t-30 days

First, let me say that I am sorry that I haven't kept this blog up as much as I had intended. Its hard to keep up sometimes.... However, I hope to post more often as D Day gets closer.

So, first, a quiz -- what is this:
A land mass on Mars?

Evidence of Swine Flu?

Lets call this Challenge #1 -- its a blister, measuring about the size of quarter on each heel.




This beauty grew exponentially from February to April -- even with my $SUPER PRICEY SNEAKERS$ it kept growing and growing. Afraid that I'd detonate my foot, I tried every type of band aid out there, to no avail.

Lesson #1 Two pairs of socks....I guess my shoes were too loose. It worked. I am now blister free.


Challenge #2 -- Gas and protecting the innocent

As many runners know, diet matters. What I didn't know is what happens when you eat a banana only and then decide to jog six miles. During this time your intestines are protesting along with every other body part. The difference is that the intestines have a voice.

Now with out getting too graphic, let me describe the scene. it is an Idyllic run in Tacoma's Ft. Nisquallly Park. Julie and I are typically alone, due to chronic lateness of start and slowness of step. So, I am free to, um, let nature take its course during my runs. I even tend to add a little skip to the event for humor effect ( jogging can get dull without humor). All of this gives me the appearance of having a jet-booster....which is a funny thing.

That is until someone pulls up behind you.

I let one of my little boosters fire this sunny morning, and sure enough a lady came up right beside me, right as I came down from a little hop. My wife scurried to the other side of the road and slowed down, pretending, rightly so, to not know me.

"That guy, nope, not mine...." I could almost hear Julie mutter.

The young lady who I inadvertently blasted kept jogging, seemingly not noticing, but its hard to believe that a skipping, gaseous, 40+ year-old man could be ignored that effectively.

This is all very embarrassing - but it gets worse.

The very next day, we're sitting down preparing for the Sunday events at Church and, well, you know...the same lady who was affected by my jet wash was now sitting 4 feet in front of me and my wife. She gratefully was (or pretended to be) oblivious to my transgressions against her merely 24 hours prior.

Lesson: Be cautious before any jet-boosting happens, and try to eat better in the morning.

Challenge #3 - Chaffing

Don't worry dear reader, I won't include pictures on this one. Well, I will, but only of the product that relieved the friction that occurs when you're jogging literally for hours.

May God bless the men and women who invented these wonderful items:

Lesson: Buy these things

And, what would we do without Spandex?



Sneakers are so very important. Go to a jogging store (RoadRunner) and plunk down a Benjamin for something like this:




We've done up to 10 mile events using these items, so don't laugh! Okay, you can laugh....but only at me. Next posting....What Happens When Joints Go Bad.

- Joe "Jet Pack" Fecarotta

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A Bug and The Point

Well folks, finally grabbing a moment to post!

We were jogging a few weeks ago in the Orting park system, and it was a great time. We were doing an hour, and we were about 50 minutes into it and were returning too soon to our minivan. Well, we turned around one time to get that last 10 minutes. Feeling fresh, I sprinted back alone the last 100 yards. While I was doing the Bruce Jenner (dating myself), I saw a strange sight....some idiot parked their van illegally. In the space of maybe one second I heard my wife scream, and I realized that the green van on the truck was mine, and I was the idiot.

We were towed. And so were a bunch of people who parked in the middle of NOWHERE. I mean seriously....this is Orting people, not New York City!! There were 80 LLS people jogging in this town, which probably doubled its population.

My van was long gone, not having enough juice in my legs to catch the tow truck. They had three tow trucks lined up grabbing cars off the lot like donuts off of a tray. It was outrageous. Here these fine folks are raising money for charity and this subhuman calls the towing company and orders them to remove all of our vehicles. The cost? $300 bucks per car if they made it back to the station.

We were lucky. We asked the guy to call the truck and bring it back, lowering our extortion to $100. But we as a team of sweaty, tired, spandex-clad do-gooders weren't going to watch one more vehicle depart the station. (go team!)


The tow guys (what is their official title? A few words come to mind...) really slowed down the process, but they were hooking up their next victim....a cute little VW Bug. Well, I think Don had the great idea to get a critical mass of people around this little guy and physically drag the car to safety (shown in action above) . The whole exercise was ridiculous. I mean, did we REALLY have to muscle this thing 50 feet while this burly tow-truck guy watched with his 5000 hp tow truck in idle?





Nevertheless, we all got around, found a hold, and moved that Bug with relative ease. Who knew? The same solution wouldn't have worked for my poor minivan ( almost 6000 lbs) but it was very satisfying to save this person money, and stick it to the greedy, heartless owner of that land. We've really lost our way in this culture...we've lost our humanity in so many ways. The owner of that land was there. He was on his little bike, and scurried away when the mass of LLS people got to high. Coward. He said there was a shipment coming on the rail system. Knowing that by the time that arrived the LLS people would be long gone, icing their sore body parts by then didn't change his soulless attack. Shame on him. But having done that little save made our wonderful team breakfast taste all the better, and thank you to the leaders who donate to Julie and i to offset the towing costs. You're all very cool people.



To end this post I want to show a picture of the little girl, Autumn, that Julie and I are running for. Autumn is a soccer player, an athlete and a charming girl. You can see her energy and strength in this picture, despite the tether to the life-giving machinery. She's getting better and that's the point of it all.

Autumn Fairall


Here's a link to a very nice story about her that was done last summer. The picture above is more recent, and shows us how far she's really come.



- Joe

Greetings Generous Reader

Dear friends,
In the great tree of human abilities I am very blessed and thankful for the many gifts that God has given me. Unfortunately, running isn't among them - I'm comparatively slow, my feet point in weird directions, my knees pop like popcorn in a microwave, and I do not have the legs for it.

Don't believe me? You tell me:



which look suspiciously like these:




So, despite all of that and an already oppressive schedule, I, with my wife, have started to train for the LLS Marathon, and committed to raise a lot of money for them, namely $3600 clams.

I'll be documenting my effort to drag my carcass through the Northwest park system despite my genetic predisposition towards couch potato.

While this blog will be of a humorous bent, the cause we are running for is of course quite serious. Please open your hearts and wallets for people with Leukemia and Lymphoma with us. The society has been around for decades, and has seen real success with over 80% survival rate and climbing! We could in our generation see the end of this horrendous disease, dollar by dollar.

Thanks
Joe and Julie!