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A friend recently sent this trailcam photo from one of his hunting spots.

I suspect a lot of mentor/youth hunter groups will be in ground blinds tomorrow, the debut of Virginia's youth deer hunting day. A lucky few may even have a buck like this walk by their blind.

Blinds are great for younger hunters because kids tend to move a lot. Tomorrow, with rain in the forecast, a blind will have the added advantage of providing some protection from the rain.

I won't be hunting tomorrow. I think it will be a couple of years before my kids are ready, should they even want to hunt deer.

Instead of hunting, I will spend the morning at Smith Mountain Lake at the Big Lick Triathlon. And, for a change, I won't be covering it. I'll actually be doing it.

The race at Smith Mountain Lake State Park, is basically a mile swim, 25-mile bike and 6.2-mile run. When I was doing these in my mid 20s that distance wasn't too scary. But I haven't done anything that long since, well, my mid 20s. But I've been training a fair amount so I should get through it. The rain will make things interesting, especially on the bike.

It will likely take me just short of three hours to do this race. I won't be able to go home and veg the rest of the day, either. Another couple invited me and my wife to the Tech-Miami football game. The guy is a triathlete, so I talked him into racing. After the race we're going straight to Blacksburg to meet our wives, hopefully with enough time for a little tailgating before kickoff. (Here's hoping the showers at the park beach are open tomorrow!)

Anyway, tomorrow has potential to be a mini-epic!

Good luck to everyone heading out tomorrow with a youth hunter. Be careful, have fun, and send reports and pictures!

It's Monday and I'm still here, which means I survived my return to the world of triathlons. My last one was in 1992. Time flies.

As expected, my performance in the Smith Mountain Lake Triathlon on Saturday wasn't pretty. But it could have been worse. My times for the swim, bike and run were actually about what I expected I'd do, which was good considering what I went through the day before the race.

About mid-morning Friday I started feeling some rumbling in my gut and I spent the next five hours within 20 feet of the bathroom. And let's just say that while I had been teetering on eligibility for the Masters Clydesdale division (200 pounds, minimum), by the end of the day I was well under weight.

In all my years of competitive racing way back when, I had only one case of nerves-induced sickness. And back then I was actually trying to do well. I had no reason to be nervous about this race. So I can only figure I ate something bad.

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A couple of months ago, after a sobering trip to my doctor, I signed up for a short triathlon to help keep me motivated as I worked to get back into decent shape.

Other than a two-week layoff during a particularly nasty cold, my training has been going reasonbly well. I've been swimming, biking or running about five or six days a week.

I've lost about 7 pounds, which isn't as much as I'd hoped for but better than nothing. I just broke under 200 pounds, which means I could probably have made weight for the masters clydesdales class if I drank a big jug of water before the event. (Actually, do they even weigh you in for that? Or is it just on the honor system?)

But everything almost all came to a crashing halt today when I nearly died -- trying on a wetsuit.

After a couple weeks of digging I finally located the old Wavelength suit I wore back when I was doing these things in the late '80s and early '90s. It was in amazingly good shape. It is also a medium tall. Medium? I didn't think I ever wore medium.

I knew it was going to be a rough one. So I stripped down and got to work. The suit was tight on my legs, but it got really ugly when I got the chest. I got the thing zipped up, but it was so tight I had a flashback to those old football practice fumble drills when I'd end up on the bottom of the pile. I could breath, but barely. I was even a little claustrophobic. I wasn't much under 185 even back then but I guess 15 pounds is enough to make a BIG difference.

Bottom line, there's no way I could swim 25 meters in that thing, let alone 750 meters. So I'm loaning it to a skinny co-worker who's also doing the race.

I've got an full-body surf suit that's larger, but I expect the lake will be too warm. So I guess I'll wear the neoprene shorts and shirt I use for cool-water kayaking. It's not exactly sleek, but it's not like the extra drag is going to be the difference between me finishing on or off the podium. I could wear the best wetsuit in the world and ride the best bike and I'd still finish way back.

But I will finish, which is the goal at this point.

I went to my doctor Tuesday morning for a regular check-up.

It wasn't pretty.

First, I had to step on a scale. I was 210 pounds. Some of that was clothes and shoes, but I'm still over 200 pounds. I'm 6-foot-2, but given my gangly frame I should be between 170-180, according to my doctor. "Even 190 would be OK," he said.

My clothes have been feeling tight. This confirmed that the clothes weren't shrinking.

Next came the blood pressure test. My BP has been borderline for a few years. Tuesday morning it was beyond borderline. I also had blood drawn for a cholesterol test. Don't know the results yet, but I'm not hopeful.

I've never watched what I eat, which meants I get too much salt (BP) and fat (cholesterol). So I'll have to watch that, now. But the bottom line is I'm just in bad shape, which not only elevates those bad numbers, but just doesn't fit well with the stuff I like to do.

So I'm going to try turn this around.

I've always found I do better with this kind of thing when I have a specific goal. So not long after that appointment I got on line and signed up for the Smith Mountain Lake triathlon, which is May 5.

The race is a 750-meter swim, 20-kilometer bike ride and 5-kilometer run. Back when I was doing triathlons regularly, that would have been cake. But that's been 15 years. Still, as long as I stick with my self-imposed program, I'll be alright, although I might not be ready by then to be seen in public in a Speedo.

I started Tuesday night with a 400-yard swim session. I had to stop twice. But it was a start.