Paul Asay

This past weekend I raced the Clark County Biathlon at Mill Creek Park with my good friend Mike Calawerts.   It was a first time event that featured a 5k run and 15 mile bike.   You could also just race the 5k and skip the bike if you wanted to.   Race didn’t start till 3 PM so plenty of time to enjoy the day before showing up for the event.   Got there in plenty of time and saw a number of friends out warming up for the course.   Caleb Towles was there so I knew we had some competition.   Turns out Caleb was with a friend and just running the 5k so we dodged that bullet.   With just 30 or so bikes racked at the start it was a pretty small event. At the start Mike and Caleb took off in a good lead, I was cruising along in 4 th for most of the run.   By the end of the 3 miles I could see Caleb was well off in front and Mike not too far behind.   I came in just behind the 3 rd place guy, but had a really fast transition to the bike ...

Yesterday evening I participated in the first annual “2 Mile Food Pile” race on campus.   My friend Mike was the race director, and it was for a good cause, so why not.   It didn’t really sound that hard, fill up a backpack with 10 + pounds of food to donate to Catholic Charities, run 1 mile with the backpack on, empty the contents in a barrel and run the mile back with an empty backpack.   Turned out the run was a lot tougher than I thought.   Having run a hard 7 mile interval the day before, swimming afterwards, and swimming at lunch before the race wasn’t exactly the best preparation.   Not to worry, I figured I would just run easy and make a nice day of it.   All sounds good till you line up and the gun goes off.   From there it was a mad sprint among the 60 participants.   Not wanting to look too slow I took off hard as well.   Only thing was my backpack was a little too big and didn’t stay tight on my back.   Basically it was...

Night hike, version 3 results are in, and it was just about what we thought it would be, but with a strange twist this year.   Eight of us participated including my youngest son Jacob.   We took off from T.H. around 5:15, picked up Ethan in Bloomington and decided to have dinner at Opie Taylor’s.    Nothing like some major meat and potatoes before long hike, this was the place for that.   By the time we left the restaurant the freezing rain was making havoc of the streets.   We found this out first hand when the suburban we were traveling started sliding going down a hill outside Bloomington and toward Nashville.   By the time we slowed down at the bottom of the hill at least 6 cars had just slide off that section of road and in dire need of a tow truck. Made it nice and slow down to the gravel road where we turn off to park.   On with the boots, extra warm stuff, backpacks, lights and the like as we headed up the hill for the real adven...

The last couple of January’s a small group of us have gone on a long night hike after work into a remote cabin in Brown County that Doug Millers family owns.   The last two years we went it has been the coldest and snowiest day of the winter.   Tonight we head out for hike version 3 and they are predicting an ice storm.   In other words timing couldn’t be better.   You might ask why go for a long hike in January, at night, with no trail, freezing cold and ice and snow?   Did I mention the cabin has no electricity, bathroom, or running water?   Why not we say, you can only stay inside and watch Jeopardy so many times before going stir crazy.   Have to make the best of what you got right? Anyway, the company is good and we generally eat a lot even though we have to pack it in ourselves.    When we first arrive the cabin is ice cold, but a wood stove once going makes for some great heat. By the time we wake up in the morning the c...

Being a goal setter, I like to have a good idea what my goals are for the upcoming year before it gets here.   Specifically have in mind for triathlon this year to focus on 3 events, Rev3 Olympic distance race in Knoxville in May, Rev3 ½ Ironman distance Wisconsin Dells in August and Rev3 ½ Ironman distance in Venice Florida in October.   They are fairly well spaced out which may be good is some respects, but does kind of preclude me from being in peak shape for one big event.   I’ve also not completed two ½ Ironman distances in the same year, so that will be a challenge.   Just thinking about two of those will make for maybe more of a mental challenge than a physical one. I also have several non-triathlon specific goals, trying not to put everything in one basket.   One of my highlights this year was going on two short-term mission trips, one to Haiti, and one to Berlin Germany.     Those trips were just so rewarding.   Just traveling i...