Another special 'Jack' moment...

Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Tomorrow is my birthday and I was thinking about my triathlon as I headed for the park.  I wanted to do something, but I didn’t want to do so much that I’d be tired for a maximum effort the next day.  I didn’t think I could do hard rides back-to-back right now, so I decided a short run was in order.  I entered the woods on my favorite trail planning on an easy 20-25 minute jog.  And then I started feeling good.

I knew I wasn’t going fast, but all systems seem to think running longer was a good idea.  I was around 33 minutes when I reached the car, but passed it by.  At 36 minutes I was back, but figured why not 40?  I reached that level still feeling good and stopped.  It did get me to thinking that I might have been able to do 58 minutes of running for the triathlon, but that really would have been pushing it.  I needed to be satisfied with the effort and use tomorrow for riding, kayaking and a good Survival Workout.

As I drove home, I received a call from Holly telling me that Jack was locked out of the house because he didn’t have a key and the electricity was out.  He normally came through the garage, but of course the door wouldn’t go up.

“I’ve got a key on my key ring, but it might be to Mimi’s house,” I said.

“Great.  I keep telling you two to carry a house key and now neither of you can get in,” she said.

She was right, of course.  Still, I wasn’t too worried.  Either we’d find a window to climb through or the electricity would come back on.  If neither happened, we’d wait until she came home because she did carry a house key with her, responsible person that she was.  I pulled in the driveway and hit my garage door opener.  The door lifted and so it was a moot point.

I went into the house calling Jack’s name.  I could hear him tramping around upstairs, but he didn’t answer, nor did Dakota come to greet me.  I went up the stairs and found her still in her cage, though I could hear Jack in his room.

“Jack…why didn’t you let Dakota out?” I called loudly, but received no response. 

Then it dawned on me.  I walked into his bedroom and went to the window that led to the roof over the family room.  He was standing on it and when he saw me, smiled, and came over to the window, which was open a crack.

“Hey dad…I’m pretty sure I can get the window open and knock out the screen to get us in,” he said through the opening.

“There’s that…or you could just climb off the roof and come in through the door like I did,” I said.

He looked at me with one of those puzzled ‘Jack’ expressions and then understanding washed over his features.  “Yeah…heh, heh…you’re already inside.”

I really love this kid, but I’m not so sure I should continue to give him the keys to the car and let him out into the world completely unsupervised.

Run duration:  40 minutes.

Training Heart Rate:  140 bpm.
Calories burned:  700.