The Log bears fruit!

[LitTrog]

This thread probably would probably be better as just another post in my Trog Log thread, but there are three reasons why it's not there:

1) I hope to lend anecdotal weight to Alan H's advice to anyone who thinks Highland Athletics looks like fun and wants to get started.

2) I am an attention hog.

3) I love the thrill that accompanies birthing a new thread. I don't possess the plumbing required to squirt out a real child, but new forum threads are an acceptable substitute. Plus, no government agency is notified if I neglect it. Win-win.

To point #1--maybe once per month since I've joined this forum, I see folks evince their desire to start throwing. Alan and others will point them to the Athletics Forum sticky with the follow-up admonition to go throw. I was one of those guys, and I suspect that, like me, a large majority let it slide and did nothing about it.

I mean, c'mon--I'm not a 6'5", 260-pound chunk of testosterone-oozing man flesh. I'm in decent shape for an old guy, but I'm liddle (5' 8", 180lbs) and It's a Wonderful Life makes me all weepy and stuff. I'd get laughed off the field!

Or, they'd let me compete, but I'd have no clue what I'm doing. Everyone would just stand around, staring at the newbie, waiting for me to either hurt myself or do something wrong. Laughed off the field by athletes and spectators!

Fortunately, last September, I talked myself into a corner and was faced with either abandoning X Marks in shame, or making a real commitment to follow through and just go throw. Last Sunday at the Pikes Peak Celtic Festival in Colorado Springs, CO, that's exactly what I did. True, I did do some lifting in the off season, and managed to find a practice group and throw all the implements around a few times before these games, but that simply calmed my fraidy-cat fears about looking stoopud in front of lots of people. I still may have looked stoopud, but I was no longer afraid of it:

Loading up the sheaf!




Missing at 18 feet! Oh, the shame!




42# Weight for distance




Just clear the trig, just clear the trig, just clear the trig...




"Are you actually going to walk with that thing, young fella, or should we attach some power lines to it?!"




Seems the Byrds were right...




Pictures tell a thousand words, and those pictures may have told the casual viewer that I knew what I was doing. However, like most people who talk that much, them pics ain't telling the truth.

Here is the truth:

HWFD: 19.00 ft.
LWFD: 27.00 ft.
16# Hammer: 55.5 ft. (managed a 70-footer, but fouled!)
Braemar: 22.26 ft.
Open Stone: 26.87 ft.
Sheaf: 16 ft.
WOB: 10 ft.
Caber: 1145 on the 2nd caber, (failed to turn the third, a 17.5ft, 90-pounder)

Not good numbers. Not good at all.

This picture, however, taken at the end of the day, is also the truth:




I am still there. The earth didn't swallow me, I wasn't laughed off the field. I am laughing and happy and so totally hooked on Highland Athletics. So I didn't throw big numbers--BFD. The crowd was encouraging, my fellow athletes celebrated the things I did well and coached me to improve the stuff I tanked.

Lesson: Everyone there is looking to have fun. Nobody cares if you suck, as long as your shoulders are chipless. The organizers, the audience, the athletes--everyone--gets a kick out of seeing us do our thing.

Nike made it trite, but Alan has it right: Just do it. It's the other thing in life you can enjoy even if you're not very good at it.