When I ran this morning it was 62 degrees and humid. It’s no wonder that my body tells me it doesn’t feel like Christmas Eve. I’m really glad that I didn’t have to run in snow or ice, not that Michigan has any of that either…YET!

Since I finished Ironman Wisconsin, I have scaled back my swimming (non-existent), biking (20 miles three times a week) and running (three or four times a week for a total of about 14 miles) and my weight shows it. Now that Christmas is almost here I feel like I’m in my 9th month of pregnancy and I appear to be eating for two.

Anyway, I’m not going to worry about it until after New Years Eve and then I’ll get back into a training mode. That includes eating the way I’m supposed to and stepping up the training. Oh, I don’t mean that I’ll automatically switch into running five miles on short days and ten or more miles on Sunday or biking thirty miles hard on short days and sixty or more miles on Saturday. I plan to gradually increase the mileage and wait for a while to increase the intensity. I’ll have to wait until the dome is taken off the pool at the YMCA before I can even think about swimming.

I’ve finally finished my Christmas shopping and I’m glad I don’t have to go out today and fight the long lines and desperate people at the mall. It’s easy to second guess your choices on presents or to think you didn’t get someone enough and one more present would be just right. I’ll fight those thoughts and stick with the plan.

Jean and I decided that, with closing on the condo in January which will give us four homes and all the attendant expenses, we wouldn’t get each other anything. I translate that into not getting each other very much, so that’s what I did.

I got her a couple of things over the internet that I probably would have paid for anyway later on. Along with that order I got myself a Triathlon calendar. A day later I got an e-mail that said the order would be held up for a while because the calendar was on back order. I sent an e-mail back saying that I didn’t need the calendar in March so cancel that part of the order and send the rest.

I didn’t hear anything for a few days and then I got an e-mail saying that the back order had been filled and the entire order was sent out. I checked the tracking number through UPS and it is scheduled for an on-time delivery December 26th. On the bright side, at least I won’t be wasting a bunch of wrapping paper. Also on the bright side, I think I’m way out of the running for “Husband of the Year 2006” anyway, and this won’t count against me in the competition for 2007.

Merry Christmas to All—

Just (Looking Forward To Fresh Shrimp Tonight) Jack

 Wickipedia defines arachnophobia as an “abnormal fear of spiders”. I’m not even mildly afraid of spiders but that doesn’t mean that I want them crawling all over me, nor do I feel obligated to share my house with them.

The problem isn’t the mobe at all. I haven’t seen any insects or spiders in here since I’ve been here. But the spiders seem to have taken over my car. I noticed them on the trip down to Florida a couple of weeks ago and lately I’ve seen quite a few spider webs from the dash to the passenger seat and from the steering wheel to the driver’s door.

The other day, as I was leaving the YMCA after a workout, I noticed a small black spider above my head near the sun visor. I waited for a traffic light and smooshed him in one of the McDonalds napkins that were in the glove compartment. No, I didn’t steal the napkins. When I stopped for lunch on the way down to Florida, I had taken more than I needed. If I had left them on the table they would just be thrown away, so into the car they went.

The next day, as I was driving down US-19 at 55 m.p.h., I felt something on my leg, looked down, and a spider was crawling through the hair on the inside of my knee. No, I don’t shave my legs! I guess I’m not a real biker or triathlete until I do, but I just can’t bring myself to try and explain it to the people here at Club Wildwood. They are, for the most part, a generation back, and wouldn’t understand. OK! Maybe it’s a “man thing” and I haven’t bridged that gap myself.

Anyway, I smacked the spider and he fell to the floor. I don’t know if he was alive or not, but I didn’t want to look and cause an accident. I can see it now. The Channel 8 news story would go, “An elderly man, 60 years old, was driving down US-19 the other day, and caused a 15 car accident. When he was interviewed at the scene, he stated that he lost control of his car when he saw a spider crawling on his leg.” I would be drummed out of the “real man club” and, with the shame, would be forced to move and not face my neighbors.

As I think back, I’m sure I know why the infestation occurred. The past fall I raked and carried 32 bags of leaves in four trips from the lake to the leaf drop off behind the City Garage in Hastings. I carried another few bags in two trips that Jean had raked up down there too. I’m guessing there were hundreds of spiders in the leaves. When I put the leaves in the bags, I’m sure they didn’t like that and crawled out before I dumped the leaves.

They probably have been living in the nooks and crannies of the Jeep ever since. I can’t imagine what they have been living off from in there, but Jean did ride with me down to Florida. Between carrying half a sandwich from Quiznos for an afternoon snack, and munching on pretzels, I’m sure she left them with plenty of food. Maybe the crumbs aren’t the insects they’re used to, but, as they say, any port in the storm.

I’m working out three times a week at the Y, riding three or four days a week, but only 20 miles each ride, and running three times a week, again at low mileage. My only chance at swimming is at the Y in the outdoor pool. The allergy doesn’t affect me as much in outdoor pools, but they put the cold weather tent over the pool last week, so that ends that until late February.

