Big Ahi

My good friend, Todd, aka Big Ahi, will be racing in the half Ironman in Hawaii in 10 days (Or Ironman 70.3 is what they might like to call it.)

Besides being a generally all-around nice guy, Todd also helped me beyond words last year when I ran the SEAFAIR Marathon in Bellevue, WA. In case you don't have my marathoning timeline memorized, this was the marathon that followed Leadville. (If you don't know what Leadville is, go run it). I would have been hard pressed to be more exhausted and in need of some assistance and Todd took care of everything. Ride to/from the airport, shuttling me around all weekend and many more things including doing some of the worst trashing-talking ever at the end of my race (Click here)

It was a great weekend as Todd gave me a tour of Seattle and very serendipidously, I got to see my friend Devon, a Seattle native, in a movie in some small artsy theatre in some small artsy section of town.

This was also the weekend I got hooked up with my sports massage therapist Terrel Hale who kept me on my feet the latter part of the year. If you are in the greater DC area, you have got to check him out. He works wonders. This is not the darkened lights, water flowing, Zen-like massages but rather the massages that get a man up and going for a marathon every single weekend.

Also, Todd and I got to sit back and eat dinner while my best friend Anne, who unbeknownst to her, entertained us for a good fifteen minutes from 3,000 miles away. How is that? Well, somehow her speaker phone got turned on and Todd and I sat eating pizza in a restaurant while Anne and about 6 of her girlfriends dished about love, life, and sex whilst in the midst of some wine party or whatnot. Anne, well, is not really "quiet" per se, so the vast majority of the people around us were quite entertained as well.

Todd is joining me in a team I put together to run the Northwest Passage Relay as well at the end of July where he will again play host to me and a few other friends before we join the rest of our team to run 189 miles in hopefully less than a day. But I did not put the team together to win but rather to have fun. So, I hand-selected good runners who are, more importantly, good people.

Who was one of the very first people who came to mind? Todd. One kickass dude in a world in a serious kick ass due shortage.

So go wish Todd good luck on this, as well as our race, and even later in the year when he takes on a FULL Ironman in Canada.