Sounds a kind of like the Elton John song, Bennie and the Jets as I was thinking of a title for today’s post. Let me start with the hearing part…
What a shocker!! The post-race party was held in the beautiful conservatory at the Buffalo Botanical Gardens. Everyone I knew came up to me to offer congratulations…to count a few including whose names I do remember…Anne, Sue, Sandy, Michael, Chuck, Rick and his wife, Amy, Linda, Dave, Paul and my own personal cheerleader, Bridget.
Since the dome is all glass and there was probably 200-250 people packed in among all the trees, plants, flowers and whatever, it was very loud and echoy. But every conversation I had was an absolute thrill…clear and concise. The CI did exactly what it was programmed to do…to take each and every sound in its own natural tone, pitch and frequency and feed it to my brain exactly the way it is coming out of the speaker’s mouth.
In the past I had to crock my head to aim the hearing aid at the person, then look at them out of the corner of my eye and maybe if I was lucky, I would understand about 25-50% of what they were saying but enough to be able to figure out what they were talking about. Not this time!! Along with lip-reading, I was able to understand the conversation right away and follow it through. The only problem I had was I was speaking too softly but I was able to adapt rather quickly. Or maybe I can get rich selling a few used hearing aids! Oh and I didn’t need to really announce my becoming bionic…Bridget was parading me around the place and showing off my CI for me!
The race itself was all “y”s – slushy, chilly, windy, wetty and sucky. My time was a rather “forgetaboutit” 24:18 which is more the 2 minutes off my best time. Heck, its only the first race of the year and I hadn’t been running for a while plus the treadmill is not really a good substitute for the road and I wasn’t feeling too good. I think I am coming down with a cold. I would like to consider this race and next week’s a tune-up to the Shamrock Run.
The course consist of 2 1/4 laps along the ring road of the Buffalo Botanical Gardens. The hard part was at the 1 1/4 and 2 1/2 mile marks which is an up grade with a 10 mph head wind. It was those two parts of the race where I lost the most time. Normally, I should be able to breeze through but not this time and towards the end, I started cramping. I even ran like heck at the end of the race just so that I could get inside! The post-race party was awesome…hot dogs, hamburgers, CHEESEburgers, Bison Beer, the usual yogurt, sport drinks and fruit all set up among tables neatly hidden among the plants, trees and flowers under the conservatory.
The staff and volunteers of the Buffalo Botanical Gardens definitely merit a standing ovation for putting on such a great event. I think if they move this race to the summer or fall, they will easily double the turnout and I can’t even imagine the beauty of the park in the fall. If you are from out of town and contemplating a visit to Buffalo, the Buffalo Botanical Gardens is one place that must be in your plans.