A comedy of errors leads to a brisk walk in the woods

Ash and I decided to take the dogs on a morning trail run Saturday, sounds benign enough right?

Get your running gear, add dogs, and go run…

Little did I know that a ridiculous chain of events would hinder our plans by at least an hour as life managed to chuck multiple curve balls our way before we ever left the driveway.

Scene 1: Some of my running gear was in the trunk of my company car, easy enough right? Unlock the vehicle and grab the gear…Nope! Battery is dead, easy fix right, grab the jump box…Nope; jump box won’t start the car…Easy enough right? Grab the jumper cables…

As I’m doing battle with the ornery company car Ash commences in bringing the dogs out to load up…which would make sense if we weren’t slowly drifting into bizzaro land, so now the scene begins to look like a chaotic ballet as I’m backing up the SUV with the hatch swung open, as Ash tries to hustle the pooches back into the house to protect them from the gravel that I’m throwing up from the driveway with NASCAR sensibility…

Yeah crisis averted!

Scene 2: We load Ramsey (our newest Blue Pit bull) into the back of the SUV when I notice a tick on her ear. Mind you that it’s been in the low 30’s several times where we live, but yet there he is in all of his blood sucking parasitic glory munching on my dog’s ear.

No problem, right? I will grab the First- Aid bag which is ALWAYS behind the seat of the 4-Runner…except this time, Were in the HELL is the First-Aid bag???

As I proceed to unpack my company car and sling all of my gear into the driveway (enough gear to fill a Ford “Festiva” bumper to bumper) looking for the First-aid kit, Ash runs back inside to try and locate same…

Shortly thereafter Ash returns with the elusive med kit as I’m thinking to myself, “Thank god I’m not bleeding to death”.

Scene 3: We have successfully tweezed 100’s maybe even 1000’s of ticks off of our dogs without ever having an issue…SNAP! Off with its head! Son of a bitch! The next 20 minutes or so were spent tweezing, and looking, and tweezing, then looking… Get out of the light! I’m not in your light! Tweezing and looking…

Oh yeah, then we went for a trail run, and I only fell over once with Ramsey dragging me down the trail.

It was fantastic, and it was such a gorgeous day we decided to go again this morning.

Ash rewarded me (for what I still don’t know) with fresh caught grilled Rock fish in a crawfish crème sauce over quinoa.

Delicious

Thanksgiving Ride

As I loaded my bike onto the SUV Thanksgiving morning I repeated my inquiry to my wife for the 5th time, “Are you sure there’s nothing else that needs to be done”?
She reassured me with her normal laid back composure that we had made every effort to make the house and curtilage ready for Thanksgiving dinner the day before, and that a ride was just what I needed.
The weather was mild with gray skies creating a muted backdrop to the orange and brown hues of the fallen leaves on the trail.
As I climbed the switchbacks from the creek to the top of the hill I had to “dab” once in the exact same spot that has vexed me the last 3 times I have negotiated that section of trail.
This was frustrating to me because I have cleaned this trail many times before and my recent lack of riding was painfully apparent.
At the top of the hill I paused to readjust my gear and check my GPS for distance.
3 miles in 20 minutes was the pace that I had rode, so I decided to back off the throttle a bit and maybe snap some photos.


The double edged sword of photographically documenting your adventures is that it seems like a narcissistic endeavor to snap photos of yourself, and I can completely understand this thought process.

That being said, I am an extremely visual person, and I find that the combination of descriptive words with photography really helps to paint a picture for someone who wasn’t there.


Within a split second of me landing this log hop I missed my pedal and it slammed into my shin tearing a good gash into my leg.


As I put my last 2 miles in I passed what I assumed were a father and his teenage son on the trail having a blast together on the single track.

Sometimes it’s almost as if you can measure a person’s character without having ever spoken a word, and I thought to myself that I would aspire to be a similar father should the occasion ever arise.

At home I explained to Ash that the trail had given me a Thanksgiving “souvenir” as I cleaned my wound.

Shortly thereafter my wife’s younger sister showed up at the house and commented about the severity of the injury.

In trademark fashion, Ash responded by saying that it was a “regular occurrence” in our household.

It wouldn’t be long before our house was filled with the laughter and conversation of our family enjoying Thanksgiving dinner together.

For a recap of dinner check out Ash's post here

The shape of things to come

As the last few months flew by I wrestled with the idea of scraping the blog, mainly because I was feeling uninspired for the most part.
I have been dealing with a reoccurring injury in my left ankle. I would estimate that I have been nursing it for the long end of 4 months.
The injury has had a demoralizing effect on the consistency of my running, riding, and anything physical in nature.
My wife is a cool chick, and she has supported me and my incredibly hard head as I put off getting the problem fixed over and over again.
But sometimes thing don’t just magically “unscrew” themselves, and instead of waving their wand, the healing ferry that you were waiting for says “piss off”.
After the 3rd time that we had to modify our plans because of the fact that my ankle would not allow me to carry a 30 pound pack into the wilderness I decided to get off my arse and do something about it.

I’m no stranger to injury and the running list is as follows;
-Broken left hand
-Broken left wrist
-Separated shoulder
-Separated other shoulder(mildly)
-Bruised or cracked ribs
-Concussion(s)
-Stomach surgery (small gremlin or gnome living in my innards)

So it should not have came as a surprise when the Doc told me that my MRI indicated that there was some room for improvement, and that the extra bits of scar tissue and bone spurs should probably be removed.
So I’m going to start the New Year off with surgery on my ankle, and I’m looking at a six week recovery…
But if it gets me fixed I’m all about it, and the cool thing is I took a shot of cortisone which has greased me up and allowed me to pick up the pace right before the holidays.
So I made a deal with myself, I’m going to keep posting and hitting it as hard as I can until I’m laid out with the wifey feeding me grapes.
There are some exciting things going on around here, and I want to share those experiences.
Here’s a bit of a preview of what’s to come…
-After we lost “Blitzy” our beloved Pitty, we reacted just like any well adjusted grieving family would; we adopted 2 more Pit Bulls! More to follow on those girls.

-I love gear; I’m a “gear whore” as they say. Look for reviews of gear in the coming months.

-Rambling editorials, because who doesn’t like raving opinionated freaks that hide behind their laptops as they fire shots across the bow of subjects that probably don’t matter in the first place.

I’m excited about the holidays, and all the things that have yet to come.

Jazz Hands!!!