APR-B-2
SPRING ALTERNATES WITH WINTER AS DAYS BLOW HOT AND COLD:
THE COLD WINTRY
LULL,
WITH SCHEDULE RE-ARRANGEMENTS, FROM TRAVEL
CHANGES,
AND HORSE TRAILER/TRUCK POTENTIAL PURCHASES,
BEFORE TAKING OFF
FOR THE “LONG RUN”
I feel like I am biding time, dragging a sea anchor, and doing about as well as the “Spring weather” around me. From standing in the pre-dawn parking guide position on the Spring-Forward morning of the Cherry Blossom Ten Mile Race, I have acquired a productive laryngeal/bronchitis—about the only thing about me that is “productive” just now. This “cold,” to use a term more familiar, is not a “plus” just before a fifty mile race this Saturday, nor is the manipulation of some unknown detractors in the MCRRC who have expunged me from three teams I was signed up for, including the Bull Run Run. But, I will go to the orientation and pasta party on Friday night and sleep overnight at the hemlock Grove campsite to get an early start in the long run, but now without the honor-bound need to finish to qualify the MCRRC team from which I seem to be absent, again. Whatever might be the goading stimulus for their anonymous vengeful vendetta, it is not detracting from my good runs with Joe, such as the good Cherry Blossom Ten Mile Run, even if I am paying for the residual of this “pseudo-Spring Run” now.
With the official “postponement “ of the China Trip, a group called Project MediShare with three GWU freshman students has asked me to accompany them on a trip to Haiti June 8-14 in the interval vacated by the China commitment in that time block, (Apr-B-4.) Since I will be gone during much of the planning for this event, I will hold that time open and see what contribution I can make. The group is also interested in a Global Health-kind of noon program on April 23, the day before the departure packing for Malawi.
I will be meeting with Dale Kramer on Friday morning before packing up to go out to Manassas for the evening and all the next day, so I will have a long time to think about the plans and the project for the remodeling on the run. I also stocked up a few books on tape, although the tape system is notorious for fouling on the run, and I badly need to get the MP3 system working so I can carry an audio system without moving parts to get twisted on the run to be field stripped on the move for trouble shooting electronics when I should be watching where my next footfall is going. That will be most likely through a lot of mud, given the daily freezing rain that has been falling at all times including the race day, if predictions hold true.
In the projection of what will be needed in the coming year to work out the plans on moving and shuffling during the renovation, a truck and horse trailer to be pulled by it were on the list. The latter seems to be on order (Trail-et Apollo Classic, two-horse slant, goose-neck) and one candidate for the proposed truck to pull it is a F-350 Ford Lariat Crew Cab Power Stroke Diesel loaded up luxury pick-up truck in Salisbury where Gary Pusey got it with me in mind. But, I will not be likely to get out there at any time soon, before the domestic trip and then the Malawi expedition, so it may disappear before I can go over to look at it or another model that might do the job of hauling a 20 foot trailer.