D.I.N.K. for a day.

I am getting to pretend that I’m a D.I.N.K. again for a few days, you know, dual income, no kids?  Alexander is at grandma and grandpa Flemings place for a few more days.  Jessica’s family had a reunion last Saturday that we went to and Alexander is staying with them for the week to spend some more time with his cousins who are in town from Pittsburgh, that and we needed daycare for Friday and Saturday since our normal Friday daycare doesn’t work on observed holidays and no one wants our kid on the actual 4th of July either and both Jessica and I have to work on both days.  I’m kind of bummed about not having Alexander here this week, Jessica is working and I’m here by myself all day and I’m not liking the single guy life.  The house is too quiet.  It’s nice to be able to go take a nap or leave the house without making a plan first but I’m missing having the squirt around this week, I wanted to go to the fireworks stand with him and pick up some stuff to light off.  It was a trade off though because I wanted him here for the big town fireworks show on the 4th of July and if he stayed with my parents he wouldn’t be able to be here for that because Jessica is too pregnant to get off work and then go get him.  Just too much time in the car, plus at least this way he can see the Pittsburgh crew while they are in town.  Grandma is going to bring him back on the 4th when Jessica gets off work and when I get off at 9 I’m going to haul ass home with just enough time to get to see the fireworks with the family before poof… the holiday is done.  I miss the old days where the 4th was a pretty eventful holiday in my life.  We had the cabin and everyone came out to celebrate and it was a pretty big deal.  Now it’s pretty disappointing.

I’ve signed up for a race!  It’s a 21 mile trail race and will be the longest race I’ve ever completed when I do it.  I was signed up for a full marathon at one point that got snowed out and then I got hurt so I never got a chance to do it.  This race is in Omaha and is part of a 50k ultramarathon.  It’s a loop course, 10 and a half miles per loop.  I’m doing the 2 loop 21 miler, the 3 loop is the 50k.  I needed something to train for and another half marathon didn’t trip my trigger, but I didn’t have enough time to train for a full so this race was perfect.  I’m using it as a stepping stone towards my goals of longer races, I’ll do the full Lincoln Marathon next spring and then if everything goes well with no major injuries I’ll do a 50k ultra race in the Fall so I can officially be an ultramarathoner, even if it is the shortest of the ultramarathons and the guys who do the 100 mile races would chuckle at my accomplishment because they go out on training runs longer than that.  My friend Dave is one of those hundred mile guys and he’s kind of peaked my interest in it though.  I’ve never been a physical specimen and have never been in danger of winning anything, but the thing about ultras is that it’s really more of a test of your mental strength than anything and I just wonder if I’ve got what it takes.