For those about to blog...

WE SALUTE YOU!

That Doctor Monkey Von Monkerstein is a sick simian bastard. But we love him.

I got home on Saturday from the last day of the ILEETA conference and found this in the mail. What a card.

We've never won, or even attempted to win, a vintage postcard from the Doctor. And still, this masterpiece arrived, unsolicited, at our front door. Amazing...

_____________________

I woke up this morning feeling about 15 years older. Why?

Well, for starters, I made the mistake of entering a 5k race on Saturday. Specifically the Flatfoot 5k, which is a fundraiser for the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund and the ILEETA scholarship fund.

I've run a lot of 5k races, so I thought "no big deal." I haven't trained much since December when I ran in Las Vegas, and have barely run at all in the last 2 months. I compounded my mistake by deciding to run with a 25 year old coworker, one of our newer officers, and I started toward the front of the pack, with a bunch of other tactical officers there for the conference. I started out way too fast. I am a doofus.

Boy, the start of the race was glorious. It was a 60 degree, sunny day. Gosh, it was beautiful. I provided some welcome comic relief to my fellow runners by declaring, about 100 yards into the race, "boy, I wish I hadn't stayed up so late last night smoking and drinking." I kept up for the first half mile or so, then started lagging back. I pushed on, chugging away. Then the wheezing and the coughing started. Then the fatigue. And the pain.

At 2 miles the body said f*ck it. I was just this side of a full-blown asthma attack. Thank God they didn't use the Champion Chip or any other timing system; I would have been forced to gut it out and actually finish the damn race.

As it was I was able to quit like a man at 2 miles, with a time of 17:50, and congratulate myself for having donated to a worthy cause. I was there to cheer on my younger and more athletic coworker as he finished in under 25 minutes.

When I got home I joined MizBubs as she started in the annual de-white trashification of our yard. We raked out the front beds, and also cleared the flower and vegetable gardens on the side of the house. We're now way ahead of where we were by this time last year. At least in the front and side yards.

The back yard is still a disaster area of dog shit and debris, highlighted by the wreckage of our beautiful screen house that we put up last year. The first harsh winter storm caught me by surprise, and the roof of the screen house was demolished by the snow. The back porch is a hillbilly jumble of turkey fryers, lawn furniture, snow shovels and propane tanks. It is a mess.

But I aim to get it cleaned up, and pronto. Anyway, I joined MizBubs, girl dynamo, in her yard work, and as a result there is not a part of my body that is not aching and fatigued this evening. At least it's a good ache.

I got a few more New Orleans bits, and then a whole lotta freaky goodness for posting this week. I leave again for Dallas on Tuesday, and then I'm off again for the rest of the week. There is so much I want to tell you about. Really.

Hope you had a good weekend.

I am fine, thanks

Earlier this afternoon and evening I took a few phone calls from family and friends calling to make sure "I was ok." I got a couple of emails as well. I wasn't sure why everyone was concerned, until I watched the news:

1 runner died, 320 were hospitalized (several are still in critical condition) and over 10,000 runners did not finish. The race was ended and the course shut down early.

I made it, and I'm ok. I'll try and write about it tomorrow. In the meantime, you can visit Johnny Yen and Splotchy, both of whom were kind enough to provide info on my progress.

So, thanks for the good wishes, kind words and concern.

See you later, alligators.

Why am I doing this?

Getting up at 5:30 in the morning to run 16 miles on my day off...

Waking up, lying there staring at the ceiling for a few minutes taking a silent inventory of every ache and pain, every stiff muscle and sore joint, thinking about the relative virtues of more sleep versus rolling my ass out of bed and JUST DOING IT.

Only 50 days left until the Chicago Marathon. The hardest part of the training is coming up now, increasing mileage every week peaking with a 20 mile run on September 15. Then, not a a moment too soon, comes three weeks of tapering off before race day on October 7. Really I only have about 4 weeks of difficult training left, then 3 weeks of coasting.

I'm really not built for this. I know I have arthritis in my knees (which knock wood hasn't manifested itself this year) and I'm about 20 pounds overweight. I run like I'm carrying a refrigerator up a flight of stairs; probably the only thing that would make it worse would be if I took up smoking as I ran.

Thing is, though, I crave that endorphin rush, and I keep reminding myself of that. Hopefully, by the time I finish today, I'll be carried away by a giddy megalomania, making huge plans for future running adventures, my achy pre-dawn angst swept away in a rush of good brain chemicals. I'll eat better, starting today. I'll do those stretches religiously. At least 5 pounds will melt from my frame between now and October. I'll finish faster and stronger than I did in 2004.

Yeah. And maybe I'm a Chinese jet pilot.

Did I mention that I've gone totally around the bend? I'm going to be running a second marathon in December: the Las Vegas Marathon, 8 weeks after Chicago. I'm proving something to myself; I don't know what, but I'm proving something. I meant to mention this on Thursday-- I think I might be running in an Elvis costume, helping to set a world record for most running Elvii in a single event. Oh yes.

It's time to get going.