More Birthdays, Less Running

First, this years marathons are coming up. Since falling off of my roof (Father's Day weekend) I have run exactly 2 miles. The next marathon is only 5 weeks away. I can't wait for the trip to Portland Oregon to see friends (that means you Amy) and some hiking to see the big trees and the beauty of Oregonian nature. I'm leaning towards canceling the Tennessee trip the following weekend. All I've done for that is register for the race, no hotel or anything booked yet.

This is the dilemma. Since there has been no actual training for about the last 2 months I should only attempt one of these at most. Boring marathon (OR) has no time limit but is a traditional road marathon out and back course. If I only run 8 miles out of the 26.2 and walk the rest and can mentally accept a 7+ hour finish time that could be ok. The state is done. On the other hand, Tennessee has a 12 hour race where I run a 3 mile loop until I hit the marathon distance. No shame in sitting down for half an hour of stuffing my ultra loving face in between laps, as soon as I get enough laps done to clear marathon distance I can head back to Raleigh. TN has the higher chance of success through trails and timing, but OR has the added logistical difficulty. It's much harder to make another trip to Oregon when I'm better trained.

So let's try a little training for starters. Best idea might be to not attempt either marathon.

Meanwhile, since the last time I actually posted anything, Ella and I both had birthdays, we had the July 4th holiday here in the states, and it has generally been a long, hot, depressing summer. My SAD has been running pretty high this year. One of the bright spots has been the birth of my nephew. My brother Morgan and his wife had their first kid, a boy. It is the first boy born to our generation, so they insisted on him being the next John Flynn, like me, my dad, his dad, and his dad. Such an honor. but they are calling him by the middle name.

The hair is getting big

Hanging out on the new front porch

With Ella on the new front porch

Ella's birthday

It's a blanket that looks like a burrito

Found this gem in a box. Where my nerds at? I can fix your PC

4th of July hanging out on the front porch

Dwight Schrute earrings for my birthday

Hanging out with Super Pregnant Martha

At the gym, I kept getting funny looks. Can't imagine why?

The three living John Flynn's

My ladies with the new cousin/nephew

Lena's indian princess tribe - we recently got together

One other thing that seems hard to believe. My kids have one week of summer vacation left, then Ella starts high school. Still not really sure how that happened! They are starting 7th and 9th grade, only 4 more years until college. woah

These are the Days

First, I did get to the Orthopedist on Monday, x-rays show that nothing was broken in my leg but there was some tenderness. They want an MRI to see if there is any tearing of the muscle or ligaments that connect right behind the knee. I got a knee brace, I'm wearing an ankle brace too just to be safe. It's harder getting around so I'm taking everything slow and generally trying to fight the mental fatigue that my body is falling apart. Falling off of the roof is a major trauma, and it could have been much worse.

This time of year, the days are upon us and I am way behind in posting family photos. First, we had Mothers Day

with my youngest niece

and back home - Kelley, Ella, Evil Genius, and Neena

Neena moved back to SC. After 3 years of living primarily in Raleigh near us, she sold her condo here and moved back permanently into the lake house that she's always had in South Carolina. We hated to see her go, especially now that we don't have a guest room anymore. After we loaded the uhaul, drove the 5 hours down to Lake Murray, then unloaded the next day, we drove up to greenville to see my parents on Mothers day. Hence the picture with my niece. Neena came back to Raleigh with us for the closing a few days later, then eventually EG's birthday! She turned 12, and I don't think I got any pictures from my phone.

Kelley and I had a nice getaway. One of my fraternity brothers opened a brewery about an hour outside of town, so we stopped in to see him on opening day, and then went on to Boone for the night. It was nice to get away, even if only for a short time.

Inside Bright Penny

I got a hat

Kelley driving my drunk ass up the mountain. Note the super cool reading glasses hanging from my rear view mirror

Bright Penny Brewing is a beautiful place, I hope the small town of Mebane is enough to support such a venture for a long time.

also noteworthy, I got no pictures of the mountains. The car said it was 95* when we left Raleigh, and 69* when we got to Boone. The next day it was the same story, 65* when we left Boone around noon, and 93* when we got back to Raleigh. it was a beautiful trip.

