13 days later he sends up a post

To prove I am still here.


I could have written last weekend but life happens.


Since we last visited my last remaining link to you died. Don't feel bad but you were not the ones who came to mind right away when the laptop died.

No, I had a thought about how I would send a note with my tax extension request to tell them my hard drive ate the return and I would not be able to pay them all the money I owe them. You see, two Sundays ago I had put the finishing touches on my return, shut down, then awoke that next morn to find that god-awful message we all hate: No root found, or something like that.

Then a week ago Tuesday night a call from cadet world was full of news that kept me and Mrs. T tossing and turning. No details to share yet but I had to be in Jacksonville by 10 the next morning. My tooth was still tender. The taxes weren't done. Can you imagine a better reason to get off my butt and go run?

I did a very easy jog along the St. Johns River from the Hyatt to the Jaguars stadium and back. Did you know the St. Johns is the only North American River that flows north?

Last weekend I went to plan B and used my son's laptop to reload Turbo Tax and completely redo my taxes. In the course of that I had a few positives: my enclosure for the old Acer laptop hard drive hooked up fine and gave me access to my old tax returns and much more. After finishing the taxes I thought about what else I had lost and went to my Web IDrive site where I found everything I thought I may have lost including the tax return that died with the second HP laptop.

Things were improving.

I proved to myself that I can still run 10 miles last Sunday. I skipped running until Thursday and ran a ladder of repeats at the track (200-400-600-800 and down). Today I woke up very early and my mind and body told me to get up and run again so I did another easy run of six miles.

Running thoughts of late:

• Stretching really matters most when you're not in peak form.
• Conditioning levels can drop quickly when you slack off.
• More aches and pains reveal themselves when you're not running regularly.
• Going really slowly can allow you to run just about any distance.
• Negative splits give you the best feelings.
• Garmins are very fickle about how long they need to synchronize with satellites.
• Clif Bloks can give you cavities if you don't wash and rinse your mouth well (theory).
• Newspapers appeal to older demographics and people with above average intelligence. So why don't they cater to runners and carry more stories and results from local races (much less national events)?
• The only Florida student who scored a perfect 36 on his ACT exams this year goes to our local high school. He is on the cross country/track team. Nice.

Jeanne's Audi: the top does not leak after many ups and downs. Mrs. T has allowed me to drive it the last week. I like it a lot. I keep wondering when Jeanne is running/biking/swimming by to pick it up for her turn.