My triathlon season has ended after having done only two races, and I’m not training for any running races, so I don’t have that inner desire to drag my lazy bones off the couch and go out and train. I’ve had some busy days lately and I leave for San Francisco tomorrow, so I’ve missed swimming this week Monday and today and I’ll also miss swimming Friday and next Monday while I’m gone. The water is getting colder and the mornings aren’t all that warm either, so lake swimming may be over for the year, at least for me.

I know I should start going to the fitness center to lift weights and do some cross training on the spinning bike or the elliptical machine, but I haven’t mustered up that motivation either. I know I’d miss tomorrow through Monday on my San Francisco trip and October 9th through the 19th on my Belgium/Germany trip, so I can think of a whole lot of reasons not to get started until my world travels end. I have been running, two days of five miles each at a slightly faster pace than normal, and eight miles on Sunday at a slow, endurance pace.

My run this past Sunday was not the best. First of all, I had a disastrous brewing day on Saturday. Without going into a whole lot of detail, my 6.5 gallon carboy wouldn’t fit in my small basement refrigerator to ferment (yes, I did try it before I filled it, but the weight of 5.5 gallons of wort made a difference). It was awkward to get in there in the first place, then to spend 15 minutes trying to get the door closed, then haul it back out and transfer it to a 6 gallon carboy, then put it back in, also awkwardly. Anyway, I strained my back muscles…nothing was pulled, but it was sore and the muscles were tight.

I thought they would loosen up as the Sunday run went on, but they got worse. I ran “around the block” from Broadway, to Willitts, to Hammond, to State Road and back to Judy’s where I started. It ended up being 7.78 miles, not the eight I expected, but I hurt too much to run any farther and round it off. For those of you who think I broke one of the “Jack Rules” by not continuing to 8 miles, you forget about Part 2, Subpart (a) that says if you do a loop run, you have the option of rounding it to the next mile or leaving it at exactly “loop distance” even though the promoter of the loop says it’s an even mile distance. It was raining most of the way; not hard, but enough to get everything wet, which leads to my second problem. Without getting too graphic, I’ll just say that I had some chafing in some delicate areas that got to the point of bleeding. Jean’s extended family came over for a get-together Sunday afternoon, and I must have looked like a toddler that had soiled his diapers and no one would change them for him.

I have thought that Jean has been losing it for a long time but I’m sure of it now. We went to a family wedding Friday night and hardly knew anyone. It was Jean’s brother’s wife’s brother or, maybe more confusing, my brother-in-law’s brother-in-law, but it wasn’t me…think about it. Anyway, I had swam that morning and my sinuses were acting up. I leaned over to Jean at the church and said that I could be the designated crier since I was sniffling all through the service and my eyes were watering. Anyway, I digress. We went down, after the wedding and the three hours of pictures (it seemed like three hours…maybe it was thirty minutes), to the County Seat for a reception dinner. It was a sit down affair so there was no walking around and mingling.

Jean sat next to me and also the groom’s mother who is 92 years old. Jean was helping her get some things to eat and trying to convince her that it wasn’t the waitress’s fault that she got a huge piece of prime rib because she was the groom’s mother, even though that isn’t what she ordered. I looked over and Jean was talking to Mrs. Hale and was putting coffee creamer in her own rice. I asked her what she was doing and she said she thought the creamer was butter. Now I ask you…have any of you ever mistaken the creamer for butter? The question is rhetorical…no need to respond.

I drove a friend to Grand Rapids this morning for radiation treatments and memories (what I can remember) of the bike wreck came streaming back. The more I thought about it, it was really all of your memories that you have told me about ‘cuz I don’t remember much. When my friend went for lab work, she was complaining about all the times she has had to fork over what little blood she seems to have left. I remember, to some extent, being poked and prodded by everyone who came along including the janitors. I feel guilty whining when I see what she’s having to go through.

Just (Thankful For The Friends And Family That Helped Me) Jack