Running with Jack

Thank you for you comments about the marathon, it really was a beautiful run!

Yesterday my exercise consisted of climbing up and down scaffolding, lifting sandbags, scraping paint, and painting. The paint on our rain trough in front of the house was peeling badly, so it was time to scrape off the old paint and repaint it. We purchased some portable scaffolding a couple months ago for this and other projects. The sandbags add ballast so that the scaffolding doesn’t decide to send Jack flying through the air with the greatest of ease. The only disadvantage to the scaffolding is that it is only two meters wide, which means I had to move it a lot. But mission accomplished, the rain trough is painted, good for another 5-10 years (I hope).

My wife attempted to capture my latest Jack Home Improvement Adventure in the following picture:



Other News:

Today is our 18th wedding anniversary, we have been married a happy 18 years and I still look forward to seeing my better half’s sleepy face every morning :-)

I signed up for my next marathon! Yep, just can’t get enough pain. The next “M” will occur on September 10, 2006 in Pirmasens in the Rhineland-Pfalz. The 1st Annual Pfaelzerwald (Pfalz Forest) Marathon:

“Starts in the city but in a few short minutes, leaves the city streets and enters the soft paths and fresh air of the forest, eventually returning to the trade center in Pirmasens.”

So it appears like there is almost no asphalt after leaving the city – sounds good to me! According to the elevation profile of the route there are three small hill climbs, the largest a 125 meter climb starting at around the 32K point and peaking at the 40K point – so just as I hit the wall I have to climb over it too ;-) Oh, and this with potential temperatures of up to 35C/95F – yes this is my race!

Tonight my wife has an evening class, so I am going to stretch out my sore muscles (from the home improvement yesterday) by running a slow 14K/8.7M loop. Friday morning I plan on finishing off a great two weeks vacation by getting up at 5:00 a.m. and do a hilly long run. Normally, my next long run should be 3 hours and 30 minutes, but having just run a marathon I am not going to be too strict on myself – I have a 50K race in THREE weeks!