• If not Ted, then who? •
[1½ MIN READ]
A big challenge for me in recent years of long running is how cooperative my GI is going to be before the rest of the body has to get going, too. Last Saturday, there was the additional complication that I never turned on my alarm to wake up. Even if my GI doesn’t always cooperate, at least my brain did and I woke a mere 30 minutes later than usual.
Thirty minutes might seem awfully late, but not given the hour and 45 minutes I normally allow to accommodate that particularly demanding body system. When it and I were finally ready to leave the house, I would be arriving to the trailhead 5 minutes late. ‘Hm,’ I thought, ‘Maybe I should text Ted to let him know my timing.’ ‘Nah,’ I thought further, ‘5 minutes isn’t that late.’
As I drove, it suddenly occurred to me that Ted was away. And he had asked me to take attendance.
I pulled up and tried to act innocent. Everyone was standing around talking as I said nonchalantly, “Who’s running this show?”
A painter like Jamie pays attention to details. “You are,” he replied, equally nonchalantly. “Ted asked you to do it and we’re all waiting.”
A trustworthy person like Ted (and the Zen before him) does (and did) the attendance-taking for a reason.
And I still had to make a pit stop at Valley Green Inn.
–CtCloser (Calvinthe) “Negative Split or Positive Splat” #dothedue (iCandybyWangC.com)
FINE PRINT ¶Text by Calvin Wang (Wäng), CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (CreativeCommons.org). ¶Cross-published: Facebook Shawmont Running Club (ZY Weekly Newsletter 8/29/26 [Facebook]), Shawmont Running Club website (ShawmontRunningClub.com), Ruminations by CtCloser. ¶This website posting: Rumination with added caption, duration, and enumeration.
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