No, I haven’t regressed into singing old country and western songs and I haven’t taken up horseback riding. My only exposure to horses was when we had first moved to Kalamazoo after my high school graduation. I was somewhat active in the church youth group. I’ve probably told this story before, but one weekend the group went to a riding stable near Paw Paw and, I use the term loosely, rode horses.

I had never ridden before so they gave me the oldest, most docile horse they had. If you remember the song “The Old Gray Mare She Ain’t What She Used To Be”, it was written with that horse in mind. It was an old, swaybacked, gray mare and she struggled to keep up with the rest of the horses even at a walking pace. She seemed to like grapes and, as we rode through the vineyards, she would stop and eat them and I couldn’t get her to move.

Apparently the grapes gave her digestive distress and, to put it delicately, she broke wind…a lot of wind. When I did get her going you could tell her eyesight wasn’t what it used to be either because she would stumble over every rock or log on the path. I wasn’t having much fun and thought I would whine a little (you know me…a whiner all my life) and I would get a more spirited horse. Just then one of the younger horses took off out of control with the prettiest girl in the youth group laying flat on the horse’s back, holding the reins by the very ends, with her head bouncing off the horse’s rump. I stuck with the old nag.

Anyway, back in the saddle refers to yesterday’s 24 mile bike ride out to the Shell station and back and today’s run around Algonquin Lake. It felt great to be back on the bike after IM Wisconsin and not have to go anywhere special or ride at a kicked up intensity. The run was just a 4.2 mile run but Larry and I ran with a couple youngsters and eased around the lake at a 9:09 pace. Slow for you good runners…a “faster than I need to go” pace for The Old Gray Mare (Stallion…not Gelding) of the running group.

I’ve been doing nothing for a month and I’m ready to start back. No races in mind and no real training pattern to follow, but I need to get back to some kind of activity or I’ll lose my mind and gain all the weight back that I lost last year. It’s been nice to not have a schedule, but that can only go so long before it gets boring. I look forward to the winter rides in Florida with our Florida friends and running without having to bundle up to start and shed clothes as we go. We only have a couple of running routes from the mobe, but this year we may branch out and drive to a good running spot as if we were going to the Trilander’s house that was hosting this week’s run.

I know I’ve said that I came out of Ironman Wisconsin and The Tiburon Mile with no injuries, but I may have been hasty. I still have no visible injuries, but I snorkeled up a lot of the water from Lake Monona in Madison and San Francisco Bay between Angel Island and Tiburon, and I may have snorkeled in a bug. My sinuses have been plugged for the past couple of weeks and I seem to be teetering between uncomfortable stuffiness, a sinus infection, or a cold based in the sinuses. Whatever the malady, this is my whine of the week. I don’t feel quite up to par. Maybe bogey…maybe double bogey…but not par.

At the Saturday morning coffee get together, Larry talked about the new Ironman race next year at Louisville, Kentucky. It will be the inaugural event and will be similar to Wisconsin as far as terrain goes. Larry plans to enter and he got a “qualified no” from Bill. I’ll leave it at that. I still think that if I decide to do another Ironman Race, it will be either Ironman Florida or The Great Floridian. The terrain and weather at Ironman Florida seem to fit me better, but I was the only one of our group that trained for The Great Floridian and couldn’t do it because of injury six weeks before the race. I’d still be smart to retire from Ironman length races and stick to halves. It’s a better distance for me and isn’t as punishing on the body.

Better close. It’s a nice day out…maybe the last decent day of the year here in Michigan.

Just (Cleaning Up The Beach And Loving It) Jack