Well, I've got people wishing me a happy birthday on my March 22 entry, so I guess I'd better get my official March 24 birthday entry done. Kim suggested maybe I was sleeping in and being pampered. Are you kidding? My birthday wish would never be to not have to run, quite the opposite.
I got up this morning and did a 6 mile solo run at a very easy pace (avg 9:52/mi). The main purpose of this run was to stretch out my legs. Actually, I feel much better than I expected to after Saturday's 20 miler, but I do still have a little stiffness/soreness in the tops of both calves, just below the knee. Fortunately, this is the "muscles are getting stronger" kind of pain as in "no pain, no gain", not the "dang! I over did it" injury kind of pain. That 20 mile run was the beginning of a great weekend. We went to the Easter Event at Lavendar Farms in Mona later in the morning. My daughter Tiffany helped plan it as part of one of her classes at BYU and was the handler for Easter Bunny. My favorite part was the baby animals at the petting zoo. I got to hold a cute little baby goat that looked right up at me and said, "I think I've had enough of this now. I know you are much bigger than me, but may I please return to mother now? I'm a little overwhelmed by all of this, and a little bit hungry." We then went on to a Thomas family gathering at my parents' home in Nephi. We had a great meal, played some games, and had a good time hanging out together. All of my siblings were there (1 brother, 3 sisters) and many of the grandchildren. Playing Easter Bingo for candy bars was fun, and racing boiled eggs down the driveway, but playing The Great Dalmuti (two tables of 7 each) was probably the most fun. I've sure been blessed to have good people in my life. That was followed by finished up Easter dress shopping at the mall on the way home. Even that wasn't so bad. It's much less frustrating now that I've learned that my role is to "pack and pay", and that trying to hurry things up is not usually helpful. It's a great opportunity to practice the virtue of patience. Sunday my two young single adult children who are not living at home came by and we had a great Sunday together with Easter candy, a great Easter meal, watching some old family videos, and playing a few games together (Such & Such, Curses, and Bang! with the Dodge City expansion deck). We had a great time! I'm hoping to run again at noon today if any of the guys are going out, but I'll have to see how work is going. I normally take my birthday off, but I've got a lot of work to get done so I thought I'd better come in. I'll take a day some other time when I can enjoy it more. I did make it out at noon and enjoyed a nice run with Tom and Bill in near perfect weather on the Lake View route. We averaged 8:19/mi for the 5.2 miles. I wish Bill could make it out with us more often, but he's normally doing a fitness class at that time. I don't know where Nathan and Will were today. Maybe Wednesday. Oh, I forgot to mention that I rode my motorcycle to work today for the first time this year. I really quite enjoyed it. I certainly prefer the 70-75 mpg the motorcycle gets to the 10-12 mpg my Suburban gets. I'm not really a "biker dude". It's not a Harley or a bullet bike, it's just a little Yamaha XT 225 dual purpose (dirt/road) bike that's seen far more asphalt than dirt, mostly commuting the 10 miles to work and back.
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