Agelessness

Trick question.  Do you get slower or faster with age?  

Here is our scenario:  Participant A does a 10k road race in 2008.  She does the same exact race in 2009 except betters her time by over a minute.  

Participant B is one year younger than Participant A. During the race in 2008, Participant B warns Participant A that she better watch out in 2009 because she is going to be eligible for Participant A's age-classification.  In the 2009 race, Participant B is slower by almost three minutes.  

How is this possible?

You think you have the answer. Participant A trained harder for the race, right?  Nope. While all of you skiers, runners and know-it-alls were laughing (or thinking too hard), I forgot to add that the women were 79 and 80 in 2008.  Therefore they were 80 and 81...OK, you should get that much.  

The same physiological science that applies to a 25 year-old does not apply to an 80 year-old. It does not matter which way you slice the pie, that's how the cookie crumbles (right, Coach Flynn?). 

My coaches have always told me that I would become more physically fit with each passing year until I was in my mid-late twenties.  We do not reach our full physical and athletic maturity until this age-range, thus explaining the peak age of endurance athletes. People stay fast and fit well beyond their twenties, but it eventually takes a little more work to keep the aging body in great physical shape.  

It makes sense.  We get slower after we reach a certain age, right? 

That is what I thought until my grandmother Victoria Poole slapped my theory upside the head.  Yes, she is Participant A, and yes, she did complete one of the most prestigious 10k road races in the country (twice). Why is that cool? Because she is over 80 and has made a point to walk the 6.2 mile race course every year.  And because she showed Participant B (she will remain unnamed) that she was not ready to mess with the 80 and over category quite yet.  

I know I will be hard-pressed to walk 6.2 miles at that age and I would be willing to bet another $5 that most of you will as well.  No offense to your 10k race future beyond the age of 80, but not that many people can physically do that.  

I am a modest person and rarely brag about things close to home.  You will not see my write a blog post about any personal accomplishment (except for domination in spring intramural sports).  

That being said, am I bragging about my grandmother?  Without a doubt.  Do I feel bad about that? Not at all, because my grandmother (Grandma Engelke, your blog post is in the lineup) deserves every ounce of my praise.  

Following the race, my family hosted the annual post-event banquet in the field of our summer cottage in Cape Elizabeth, ME.  It was a truly special evening and I will push my father to offer the property next summer as well (if he says no, then I will offer it up without his approval).  

Despite meeting all of the African elite runners including the holder of the 3rd fastest marathon in history, the highlight of the party came from the pretty, little old lady better known as Granny.  

Olympic gold medalist and Beach to Beacon race founder Joan Benoit-Samuelson and the rest of the Beach to Beacon crew called my grandmother to the front of the function to recognize her as the oldest finisher in the 2009 edition of the race.  Along with a Boston Marathon track jacket and some other free-schwag, Joanie presented my grandmother with a life-time entry to the race.  From here on out, race number 1927 (for her birth-year) will be off limits to everyone except Victoria Poole.  

The 400 people at the party stood and applauded, sending chills straight up my spine.  In between moments of flirting with my sister and her friend, the African runners even professed their amazement at my grandmother.  She might have been too flustered to take everything in, but I saw it all and I do know that she was and will be forever thankful for that evening at the cottage.  

Although race registration does not open for another seven(?) months, my grandmother is the only non-elite runner that does not have to worry about gaining entry to the ever popular race. Participant B, I guess you will have to wait until next year!

It has been almost a month and I am still applauding you, Granny. Here's to 82 and more memories like this one.   Grandpa would have been proud.

The Proof

While manning the bar at the Royal River Grillhouse in Yarmouth, ME last Friday, I received a text message from Mr. Sylvan Geir Ellefson that read as follows:

2:24PM Fri, Aug 14: "Check Lance's Twitter, pics up soon he said. bitches :-)".

It is real. This is the undeniable proof that my best friend Sylvan Ellefson actually rode his bike with Lance Armstrong.

Some of you readers might not know who Sylvan is, what he looks like and consequently where he is located in this photo but I would be willing to bet that you could guess.

While four of the five are almost perfectly coordinated (even down to their miniature size), one is entirely different. No Trek jersey, no yellow and black Livestrong helmet, a solid four inches on the rest of the motley crew and Sylvan sticks out like a sore thumb (or a nordic skier wearing a bright red rain-coat).

Now imagine me, fresh off of a six-hour bar tending shift at the Grillhouse, driving home and logging onto twitter.com/lancearmstrong to find this photo with the accompanying comment, "just finished 2 rainy hrs w/ @benking89, @bjornselander, @guyeast, and @sylvanellefson."

Pretty damn cool, I thought. Lance Armstrong just gave my friend Sylvan Ellefson a shout out on the fastest growing micro-blogging site on the Internet. Better yet, Armstrong has almost 1.8 million people following his Twitter page. The result? 1.8 million people wondering, "who the heck is this giant in the red raincoat?" The extended result? An influx of additions to the unofficial (until I don it official as my millionaire mechanism) Sylvan Ellefson Fan Club (SEFC).

All in all, Sylvan had a day that he will never forget. And I had a day that made me look like a complete idiot.

I finished my day at work, sprinted to my car, sprinted back to the restaurant because I forgot to clock out of the computer, sprinted back to my car and drove (the speed limit, mom) back to my house. I rudely sprinted past my dogs, giving them an ice-cold shoulder in the process and launched myself at the computer in the kitchen.

