamstrings were twanging like a string orchestra at the Phil. Libby was 12, 8 and 6 seconds ahead...and with a few more of them under my belt I think that I could beat her..meantime, while she has all the growing pains and tongue tied angst of a typical teenager..she expresses herself beautifully when she runs... and she gives no quarter.. asked, nor given, between us ...she is as determined to put me to the sword as I am of her.
So there she was, my god daughter, running hard and fast...running like a guy, pony tail bobbing away in front of me...and I couldn't keep with her.
She is only 15, but mark my words, one day she will win the Ironman.

Just after this weekend in far off New York, Lisa turns 28.
I continue to vicariously watch her life unfold with the fascination of a slowmotion train wreck. She obsessively writes, for which I am grateful And I find myself as much fascinated by the cafes that she frequents and food that she eats, the tastes that she descibes, as I am by the carnage of her somewhat frequent romances.
One day in New York perhaps I will have the good fortune to meet her...even if only to drink bubble tea, meantime though, I am being flayed alive by a 15 year old kid with a grim and dour set to her. I admire that immensely.
Tonight it is with some sadness that I bid adieu to summertime...I am not a great fan of winter, it depresses me and makes my shrinking pineal squeel with anguish. A month wandering New York would not be such a bad thing I'm sure.