Saturday came and went.
It started with a masters swim. Ness, Beth and I took a lane. It was fun on the Fourth practice so we did everything in sets of 4. Yesterday Beth asked if we would have to do IM at masters. I told her not likely. Of course there it was on the board today: 4 x 100 IM, repeat 3 times. I couldn’t do that to Beth plus didn’t see the point of doing 1200 IM so we did free instead. We chose our own adventure and did the 50’s and 100’s on descending intervals. The third time through I gave the lane a choice – doing the 50’s and 100’s on such a tight interval we would likely do a 1 second touch and go so the lactic burn would set in. OR doing them as a max sprint with big rest. Ness said the choice was really like choosing what was behind Door #1 (pain) or Door #2 (pain). Beth chose the lactate set. Ness pulled us along and our 4 x 100’s really became one big 400. And it burned. Good choice Beth. I would rather the max sprint big rest.
Afterwards we did some core and strength work. Ness played out her superhero fantasies on the web-like stretch station. Then we headed to the bagel shop for food. Back at home Ness needed a nap and then her diaper changed. Just kidding, Ness.
Secretly she was just resting up for the ultimate Putt-Putt Challenge. We searched the mini golf association website to find a top notch facility about 20 miles north. The drive up there was filled with plenty of sass and trash talk. We were all ready to throw down. And then the stakes were bet – loser buys a round of cake at the grocery store for all participants..
Game on
36 holes starting with selection of balls. Ness finally found something pink for herself.
Though I coach Ness, little did I realize her true passion for sport lies in Putt Putt. This girl took the game seriously. Practice putts, measuring trajectories. I think she even pulled out a protractor. Here’s a picture of Tiger taking a putt at Hole #3.
The first 18 holes went fairly well. There were a few rogue balls. Like when Ness overshot the green. She was pretty fast on the track the other day but she hauled ass to that shrub to try to avoid any evidence that the shot happened. Nice try.
Ness, Beth and Chris proved their mad skills on the range. Myself, not so much of a putt-putt champ. But just wait. Being the only one that had done Ironman twice, I knew the importance of pacing myself. After the first round Ness started to bonk and needed a Gatorade. I knew my opportunity had come to make a move. And I did, started out with a hole in one and got another from there. Chris’ pacing plan didn’t work so well as his game fizzled with several holes that took 6 putts. Found himself alongside the road with no water in his bottles and a flat rear wheel. Beth – as expected – came from behind slowly but surely. Ness recovered well after a powerful first round bouncing back from the bonk and pulling out the Putt Putt 36 Hole Championship title when all was said and done.
There was one mishap along the way – a lost ball. The loser of it – Beth. Hit the ball right into the water. Now, seeing that balls were 50 cents to replace, Ness, Beth and Chris went over to the pond to dig that ball out. Do the math; that’s a little over 16 cents of a worthwhile effort from each of them. Here they are fishing instead of playing the putt-putt game.
And then Chris did the unthinkable – he stuck his hand into the toxic blue pond to scoop the ball out of the muck. Of course I would expect nothing less from a man that would also scoop poop out of his own pants. But unlike that time, this effort was not successful and they never did find Beth’s ball.
What happens when you face 4 adults with a lost ball? They use their collective brain power to devise a way to beat the system – in other words, not pay the 50 cents for a new ball. Then we realized the system would have us beat after hole 18 when they collected our balls and redistributed new ones for the next round. Let’s just say Beth is now 50 cents poorer but richer in life experience of what happens when you overshoot a putt-putt ball.
Afterwards we went to a brewery for dinner. Ness suggests a game “Two Truths and a Lie” in which we learned Beth has been to outer space, Chris might have been to jail and Ness dresses up in scuba gear on Saturday nights for a good time. Chris ordered the world’s most colossal burger as evidenced by this picture. Note that this was the second picture of this burger – the first one did not have a point of reference. Someone suggested a sugar packet would show the world how big colossal really is.
Chris proves he is not only beaten at putt-putt but beaten by the meat when he leaves this remnant behind. But it was only after I told him eating the whole thing might not prove such a good idea when Saturday masters rolls around at 7:30 am.
Ness then taught us all how to eat dinner with proper manners in case the Queen Mother comes to dinner. She finished the lesson up with her napkin-folding skills. Silly Brit.
And like her shirt says, you DON’T MESS with Ness or any woman that can fold a napkin into a bra and then is brave enough to wear it in a restaurant. But Beth being the quiet competitive one is ready to mess. So she whips this up in an instant.
As if I believe she didn’t just pull that out of her own pants. Not knowing if you could top this kind of fun, we headed to the grocery store to find cake. I was sorely disappointed in the cake collection, Ness went rabid looking for her soy creamer (this girl has a serious problem with soy creamer) and Chris having the highest putt-putt score of 1,000,006 footed the bill.
All in all it was a very full day. Tomorrow we have our last round of workouts and if we train as good as we play putt-putt then I would expect to find Chris on the side of the road, Ness wearing nothing but a napkin bra, myself riding along well-paced and Beth coming up behind me on the road.
Sport mimics life, eh? Or is it life imitating sport…guess we’ll find out.
