First Week of April, 2009

Sunday April 5th, 2009.
Its been one of those weeks, where once you loose control you stay behind the power curve. Well at least I haven't gotten behind the 8 ball.

On the bad news front. Mr Jim Guinan who ran his own iconic store and pub in Garrison, NY untill January of 2008 passed on in Florida this week. His was the place I often took a pint of brew in and was an anchor for a small community. A few simple words can not describe the true depth and meaning the place held for many. Alas but he and his ore are but a memory of a better time.

One of the things I meant to do during this past week was get over to the American Legion Post in Monroe, NY to personally thank the Sons of the American Legion for its donation last year to the Leukemia and lymphoma Society. Best of intentions and all; Well I got there on the wrong day. May 3rd is their next meeting and that is the first friday of the month maybe with a boot up side the head as a less than subtle reminder. I'll make it there on the correct day. Benny my apologoes for that. But I did meet Bruce & Ed at the bar last night while they were tending.

Also the new ladder truck at West Point looks rather nice. I hope it performs much better than the old one and doesn't become overloaded with so much matterial it needs a Sherpa to act as a porter to carry tools and equipment up and down the hill at West Point, NY. There would of been a aspect of comedy lended to the old ladder truck if they guys driving it last year kept it intentionally slow when I ran up Stoney Lonesome road past it. But the sad truth is it was traveling flat out up the hill and a 50 yearold man with bad knees was able to begin from a dead stop and run uphill faster than a truck that was already travelling up hill.

Well the weather hasn't been too nice overall this past week but today was most excellent. Temps in the upper 50's to about 60 degrees farenheit. Very low humidity with a modest breeze. The cloud cover was blowing out and things were shaping up as a glorious day. So how did I spend the bulk of it? Waiting for a half marathon to begin so I could run 13.1 miles in and around parts of Danbury, Bethel, West Redding and Redding Connecticut. Since the end of December the furthest distance I had run was 9 and 6/10th miles about a week and a half ago. Today's effort was just to be done for giggles and shits with no expectations of completing the event in under 2 hours and 30 minutes. Its is amazing how wrong we can be about ourselves and what we can do. Even without training up properly for the event I had a personal record for the distance of 2 hr, 15 min, 43 sec. Besting my previous best time by 2 min 39 sec. What is scary though is I am heavier now than I was in December, a month & a half after the Marine Corps Marathon.

Ah as for the effects of long distance running on the body; Blackened toenail season has begun.

Well thats all for today, Now I'm just vegitating and relaxing after a hard physical effort to transition myself into training to try to run another marathon. Only this time I'm not doing it as a fund raising event for a major charity (as of yet) and if I do use it as a fund raiser for charity, Fisher House will be the next one I support and in a more modest way.

Well that pretty much sums up the past week, be healthy and safe everyone.
Q.