Next, I got an unexpected visitor at the office

This tiny baby deer got separated from her momma, I hope she found her again. A deer this small on campus at NC State university won't last too long, but it sure was cute!

Ella had her 8th grade graduation and semi-formal. This is terrifying, I have a high school kid now. But the dress she wore to the dance was adorable

She looks like an actual adult now

EG's outfit was cute too

Kelley and I at graduation

Ella walking across the stage during the ceremony

So this is completely terrifying. Only 4 more years before I have to start paying for her college and it will just be the three of us at home. High school sports. High school BOYS! She's about to turn 14, that's only one more year until she's driving. This feels like a roller coaster that just started going downhill and is really picking up speed. That was a day!

The last day to note was Fathers Day this past Sunday. I really wanted to get down to SC to be with my dad on Fathers Day, but it just didn't work out. Kelley's sister came up to visit us for the weekend, and I got to spend plenty of time with my girls. Of course, I got the annual picture with them on the couch.

They are growing up so fast, I am so proud and love them very very much

The best way to wrap up this picture heavy post may actually be more pictures. Here's some random other stuff I've got in the photo bag

Out on one of the long runs at the NC Capital building

My hair was angry that day

Yes my hair is growing longer on purpose. Not sure how long I want it to get, but it's hitting ponytail length now

The Evil Genius on the porch

Holy shit my wife is hot

The offending wall along with all of the stuff that I managed to avoid when I fell

My new fashion accessory

The wall - All of that lumber and shingles are full of exposed nails. If I had fallen to the right of the ladder I would have landed on that. The ladder was over that hose pipe reel, I could have landed on that. Another 6" to the left and I would have landed on that big pile of rocks. There are stumps from azaleas and boxwoods next to the path, I landed inside of them. Since I spun around to land facing the yard I didn't hit that window ledge on the way down - that could have been really painful. I did get that gutter repaired today. Scary stuff, I got really lucky.

Shut down for a while

Running has been difficult for the last few months, really below the knees. I got in a 13 mile long run, marathon training is in full swing. Then I limped for the next 2 weeks. Got home from work on a wednesday and it was only 73* outside, so I got in a quick 4 miles. Limped around after that for 2 more weeks. There's just no way to feel good anymore, it seems.

I'm almost finished with this front porch project. I finished the cedar on the front side, and had a bird nest in the roof framing. The little baby birds finally flew the nest on Friday, so I could go ahead and finish the ceiling this weekend. Run trim around that, paint the whole thing, install the ceiling fans and I'm done. I just have to fix this pesky roof leak on the last cool day in Raleigh before the summer heat sets in.

Happy to be done with that cedar siding

I got up to the roof and ripped off all of the problematic area of shingles where I was getting the leaking. Then I got rid of the framing. So now there are a lot of tools on the roof, and I need to start measuring to install new framing members.

More tools in hand, I get up to the top of the ladder and get my hands on the shingles. That's when the ladder shifted underneath me. I tried to grab onto the gutter as I was going down, so now I have to repair the gutter too. That spun me around, so I landed on a pile of rocks & bricks with my back to the wall. I remember thinking that I needed to land soft on bent knees, and crumple into the ground to soften the blow. It's an 11' high wall, I'm 6' tall, so I really only fell about 5 feet down, but that was plenty to do some damage.

Kelley was working in the yard so she saw the whole thing. The kids were drawing on the porch. How strange that after building this entire porch by myself the entire family gets to witness me seriously injuring myself. Kelley came running, she saw the whole thing and said that my left leg hit first and bent in a way that knees are not supposed to bend. It kind of crumbled under me.

Kelley spotted some scrapes on my right hand & wrist, and bandaged them on the ground. I gently moved off of the rocks onto a softer surface before trying to stand. After a while the adrenaline rush went down and I was able to get a valid assessment of what was wrong. It didn't feel like my leg was broken so I did try to stand and walk back inside. After ice and rest for the afternoon I was able to gimp around some.

