We bit the bullet last weekend and attended a fund raiser in town for Kid Sport. This is the charity that gives kids that can't afford it the opportunity to participate in sports. We feel that it is a worthwhile cause, AND, the headliner was Donavon Bailey, the Canadian sprinter that won an Olympic Gold Medal in the 100 meters in Atlanta in 1996. Barry was not really keen on attending at first because the tickets were expensive, but how many chances are we ever going to get to meet a real Canadian track legend. Donavon (notice how I just can bandy his name about, since I have had my picture taken with him) was accompanied by 2 rowers, Adam Kreek and Dan Rutledge, who won Olympic Gold in Men's eights at Beijing in 2008 as well as Fiona Smith a member of the 1998 Woman's Hockey Team who won a Silver Medal in Ngano.
It was an interesting evening, a couple of things stand out in my mind. Dan Rutledge (he is huge, notice how he is leaning over in the picture) said that he wasn't much of an athlete when he was younger but his grade 11 biology teacher had the class measuring their lung capacity. His buddies blew and did a good quite well and then he took a big breath and blew and blew and blew and he said he blew the top right off of the machine. His biology teacher told him that he had a huge lung capacity and that he should do something with it.
We chatted with the hockey player and she said her brothers were a big inspiration to her, she grew up in small town Saskatchewan and had to play with the boys in order to compete. There weren't many women playing hockey back then. (Fiona is the blond)She was smaller than me and I asked her how her size affected her game and she said that skill and speed kept her competitive. When women play against men, body checking is prohibited and she said that when her team was playing a men's team if the game was close and the guys realized that they might get beaten by a women's team the game became very chippy!
Donavon was a bit of a disappointment to me, he characterized his running as a profession, he said that he competed every week, it was a job. He did say that he was lucky to have been born with a body that very athletic and he worked with that gift and his career was a result. One of his favourite moments was when he won a gold medal for Canada at the Pan American games, I think it was the first time he had represented Canada at a major games.
We had a very nice evening. I splurged and had my hair "done" for the first time since we were married. My cousin Greg dropped by on his way up north again and he thought I was a low maintenance kind of girl, all Barry could say was how all the money he was saving buying the cheap brand of beans was going up in smoke!!!
Elijah our grandson is carrying on a Lange tradition. He is going to be going to run in a cross country race in Rae, about 60 miles out of town. His grandpa is going to drive him because he is too young to go on the bus, so they are going to get to spend some quality time together, stay tuned. Barry tested out the new camera last night and it recorded a video for more than 25 minutes, so we could probably upload the whole race, well maybe we will post it on UTUBE or something, I have never done that yet!!!!!