One week to go

With QMH out of the running (out of the walking mostly, too), our daughter, Kid Kate -- a standout high-school sprinter who professes to hate any run longer than 200 meters -- is stepping in for our JumpStart Jog fundraiser. Kate is 17 and stubborn; although she has done very little training for the distance we're about to tackle, I expect her to fly through the half marathon on youth and guts. Last Saturday, after much bickering about the dwindling days before the Tom King, we started a ten mile run at the campus of her school, JPII. There's no track at this new school yet, but the coaches have sketched out a two-mile circuit that traverses parking lot and playing field. Kate led the way, immediately pulling away from me, of course. Matters got plain scary for me when I hit a stretch of lumpy grass and a coarse gravel lane that I'd have to negotiate twice in every lap. No doubt the track team kids have developed strong ankles and good balance from training on this obstacle course. I knew that at best the extra effort would wear me out. I was also afraid I'd turn an ankle or twist a knee just a week before the Tom King.

So, I decided to run around and around the parking lot for two hours, clocking about twelve miles at a carefully measured pace. Meanwhile, Kate charged through her ten miles, pausing several times to catch up with her phone calls and text messages, and then went off to the dance studio for a hip hop rehearsal.

Youth is wasted on the young.