Hey Charlie for chrissakes if you want to know the truth of it
I don’t have a husband he don’t play the trombone
I need to borrow money to pay this lawyer and Charlie hey
I’ll be eligible for parole come Valentine’s day.

— thomas alan waits

—

And that was the day I went unrogue. If unrogue is a word. And I fear it might not be, but I’m retired and now use my New World Dictionary only as a backrest for the laptop after the cats broke it.

The truth is, I like the Fit PA Fancy Pants Training Plan and Tom Waits Karaoke Machine© a lot. Two days of wandering in the wilderness made me remember how much it’s become a part of my daily running in just six weeks. Also, I’m lazy. When left to my own devices, I end up spending too much time on my devices.

And so I’m back with Coach Daniels, who assures me he’s the running Jack and not the whiskey Jack, although he says he can go back and forth in October as needed. Credibility points: I once stood outside Jack Daniels’ office in Flagstaff, hoping he would walk out so I could casually say, “Hey, aren’t you Jack Daniels?” to which he would reply “Security!” Sadly, he never came out.

We revised October to make it to exactly 700 miles (ok, theoretically we are 0.2 miles over, but it’s nice to have padding), in the Jeopardy! category of “Things That Will Never Happen.”

Mostly, I’m back in my happy place. I like this plan, and this app and its creators, a lot. I’ll try to remember in the future not to screw with it. I will forget. But I will try.

I regret only never having learned to play the trombone. And I miss Charlie.

On with the show …