"You mean you're not riding?"

Friday, June 11, 2010

I received a call this morning from Teri, John’s wife. She said he was at Hillcrest in ICU.

“He’s bleeding internally from somewhere. He was throwing up blood early this morning,” she said.

“That doesn’t sound too good. Do you suppose he’ll be ready for our ride tonight?” I asked.

Okay…I didn’t say that. I would have if he’d called. I did go to see him and he was doing well – all vitals were good, but they were taking him to a room where they’re going to run one of those things down his throat to look around inside and determine the source of the bleeding. Not as good as a colonoscopy, though.

“So…I’ll be back tonight and I’ll bring the ‘Adirondack News’ to read to you,” I said.

“Umm…you don’t…umm…need to…”

“Hey…it’s okay. You’d do the same for me,” I said.

So, once again the ride was off. I mean I could have done it myself, but that wasn’t the plan and now the plan was messed up. Actually, I prefer to ride on Saturdays anyway…in case I really want to take a long one when I’ll have more time. For today, I decided on a run, of course.

It was in the 80’s and muggy. Pretty normal for a June night in Cleveland. I was thinking it would be an hour run and that I would end up near a creek for a dunk. Just thinking about it made the run easier to do. Once again, it felt rather easy. The worst thing going was the attack of the deer flies, but I put about four of them out of their misery…smearing their bodies all over me as a warning to their brethren to stay away. A little gross, but it seems to work.

I managed to keep a good pace throughout and when I reached the creek, about 8 minutes from the car, was quite happy to plop in. I finished the run refreshed and reasonably clean and after having run a sweaty hour that was quite an accomplishment.

After heading home and cleaning up, I returned with Holly to the hospital. John was sleeping off his anesthesia, but told me to wake him up when I arrived, so I obliged him. Turns out he had four bleeding ulcers, though they had healed themselves for now and he would be going home tomorrow.

“Maybe a ride on Sunday, then?” I asked.

Teri, his wife, didn’t seem to think so.

Run duration: 63 minutes.

Training Heart Rate: 140.

Calories burned during workout: 1075.