With sweat dripping off of my forehead onto the keyboard and seeping into the couch, I pulled up this picture and laughed.  My jealousy was still present, but I smiled and simply brushed it all aside. 

While Sylvan gets this picture framed and has the story of a lifetime to tell, retell and overtell for decades, I will keep telling him lies like, "this is not that cool" or "I bet you paid $1,000 to do this".  

Denial, my friends.  It is that cool and it is worthy of telling and retelling.  Why? Because whether you like him or not, think he is a doper or hate the sport of cycling, Lance Armstrong is one of the greatest athletes in the history of sports.  And my best friend got to spend half of a day with him.  

Sylvan, don't take that paragraph too seriously about me telling lies.  That paragraph itself was a lie because truly, I have been the one telling, retelling and overtelling your story. 

And I am completely happy to do that. 

Envy

This is my third attempt at starting a blog. The other two were miserable failures due to my lack of creativity every time I logged into blogger.com.

The main screen served as a complete emptying of all great ideas that were at one time swirling in my head. Fear of the blank page resulted in too many thoughts at once with none of them being the brilliant idea that urged me to blog. This eventually led to two poorly executed and uneventful blog posts that were not funny, had no importance on what I was doing with my life and were just too emotional (I hate that kind of crap). Who wants to read about some deep, life changing experience from the mind of a 22 year-old college student? Not me, not you and certainly not my mom (we'll save it for one on one time, mother).

Aside from my unexplainable mind-blank that arose every time I faced this very same computer screen, there were other failures--namely a minuscule level of readership (my mom).

I need no introduction, for those of you that will actually read this already know who I am, what I do and why I am writing. Scratch that, I probably would write a brief introduction because it seems like the right thing to do when starting a blog, but introductions on blogs suck and I am eager to write about what spurred me to give this thing one more shot.

With that being said...

Why the title "envy"? That seems weird for a first-post, right? No, this will not, and I promise, be some verbal diarrhea about my personal life. I refuse to write about being envious of that guy dating that girl (damn him) or that annoying girl that made more money that me at work yesterday (you just wait till tomorrow, unnamed girl).

Where does this envy stem from if it is not about a girl or money? For starters, I am by myself in a hot, quiet office with the smell of the next door pizzeria wafting through the window (too bad I have that lousy PB&J waiting for me in the fridge).

I am the intern at a sports marketing firm and everyone in the company has either left to walk around Portland and/or go home for the day. Me? I am sitting at my desk screening video footage of off-road desert truck racing (cool, but also not that cool at the same time). Although it is about to drive me out the door of the office, envy of my co-workers is not the envy that I speak of in the title of this blog.

In between segments of video screening, I allow myself a short, but sometimes long break to surf the web. Not much surfing actually takes place because I check the same five websites every time. Today that will change. I have added a couple of websites to my list and this will explain my jealousy: Lance Armstrong's Twitter page and my best friend Sylvan Ellefson's Twitter page (I hate Twitter). Connect the dots.

I am a cyclist. I follow the sport just like I follow my beloved Boston Red Sox, Boston Celtics and New England Patriots (that's right, Mac. Six championships combined in the new millennium). In cycling I follow individual riders as opposed to teams. My favorites include the Luxumberg brothers Frank and Andy Schleck, the big Belgian sprinter Tom Boonen and of course Armstrong.

To say I have a man-crush would be fairly accurate. He is inspirational, has a Cinderella story following his battle with cancer and he is pretty much a bad-ass. He is the Godfather.

Still don't see the envy?

Simply put, I am sitting in my office while my best friend and former roommate at Bates College is riding his bike with Lance Armstrong. I do not consider myself a jealous person and in usual circumstances, I will keep my jealousy to myself. Not this time. No way.

Am I jealous in a bad/mad way? Hell no. If he were to have called me and stated, "man, I was invited to go biking with Lance Armstrong tomorrow. That really sucks," I would have scoffed and called him an idiot. But Sylvan did not do that. He could not believe it was actually happening.

You might laugh, but for all you rah-rah football players out there--picture you or your best friend playing a game of catch with Tom Brady (girls might like that opportunity as well). Or for you basketball fans, imagine you playing a friendly game of h-o-r-s-e with Michael Jordan. And for the baseball fans out there, think of you, A-Rod, and Ortiz huddled up in your bathroom shoving needles into each others' asses.

Sylvan was thrilled, scared and a little speechless. I was too, and I'm 2,000 miles away and not even going for a bike ride today.

For now, I can only wait for my phone to ring with a report of today's happenings. While it will surely be a leisurely ride for Lance, will my good friend hang on for the ride's entirety? I do not have the answer to that but what I do know is that you should never bet against Sylvan Ellefson. The kid knows how to hurt.

He might not ride much, he might not even own a bike and that miserable race weekend in New Haven, CT last April may have turned him off of bike racing for the rest of his life, but he knows how incredible his opportunity is today and he will do all that he can to stick with the old man as long as his legs will allow.

I will eventually eat my PB&J and give the pizzeria the figurative middle finger. The rest of the employees will return from their breaks and I will finally have someone to correspond with (this day really has been boring). Most importantly, I will keep screening video while eagerly checking www.twitter.com/lancearmstrong and www.twitter.com/sylvanellefson in hopes that The Godfather or (from here on out) The Kid put up a picture of their leisurely Thursday ride.

Sylvan, you are one lucky dog.