What was I thinking?

A week or two back, I signed up to run a 15 mile trail run tomorrow morning for reasons that now escape me. I have two bad knees, one bad foot, and a nearly dead heart. Plus, I haven't run that far since 2003.

 And the best/worst part is the race starts at 7:30, about two hours before my body wakes up on a good day.

In other words, it should be a day of glorious agony.

I take as my (admittedly flawed) patron saint for this adventure Teddy Roosevelt, who said this:

It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming, but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory or defeat.

That's my story, anyway, and I'm sticking with it.

ON THE BRIGHT SIDE,  WV Gov. Tomblin signed the Future Fund into law.

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