Hodge Humbled in Recent Training Swim

Hodge Humbled in Training Swim

By Jay Unver

I was standing at water’s edge when they came out, first Beets and then, several minutes later, Hodge. The tall guy emerged from the pond wearing a grin and gloating like a new Poppa; Hodge dragged out looking frustrated, fatigued, finally old. I knew better than to say a word, although I wanted desperately to know what Hodge was thinking, feeling.

This was a Saturday morning, August 17, 2013. The place was a new body of water on Tackett Fish Farm, still being pumped up with cool liquid from the subterranean aquifer and still devoid of fish. The occasion was a training session, a rare get together of these two intense rivals. Randy Beets and Zane Hodge have emerged as Big ASS Endurance’s top athletes. For the uninitiated, Big ASS Endurance is the umbrella organization made up of the Association of Sports Swimmers, the Association of Sports Shufflers, and the Association of Sports Syclists. World championships in these organizations almost always come down to a battle between the tall Randy Beets and the ageing Zane Hodge.

"Odd" is the only way I know how to describe the relationship between these two endurance beasts. Part-time friends and full-time rivals, their attitude towards each other changes with the seasons. They act like friends when working together on the Chicot Challenge with Hodge swimming and Beets forming an integral part of the crew. And about this time of the year, there is usually, at worst, an easy co-existence between them as they train together beginning their ramp up for one of their big competitions, Swim the Suck, held each October, a ten-mile open water swim in Chattanooga for the Big ASS World Championship. As the Suck draws near, however, their interactions typically become strained, testy, sometimes hostile.

This day started as they usually do this time of year. Both men arrived at the new pond at daybreak. They exited their vehicles, faces covered in smiles and eyes gleaming with excitement. Niceties were exchanged and from what I could tell, there seemed to be genuine good will between them.

Before long the rivals were in the water starting their first set and, as usual, Hodge spotted Beets about 100 meters. They swam in a counter clock wise direction in the 78 degree water. I watched intensely as they completed one lap of a planned two. Normally, Hodge would have at least closed the distance by now, but on this day that was not to be. Not only had he failed to close the gap, Beets widened it.

After the first set, neither man spoke to the other for the rest of the day. You could have cut the tension with a plastic knife. Hodge sat in the chair at the edge of his truck’s tailgate with a sullen look on his face.  took his nutrition, drank liquids, and slowly changing into his running attire. Beets pranced a little, but to his credit, he seemed to try to remain low key. After changing they began running in lock step. Oddly, there seemed to be no competition between them as they ran. But the silence remained as far as I could tell. I stayed at the vehicles while they shuffled, but I observed them closely through a pair of binoculars, trying to stay out of their way but ready to drive over and break up a fistfight if need be.

They took more nutrition after their run and waded back into the water for two more 1,000 meter laps of the pond. This time Beets beat Hodge worse than in the first set. Hodge looked totally deflated while he sat in his chair and drank water from a Gatorade bottle. Beets, instead of speaking, showed Hodge a text from fellow Fattie Robin Bond. She was driving out. The two ran again without speaking.

Bond was there for round three in the pond. Both men seemed in a lighter mood after Robin arrived. They spoke to her readily and she to them. But the silence between the two men continued. The third set, another two laps, was another display of Beets dominance. Beets finished a couple of minutes ahead of Hodge who finished a couple of minutes ahead of Bond. Never had this happened. In the past, things got testy when Hodge had difficulty swimming down and passing the younger Beets. Was I witnessing the passing of the torch?

Hodge and Beets did another run while Bond rested. When the two guys started set number four, Bonds joined in for another lap. They swam three laps and this time Hodge kept pace with Beets but the two finished in a virtual dead heat. Their totals for the day were 6.22 miles of swimming and 7.5 miles of running. Once more, neither man spoke to the other but they both chatted with Bond and invited her to swim with them in the future.

Bond and Beats drove away. I waited to catch Hodge before he could get gone. As he turned his truck around to drive off, I watched. He stopped and for the first time all day we spoke.

“OK, Beets had a good day. Is that what you want me to say?” he snapped with a scowl.

“What I want you to say is how you are feeling. What is going on inside your mind right now?”

“I’m embarrassed. I’m not used to being handled like that. I’m frustrated. And I am a little bit worried. But this ain’t the competition. There is still time for me to regain my form.”

“So was that you looking . . . off, or was that Beets looking good?” I asked.

“Say it,” he snapped back angrily. “You almost asked if that was me looking OLD.”

“Well. Are you going to answer the question?”

He held up his Garmin GPS watch for me to see. “Look at the average pace. What does it say?”

“Thirty-three minutes per mile,” I answered.

“OK.”

“OK what?” I pleaded for clarity.

“There is your answer,” he responded a little testily.

“Not it’s not.”

“Yes it is.”

“So you ARE too old now and can no longer swim the times you swam last year. Is that what you’re saying?”

Now he was furious and not just at Beets but at me. He slammed his idling truck in gear and spun off in the soft dirt of the levee almost running my feet over in the process, disappearing into a moving cloud of dust. Though he was gone for the day, I knew he was not gone for the summer. Our paths would cross again, experience had taught me, and the final answer to my question was still not clear.