Just (Nursing Minor Aches And Pains) Jack

P.S. My thoughts and prayers are with the Dickinson family and Laura’s friends after her passing.

 I left Michigan on Tuesday morning at 5 AM to return to Florida and the drive turned out to be a struggle. The first hour and a half was through blowing snow with temps in the mid teens. The passing lane was slick so I drove behind whoever was going the slowest in the right lane.

The only complaint I have about my Jeep is that the windshield wipers don’t do a very good job when it’s cold. So as I followed that slow vehicle (a semi), a ton of dirty, salty, oil slicked water was sprayed on the windshield. I turned the wipers on and they touched the window at the very top and the very bottom but didn’t do anything in my field of vision.

I couldn’t see anything through the encrusted film so I hit the washer. The fluid came out and didn’t help at all on my side but the passenger, if there had been one, could see very well. I must have looked like an idiot driving down the highway leaning as far to the right as I could so I could see the road. I stopped for breakfast just North of Indianapolis and, by then, the wipers had warmed up enough to clean the whole window. Of course, by that time, it was sunny and I didn’t need them. I’m sure they’ll continue to work perfectly until I really need them again.

I had been hearing about a three truck accident that had I-69 closed down at the second Pendleton exit. I didn’t know where that was so I asked the crew at the Waffle House and told them about the wreck. The wreck was two exits farther South and one of the patrons said they were exiting traffic at the next exit. My waitress went ballistic ‘cuz her boyfriend was a trucker, but when I told her what time the accident had happened she knew it wasn’t him because he hadn’t left by then. She was so rattled that when I got my bill, I noticed that $6.80 plus $.40 tax equals $6.20 and, yes, I told them about the mistake.

The accident had happened at 7 AM and it was around nine, so I figured they were close to being cleaned up. I looked at the expressway before I got on and traffic was running smoothly, so I figured there weren’t any problems. WRONG!! I just got on and went 1/4 mile when the traffic slowed to a crawl. It took me an hour and a half to go 4 miles and I exited with a zillion trucks and a handful of cars.

Once off I figured I could take the detour, get back on quickly, and away I would go. WRONG!! The exit was at State Highway 67 and there was a traffic light at the crossroad. Only four trucks could make it through on each cycle, so we crawled for another 15 minutes before I made the turn onto 67. I got through that light and figured traffic would clear out quickly. WRONG!! There was a town right there and, that time, six trucks could get through each cycle at each of the three lights.

I turned South off the detour and took Highway 9 from Pendleton all the way past Indianapolis and halfway to Louisville. I made good time and saw parts of “Americana” I’ll probably never see again. I had lost about an hour and a half, but the traffic was light so I was moving right along.

I got to Nashville and decided to take Briley Parkway along the Northeast side of town and bypass the mass of Interstates that all come together. There was some construction but traffic wasn’t held up much since it was 2:30 PM their time. I got on I-24 headed for Chattanooga and figured I’d make up for some of the time I lost. WRONG!! Two miles down the road the traffic was stopped. Again it was a zillion trucks, a half zillion pickup trucks with gun racks in the back window, and a handful of cars.

There was construction and four lanes went down to two in a quarter mile. I was in the “patsy lane” where all the people in the lanes that are ending go flying by, then squeeze in ahead of us. It took a half hour to go that quarter mile and I figured traffic would speed right up. WRONG!! On the other side of the expressway there were two tanker trucks in an accident and the people on our side were going slow and gawking. I didn’t drop into a fit of road rage since the semis are way bigger than the Jeep and the guns in those gun racks in the pickups were probably loaded.

The rest of the trip went smoothly without incident. I stopped for the night in Dalton, Georgia and the temperature was predicted to drop into the high twenties. I had six cases of home-brew in the car and two of the cases had just been bottled. After bottling, the ale I had brewed needed warm temperatures for the yeast to carbonate the beer. I was afraid the cold would kill the yeast and it never would carbonate and I didn’t want the other beer to freeze either, so I carried all six cases of beer into the room and turned up the heat to 70 degrees. I’m sure the neighbors figured I was going to have one heck of a party that night and eagerly awaited their invitation. I must have looked really dumb carrying out those six cases at 3:30 AM when I awoke and left.

I stopped at another Waffle House for breakfast and sat at the counter. I was only there about twenty minutes, but during that time, with no one to talk to, I quietly observed what was going on. The cook was missing all of his upper front teeth and appeared to be a “little slow”. It only took me five minutes to see that the cook and my waitress, a woman around 35 that looked like she had just stepped out of the 1950s with “big hair”, had something going together. They were married, but based on the conversations, it was not to each other. And they both didn’t have any use for the “floater”, a youngish woman who worked the cash register, made coffee, cleaned tables, but didn’t waitress or cook so, to them, didn’t work.

Just (I’m Beginning To Hate That Drive) Jack