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High hopes for Nazareth natives Sage Karam and Marco Andretti come to a crashing halt

Letter to the Editor: Frank Sorick is right choice for making Wilkes-Barre ‘a better place’

<p>I could do with finding my inner Bailey Matthews as the Wilkes-Barre Triathlon draws nearer.</p><p>You see the last week or so of training hasn&#8217;t exactly been going as planned.</p><p>After over 25 years of not taking a sick day at work, I had to take two in a row for the second time this year.</p><p>Seems that the great and all powerful triathlon gods decided that Wednesday evening &#8212; just 22 days from the Sept. 13 race &#8212; was the perfect time for me to have my first experience with kidney stones.</p><p>For those of you that have had kidney stones, you know the special kind of pain I was in. And for those of you that haven&#8217;t had them, just be thankful you have to take my word for how painful they are.</p><p>Needless to say, the stones and recovery from them put a bit of a crimp in my training. I certainly didn&#8217;t feel good not doing anything for several days just weeks before my first bid at the three-discipline test of endurance.</p><p>That&#8217;s where Bailey Matthews comes in.</p><p>If you&#8217;re not familar with the English 8-year-old, you really need to go online a little more.</p><p>According to what seems like a billion different online reports, Matthews, who suffers from cerebal palsy, completed his first triathlon last month.</p><p>Little Bailey completed a 100-meter lake swim, a 4K bike ride and a 1.3K run at the Castle Triathlon in Yorkshire, England.</p><p>If you haven&#8217;t seen the<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEWO9JljMCY#action=share" target="_blank"> youtube video of Bailey</a> finishing the race, do yourself a favorite and watch it. If you don&#8217;t find it inspiring, I have to question your humanity.</p><p>Coming up through the final stretch of the runs, Bailey reacts to the cheers of the crowd by tossing away his walker and running the final 200 yards without it. He falls twice, but still manages to complete the run completely by himself.</p><p>I know as a completely healthy 8-year-old, I would have never been able to complete those three events in one day. Heck, I might have had trouble completing them one at time seperated by a series of days.</p><p>So, if little Bailey Matthews can complete a triathlon at 8 years old while batting cerebal palsy, I really can&#8217;t complain about a little setback like kidney stones. Right?</p><p>According to USA Today, Bailey was inspired to complete a triathlon because he wanted to be like his father, an avid runner and triathlete.</p><p>On Sept. 13, I will be more than happy with myself if I can be just a little like Bailey.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Soprano </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/web1_Soprano.jpeg-1-1-1.jpg</photo0><caption0>Soprano </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta>Overcoming some pain is really a kid&#8217;s game</subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Joe Soprano</p><p>jsoprano@civitasmedia.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Joe Soprano may be reached at 570-829-7242 or on Twitter @TLnews.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Triathlon Tales turn to woe with kidney stone