Art for Antonio, and the Indoor Triathlon

A couple of interesting events coming up - the first is Art for Antonio.  Antonio is an awesome kid who is mentored/mothered by a couple of good friends of ours.  In the last couple of years he's gone from having trouble in school and a very unstable home life, to making the A/B Honor Roll with a lot of help from Meg and Alisa and in spite of his otherwise still very unstable home life.  He has decided he wants to go to boarding school - and no doubt that does offer him the best chance of getting to college and escaping the cycle of poverty that he has grown up in.

So, to help, my good friend Leslie, of Roost Interior Design, decided to put together a fundraiser for Antonio.  Here are the details:

It's this coming Thursday, at the house Roost has just rehabbed in Montford.  In addition to having some cool artwork for sale, there's also going to be an amazing raffle - $5 tickets for chances at a TON of good prizes.  Early Girl and Limones gift certificates, haircuts at Lola, spa services at Sensibilities, more artwork (including one of my lanterns), and a ton of other cool stuff.  Not to mention free food and drinks, and a wine tasting.  So come on out, have some fun, and help support a fantastic, funny, smart, athletic, and amazing young man.


In other news, and a slight change of gears, there's another event coming up that I'm in the middle of - the Asheville Triathlon Club's Indoor Tri!  It's going to be a blast - and I think it might be one of the only very cheap (or free, if you're a Y member) events that offers prizes.  Good prizes.  And - here's the kicker - not just prizes for people who are fast.  Because, take a look at our awesome sponsors on the flier, and think to yourself - who couldn't use a Liberty Bikes gift certificate?  Or some Hammer Nutrition products donated by Glory Hound Events?  And who deserves it more - the person who has a slightly OCD attachment to exercise and for whom a tri is not that big a deal, or the person for whom it's a major achievement just to sign up??  We're voting that *everyone* deserves cool stuff - and so we're giving it away.

This tri is the perfect opportunity to jump back into a race at the beginning of your season - or jump into a race for the first time ever!  It's super low-key - heck, the bike is on spin bikes, so no one will even know how far you went.  The swim is how many laps you can do in 20 minutes - so if you want to swim 100 yards every minute - be our guest.  Or if you want to take a leisurely tour up and down the lane, stopping to chat and hang out every now and then - that's excellent!  And the run is an outdoor 5K on the paved path in Biltmore Park - scenic and fun.  Sooooo - take advantage of our unique event and sign up with the Reuter Y - it's going to be fun.

Back in the Saddle

So, turns out I don't have to bankrupt myself to the ART practitioner after all.  Because that was my plan B in case my hip flexor didn't ever decide to flex again.  But it appears to have decided to rejoin the party, and so I'm back at it. (Well, if you can consider jogging aimlessly around Montford being back at it.)  But today I'm going to attempt to run an actual workout.  Fingers crossed.

Biggest news of the week (month?? year??) - Sam learned to ride a bike yesterday!!!  He had sort-of, somewhat attempted to ride a couple of times over the last couple of years, but it just never really seemed to take.  He'd crash, scare himself a little, and decide that was the most ridiculous activity he'd ever heard of.  But - he got a fire in his belly this week and decided he was ready.  So I got his old bike (now ridiculously small for him - which is perfect for learning on), and we headed to the Greenway.  And - he figured it out.  It was sooo fun to watch.  I had a cheek ache from smiling so much.  And at one point he turned around and yelled "this is the most amazing feeling in the world!!!!!", and I knew *exactly* how he felt.  It was this great moment of kinship and accord.  So we're going back for more today, and now I'm looking at the budget to see where a new bike fits in.  And - I have the *most adorable* video of him on his first day of biking, and I'm *dying* to post it, but since the video ends with him yelling "and don't put this on youtube!!!", I'm guessing that should also apply to my blog.  But it's really adorable.


Edited to Add:  The hip flexor really did decide to flex!  7 miles around N. Asheville in an hour (more or less), including 2x200, 2x400, 2x200 on the UNCA track.  The track intervals were supposed to be at 5k race pace, and I really did mean to be good, but for a person who once actually ran the 400, doing those intervals at 5k pace seems realllllly silly.  So I was faster than I was supposed to be, but not by too much, and - Happy Dance! - the legs seemed to be up for it.