Sunday, June 17, 2007

Getting Nostalgic About the Cast

I'm losing a new friend tomorrow. This friend has been with me every moment (in some form) for nearly 6 weeks. But it has come time for us to part ways. :( At 11am tomorrow, I get my cast (the 6th and final one) removed, and my last pin taken out. I've been really looking forward to this. Other than obviously making typing very difficult, I've had to adjust much of my life in unexpected ways. Little things, like being unable to put my running watch on have made running freer from the constraints of time. On the minus side, opening beer bottles is tough, but once it's open, my free 3 fingers are perfectly positioned to hold that beer!

Here's a photo of my new soon to be old friend. While I'll miss its steady presence, I will not miss explaining what happened to roughly 50 new people each day.


So my life has adjusted, but hasn't changed too much, other than being unable to run in the heat. As Mike noted, I've been biking one-handed quite a bit. And why have I been biking so much? Because in 1 week I'm biking down the coast of California!

I'll be riding my new Surly Crosscheck that Tom built for me (I tried to help!) I'm riding with my uncle Joe who lives in LA. I'll have to post photos after the trip.

In other news, the past month since I've blogged has been rather eventful. The weather turned nice and reminded me why I love it here so much. I've been enjoying all the festivals (Grand Old Day, Edina Art Fair and Stone Arch Festival), the trails, and any other excuse to be outside.

My friend and former roommate Joel visited me from NYC. Try and try as I did, I couldn't convince him to move here, but he did love it here and his only negative comment was that we have too much greenspace in the urban core! I'll take it. We also went to my high school reunion, I'll let you guess which year reunion that is.

The Chris Taylor cabin weekend o' running was also last month (day after my surgery actually). 8 smelly guys running 15 miles a day in northern WI and drinking way too much each night. Great times had by all!!! Can't wait to get back up there. Thanks Chris!

And yesterday was Grandma's Marathon. I didn't run, but Eben and I were out cheering the half and full marathon finishers for about 6 hours! It was a blazing hot and humid day (we taught Hang a new word, "sultry"), so most people's times weren't what they are capable of, but I'm really excited for everyone who ran and you all should be proud of your accomplishments. Major props to Anne for her major PR in the half, and to Mike, Steve, Tyler and Jennie who made running in this heat look easy with PRs as well. Great job!! I had such a blast cheering all of you on, more cowbell anyone? :)

OK, I'm tired of typing, so I'll just post some photos here from the past month:

The Chris Taylor running crew

Who's going to win, Mama Bear or Steve-O?

There's that stupid cast again (#5). On a boat ride near St. Paul

Joel surveys the Mpls skyline. What does the urban planner think?

Lynch vs. Johnson. The real race. Who needs Grandma's? (or Professor??)

Duluth from above (thanks Jeremy for showing us this place!)

4 comments:

Ed Kohler said...

Looks like you haven't let yourself go too much while down an arm. Try not to punch yourself in the face when you return to a normal swing-weight.

Rocco said...

So when you say you won't miss telling 50 people a day how you broke your arm is that because it gets a little tedious after awhile, or 50 more people on this earth now know how you broke you arm. :)

Hope you enjoy getting your arm back. Now you blog some more.

Nathan said...

UPDATE!

The cast is off, but the p(a)in remains. Sounds like a country song. The pin comes out next week, just in time for the trip to Cali.

Mike, you shouldn't talk, you just went about 2 months without a single blog entry. Perhaps the Deets could raz me since he blogs more often than I have real-world conversations, but you, mon frere, have no leg to stand on.

Rocco said...

Three posts in two days. Top that beeeeeeeeeee-yatch!!!!!!!!!!