Today's Triathlon

A friend finished her first marathon on Saturday while we were trying out the Hellgate course. Today, according to Karen, she was struggling down stairways, full of good feelings overcoming the bad (pain). She said she loved the experience, had planned on doing only one, and now wants to do the same course next year. Meanwhile, someone reminded us that the "first marathoner" died after his run. If my facts are right, that's true, but he didn't run only 26.2 miles; he ran 153 miles from Athens to Sparta and then back again and he probably wasn't wearing fancy running shoes. Today's "Spartathlon" attempts to replicate his run, one-way only. To qualify for the race, you must first: (1) finish a 100K race in less than 10 hours, 30 minutes; (2) compete and complete a 200K race; and (3) compete in the Spartathlon and reach the Nestani 172K checkpoint in less than 24 hours, 30 minutes. You thought Hellgate was crazy?

I decided today was time for a triathlon. After running 10 miles, I cut firewood for 2 1/2 hours, then used 2 1/2 more hours to load and unload my pickup with aged manure. I'd include a picture of our garden beds, but our camera's broken so I'll wait until the other three of ten are ready for winter. I'm hoping to be able to walk out in the spring, rake over some mulch, wait a day or two for the soil to dry, and drop the seeds in.

I hear rain falling, so my timing was good. If it rains often enough, maybe I can return to my preferred schedule of working on my legal writing when it's raining and the garden, greenhouse or firewood when it's not.

"You're a slough-off," says Virginia.

Oh, and my illegal writing everyday.