Off To The Races

And we're off into the new year!

Conner had his Pinewood Derby for scouts last weekend. He was pretty excited heading into the weekend because last year he placed 5th in his pack and got to advance to the district races. He was pretty confident he would do it again. Without bursting his bubble or squashing his dreams I tried to instill a sense of reality into things. This year there are about 15 more boys in the pack so there was going to be that much more competition.

Over the past couple of weeks he built his car. Okay, I built it, but under his direction. He decided he wanted to go for speed so he picked the "fast" design. I cut it, but then he sanded and painted it.

We gave it a couple of test runs the morning of the races and things looked acceptable for the most part. There was a little wobble, but nothing we could do about it at that point, the wheel axles were already glued into place.

The format was that each scout would race 3 times, once on each lane, and then their average time would determine the finish order. Conner ended up winning each of his 3 heat races (3 cars race at once) so we thought there was a pretty good chance he would advance. Once they started announcing the results though we knew we had empty hopes. The 5th place car was one which had posted faster times than his in 2 out of the 3 races. Conner ended up placing 9th, an average of 6/100ths of a second behind 5th place.

Conner was pretty disappointed, but he kept himself composed. His lower jaw was pretty set and and his eyes weren't exactly dry, but he held firm and was able to muster a smile for the camera.

Devon got to race a car this year too in the "family" division (for dads, siblings, anyone who's not a scout). In a life-is-cruel sort of way for Conner, Devon ended up getting 2nd place and won a ribbon! He was so cute and a little smartass all at the same time. During his 3 races, the first 2 he got 2nd. He was happy to just be racing and said that's okay that he didn't win because "Daddy built my car anyway". My own son is calling me out! The 3rd race he won and said multiple times "I won, I won". Did Dad get any recognition that race? What do you think? He was all smiles after getting his ribbon proclaiming that's the first time he's ever won a ribbon.

It could (?) be fun next year when Devon is an official scout and they'll be racing head to head against each other. Let's just hope they both make it to districts or neither do! Actually, this year and whatever next year holds, are good life lessons learned over something minor (in a parent's eye anyway, I'm sure Conner thought this was a major letdown though).

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As for me and my non-derby races, I started training/running again last week and it feels good to be back at it. I have a few races on the horizon so there isn't going to be much downtime between now and mid-October. I was updating my Ellipsoid account the other day after a run and calculated I ran, biked and swam a cumulative 1,145 miles during '08. This doesn't count many hours inside on the spin bike. I know 1,145 is piddly compared to a few others, but I was actually surprised by it as it didn't seem like I did that much. With 2009's schedule I wonder how much I'll do. If I train properly for everything I have scheduled I'm guessing I could be bumping up against 1,600-1,700 miles this year. Check back in 12 months to find out the total I guess.