Happy Father’s Day and Summer’s here

Yesterday – wow.

My mom’s in town (dad’s tied up on business). Jake and I headed off to church a little early to take care of some admin on the Fair Trade coffee mission that Missy and I run, and Missy, mom and Nate followed about a half hour later in the other car. It didn’t make sense to drag two cars around for lunch, so Jake and I planned to take the bike and third wheel back to the church while Nate napped that afternoon.

So, we did. There was a little kerfuffle about a half mile from the house when Jake’s pedal fell off – hadn’t torqued it in, mostly out of habit and experience with well-made bike stuff. The third wheel’s a cheap one from Target. Works like a champ, but weighs in somewhere upwards of maximum ratings for automobile freight. The pedal’s in there good. I dragged him with the mountain bike, with knobbies still attached, so, given our combined weight and rolling resistance, we weren’t about to set any land-speed records.

This was the first time we’d attempted a ride of any real distance without him in the trailer. He did swimmingly. There was absolutely NO complaining about “Are we there yet?” and only a modicum of worry while going down hills. We stopped at Spicer Park – surprised that there were no rowers out – for a couple of drinks of gatorade, and I got a “Come on, daddy, we’re wasting time that we could be riding…” The kid could turn out to be a killer. Though he did get distracted on the way back to the parking lot by some ants and shiny rocks.

The drag up Long Hill past the high school and police station was as tough as I’d expected; however, I swear I could feel the kid pushing. Absolutely awesome. We made the car and about 12 miles in around an hour, give or take. Even though it was the hottest day yet this year, there was no whining by the boy, and he looked fresh when we got off. What a trooper.

When we pulled up to the house, the wife was putting out the Slip’n’Slide in the front yard. They’ve gone high-tech with these things: Not only are they slippery now, but they come with integral “splash pools” and inflateable bumpers at the end. I finished mowing the back yard, and joined the boys sitting in the splash pool. Then the wife actually let me cook for once – kabobs on the grill, followed by a wild blueberry cobbler (frozen berries, but if you’re cooking them, what’s the difference?)

Today: Determined not to let the week get half done before I start running, I laced’em up at lunch, and decided to see how the old rash would feel. Turns out, running actually made the residual itch bearable this afternoon. 5.2 miles, over 47 minutes. So, not so speedy, but it was 80 and 70% humidity – the hottest I’ve run since, like, September. But, I was running again. Good stuff. The wife ordered me a Frazz t-shirt from comics.com for Father’s Day, and I broke it in. Think Mallett might approve. Next step is to get it showing up randomly in RBF pictures…

Scale was down to 168 again. Still no net loss since like January, but who’s complaining? It’s summer, the race monkey is off my back (which means I’m itching to line up again), and I can focus on slaying my own demons.

Edit: Completely slipped my mind – before supper, we realized that the cobbler for dessert was going to be way, way too healthy – granola, next to no sugar, etc. So, we started jonesing for some vanilla ice cream to wash it down. And rather than burning dinos and going to the real grocery, I threw the baby in the jump seat of the wife’s bike and shimmied on down to the gas station/convinience store down the road. Sure, we paid an extra buck for the half-gallon of delicious vanilla bean ice cream, but we saved 8 miles in the car, and I got to hear my youngest yelling “Pedal faster daddy” while pounding my back.