The Memorial Day 20-20 Biathlon!

Mark and I were signed up to walk a 10K in West Linn this morning, along the Willamette River, but it was raining pretty hard and we wimped out. I have good rain gear, but his is only water-repellent, and we didn't think it was up to 6 miles of walking in the rain.

Then, just as it was time for the race to start, the rain stopped! Arrgh! We were at home, not ready. We missed it.

Never mind, I said, we'll do a 20-20-20 Triathlon instead.

20 minutes of running - 20 minutes of biking - 20 minutes of swimming.

Good idea, except that the Oregon City Pool was closed for Memorial Day, so we made it a 20-20 Biathlon instead.

 First Mark checked to make sure the tires had plenty of air, and the brakes were good.

Then we went to the middle school track (just down the street from our house) for 20 minutes of jogging and walking. Mostly we ran/jogged the curves and walked the straights.

I'm gradually getting better at running. I'm not very fast, but my knee didn't hurt today. I think I'm finally recovered from Dog Mountain. In the 20 minutes, we "ran" 6 laps - about 1.5 miles.

Then it was time to hurry to the transition area to get ready for our bike ride!

Our neighbor, Terry Lingman, was out walking his dog. He came by just in time to snap a couple of photos for us. Here we go!

We were going to ride over to the nearby pioneer cemetery, since it's Memorial Day, and ride around the loop there several times, but when we arrived there was a Memorial Day flag ceremony with guest speakers and everything. We didn't want to be disrespectful, so we pulled up for a while. (Funny thing - I was wearing my "Team Brad" shirt from the Sarcoma Walk last Saturday - and the man in front of me was also wearing a Team Brad shirt!) We enjoyed the national anthem, comments from the mayor, and talks by the Oregon Speaker of the House and a WWII vet. Then we slipped away to visit our friends, Ken and Dorothy, who live just down the hill from the cemetery.

Dorothy snapped a photo as we rode up the hill, pulling away from their house. Before we went home, we both knew we should go visit our friend Leo Adams, a wonderful WWII vet. What a sweetie...he always gives me a hug and a kiss on the cheek...Mark only gets a handshake...hahaha! We thanked Leo for serving the country, and then we rode home, where we remembered to put the flag out for Memorial Day. We spent much longer than 20 minutes on the bikes because we kept stopping, but it was about 20 minutes' worth of riding. We covered 3 miles.

Now it's pouring hard rain again. So glad we got outdoors for a little while, for what may become the First Annual Memorial Day 20-20 Biathlon! We had a lot of fun - maybe next year we'll plan ahead and make it a family-and-friends event.