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The Bounce
News and Notes from nuBound
May 2008 - Vol 2, Issue 7
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Dear Reader,

Welcome to the May edition of The Bounce from nuBound!

This month we begin with a look at my first triathlon, the Cohasset Triathlon. In the process of gearing up for the event I learned the story of another athlete in the race, which has lessons and inspiration for us all.

In another story, a husband and wife team came to town to run the Boston Marathon last month. A first running of Boston is a memorable accomplishment in anyone's life. The road these two took to get here makes the story of Jamie and Lynn Parks unique.

If you have ideas, thoughts or stories for future issues, please let us know!

Cohasset Tri--Sandy Beach
Having run nearly a dozen marathons it was time for me to finally do a triathlon. So I picked a local sprint distance event, the Cohasset Triathlon. Cohasset is small sea coast town, that looks out across Massachusetts Bay to the Atlantic Ocean. I was aware of the Cohasset Tri because someone from my town of Newton had died of a heart attack during the inaugural running last year.

Back in March, at the beginning of the training season, the organizers held an intro session, where elite triathletes Karen Smyers and Dede Griesbauer, previewed the course and shared their insight on success in the sport. After several wrong turns on my way to Cohasset, I finally arrived (glad that this wasn't the morning of the race). While walking in from the parking lot, I began talking with three other folks who'd also gotten lost driving in from Newton. I asked if any of them knew the guy from Newton who'd died in last year's triathlon.

Of course--the woman I asked was his widow, Karen Lyons. While her friends turned ashen and I worked to disengage my foot from my mouth, Karen took it in stride, assured me I couldn't have known and put us all at ease.

Karen explained that she has come back to Cohasset to finish the race for her husband Joe. When Joe lined up on the beach last summer he had a bigger goal in mind than just racing. The Cohasset Triathlon raises money for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and their son Sam had been diagnosed with diabetes five years earlier.

When Karen committed to the race last winter she began organizing Team Lyons to broaden her fund raising capacity. Since then, Team Lyons had grown to include over fifty friends, neighbors and even relative strangers (like me). You can also participate by going to Team Lyons and making a donation for research.

The Cohasset Triathlon has come back bigger and better than ever. Karen has faced tragedy down and is returning to build a better future for those struck by juvenile diabetes. In addition to Smyers and Griesbauer, over two dozen elite triathletes will join the field of 700+ participants, including US Olympian, Jarrod Shoemaker and 2007 US U23 Champion Ethan Brown.

On June 29th this summer, Karen Lyons will line up on Sandy Beach in Cohasset wearing number 129 (Joe's number, which has been reserved in all future races for Karen). Eight year old Sam Lyons will be the official starter for this race, that his father never finished, but his mother will.

[If you don't see a Boston.TV window below this text, click here for the video].


What are you capable of? There's no way to answer that question in theory. You have to get out and discover the answer by action.

Boxer, coach and professional trainer Ross Enamit has a recent post on his blog where he explored the limitations of conventional wisdom. He dismissed those who:

"ask others what they are capable of in life. One example was the aspiring fighter who asked me if he was too old to pursue the sport of boxing. He wanted the formula that would calculate (beforehand) what he could achieve. Such an approach to life is flawed in many ways. Perhaps most importantly, you end up living your life based on someone else's opinion of what you can do.

This past weekend I came across a quote that was related to this subject: 'Conventional wisdom is no wisdom at all. Conventional wisdom is taking somebody else's word for the way things are. It's the followers of this world who rely on assumption. Not the leaders.' "

Last fall, I mentioned some of the people I'd met at the Runner's World Heroes of Running Celebration in New York. I had the chance to reunite with three of them when they came to Boston last month to run the Marathon.

Lynn, who rides in a wheel chair and Jamie, who pushes Lynn, finished Boston in 3:25:46. The picture at the right shows them cresting Heartbreak Hill. They were joined by a bandit runner--their eight year old daughter Annalyn--for the last half mile of the race.

While training for Boston, Lynn and Jamie logged their 13,000th mile since they started running together in the summer of 1991. Through this period, they've run in over 170 races.

Even more amazing than the miles logged or races run is how they came to their starting line in the first place. The two were engaged to be married in 1987, when a few months prior to the wedding Lynn nearly died in a car accident. Through 17 days in a coma, seven months without speaking and seven years of rehab, Lynn was finally able to walk down the aisle and marry Jamie.

Life can be tough. There's no guarantee of happiness. A child can fall ill, a spouse can be disabled or even pass away. There's enough misfortune in any one of these events to chagrin most people.

But, there's also a moment of transcendence available for those that stand up and ignore the pain. Those who reject the conventional wisdom that they should succumb to pain, can rise above their circumstances and bring us all a glimpse of what is possible when you refuse to give up.

Watch for us at other races and events throughout the year to come. As always, make sure to catch The Bounce from nuBound!

Sincerely,

nuBOUND
Mark Connell
nuBound

phone: 888.480.NUCLeotide (or 888.480.6825)

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