My wife returned to town last night. She had been gone all week and the Kids and I were home alone. We had a great week, but we were ALL glad to see mommy back. My reward was a Sunday morning alone, running for an hour. I had decided a few days ago I would skip church and run for an hour atop one of our many levies here. I measured the distance afterwards and had run 4.7 miles in about 55 min. Nice, slow, easy and long. The only problem was that my right arch started giving me pain halfway in, but only on unstable ground. When I transferred to road, the arch was fine. My left knee started stiffening about 48 minutes into the run, but that is normal for me. It was warmer than I expected but I enjoyed every stride and feel refreshed.
As I was drafting this entry, I received one of the regular update emails from my buddy Richard, who is in Iraq. He is a major in the Army reserve, a trained Army Ranger, and the most gentle and decent guy you’ll ever meet. He often writes long updates, including pictures, and puts them in Word files and emails them to us. This update was short and sweet and his last sentence was the best news I have heard in a long time. Here it is: “The good news is, my replacement is here. Send no more mail. It won’t be long now.” Richard will be home soon. Time to kill the fatted calf. I think I’ll go dry my eyes now.
This Running Life 