The offending gutter

The pain starts behind my knee on the outside back of the leg, and runs down towards the heel. No clue if it's muscle or tendon, will require PT or a cast or a knee brace. I know I won't be able to run for a long time. My September marathons are probably shot. Tomorrow I'm going to call the orthopedist if this pain persists. If it is muscular, rest may be all that is required. Falling off of a roof is no joke, I'm usually resistant to these treatments but I could have some real hidden damage here. This is pretty scary.

On a lighter note, today is Fathers Day. I hate that we didn't get to go down to SC to see my dad today. He had a very bad car accident last weekend and spent a few days unconscious in the hospital. Then today he fell down the stairs, just rolled into a ball and took a bad hit to his ankle. Parkinsons and diabetes is really kicking him hard right now. Ok so that's not a lighter note. But mom & dad don't need the four of us underfoot while he's recovering like that. I got to spend plenty of time with Kelley and my girls!

an actual swim race!

My friends are a bad influence. I haven't swam on the RAM team for a year. Literally, it was last May when the arthritis got so bad that I couldn't finish a practice and decided to drop the team. Well, this may they came around again and talked me into signing up for the Jordan Lake Open Water Challenge at the last minute. This is the first race in the local swim series here and I've done this race several times. It's usually early enough in the year to require a wetsuit, but this year the water temp was around 72* so I opted to go only speedo.

Really this was a social event for me. Yes I came and I swam and I totally expected to spend the rest of the day in the fetal position on the couch crying in pain. But the cool part was getting to see some friends that I hadn't been able to to hang out with for a while.

Beautiful day to be in the water

It wasn't a huge crowd this year! Daniel is a coworker and in my age group, this was his first open water swim race. The course was a bit short this year, which worked to my advantage. I've taken age group awards at this race before, but it's really hard. Daniel took 2nd place in his first race! Those RAM practices are really paying off for him.

My only hope was to get out there and not end up with horrible pain. I was able to hold my stroke for the entire course, didn't really end up with any joint pain, and finished the 1 mile course (for a 1.2 mile race - hey it was short) in 38 minutes. My previous slowest time was around 34 minutes when it was 1.2 or 1.3 miles, so that was hard to accept. I finished 6/7 in my age group, Daniel took 2nd

Me, Lisa, Rebecca (Kristen's sister), Jennifer, Tom, and Kristen the RAM coach

The whole RAM crew L-R - Tom, Amy, me, Jennifer (coworker), Daniel (coworker), Rebecca, Jen, Coach Kristen, Chris, Lisa, and Barker

This was a large crew of friends from the RAM team. It felt amazing just to be out there competing again, and having fun with old friends. I also ran into some other surprising friends, one of whom had recently lost 45 lbs and it took me a minute to recognize him. For a social event, this was wonderful. For a race, my performance was disappointing, but I was glad to just be out there again.

Umstead 2019

So I've been a bit lazy in blogging lately. My good friend Tammy Massie talked me into pacing Umstead 100 again, and I actually did it this year. After only 1 lap, I was in a lot of pain and ready to get home.

Showing up at Umstead is always a good time. I got there about an hour before Tammy finished the lap with our friend Susan. I ran into so many friends, including an old coworker who actually finished the 100 last year! Now Merrit is training for Western States - insane.

Me and Merrit

Me and Tammy before we got out there

Susan also convinced another runner to go out with us, so I got to meet a new friend. Kim turned out to be a blast to run through the woods with. The 3 of us hit the trail about 10:30 pm, and finished the lap around 3 am. I was pretty good for about 10 miles then the arthritis really kicked in and my hands swole up pretty bad. Once again, spending time with friends in the woods is the best part of this race, the running part was pretty unpleasant.

Now here's some other random pics that I've been holding on to

Kelley in the kitchen. Really I was just testing out the camera on a new phone

selfie at work

selfie at home

The kids were surprised that I got a skull phone case. I'm surprised my belly has gotten to this size

selfie in the car. My hair is getting longer!

So yeah, I'm still carrying around this big belly and a lot of pain when I run. Fun times. But I did get into a swim race (next post)