Big speeches, parades, spouting cliches, being part of a huge crowd, sharing patriotic memes on Facebook or Twitter and binge-watching some TV show/Movie all day are not my style or who I am.

I am one of those odd ones who think about life, the freedoms we enjoy, the meaning of days like Memorial Day on more than just one or two days a year. Which doesn’t make me better or more noble than anyone else, it just means that I probably have more time in my life to reflect on things than many others do.

Personally, I do my best thinking about “celebrations” like Memorial Day, while I am out running or attempting to put together a blog post, where I am trying hard to find the right words that make sense to me about what I am thinking about outside of my head and definitely not making myself out to be something that I am not.

What I do know is that as I get older, is that I appreciate the time I do have left on this little blue ball and how precious each of our lives is. I also believe that as we get older and for many of us a bit wiser, we tend to understand better and more clearly the sacrifices of so many who did not get the chance to grow older and to enjoy the life that their sacrifices enabled the rest of us to live.

I don’t want anyone to think I am trivializing Memorial Day by writing yet another boring blog post about my running. However, being the odd duck that I am, I believe that I best honor the memory of those who gave their lives defending our freedoms today is by continuing to live life the way that I chose and enjoying the freedom being able to write about my boring life.

Isn’t that what their sacrifice was for?

First up – no I did not race, I thought about it earlier in the week but decided not to go to either one of the ones I was thinking about, I just didn’t feel the need to compete.

However, today was one of those exceptional weather days, where you just want to go for a run. Yeah, it was that nice outside. After yesterday’s long run, I planned on doing a nice 5.0-mile recovery run down-back.

The breeze was out of the North, so it was in my face all the way out, which kept things a bit cooler, but not so much that it really slowed me down all that much.

I did have to chuckle, the guy who owns the house with the swimming pool down on Tiffany now sees me as a regular and we usually have a conversation as I run by. It is typically about the weather and how fast the frigging grass is growing, but it is a neighborly kind of “how do you do” thing. Although I do wish that he would keep his shirt on, that wasn’t a pretty sight by any stretch of the imagination – at least he put his dog up on the porch behind the gate this time.

I think the dog just wants to go for a run with me, but for a black lab, he is pretty aggressive about how he is protecting his turf. I could still hear him barking down past Bartlett.

It seemed like most everyone else was at the Sidney parade because the road was pretty much deserted for almost the whole run.

However, once I turned around and the wind was at my back, it did get a bit warmish. That, along with some pretty nasty nipple chafe from yesterday’s long run (I forgot to put my protective bandages on them before I ran yesterday), were taking my attention off of running and thinking, to thinking about how uncomfortable I was getting.

So I made the decision to take off my shirt and run topless!!!

No, no birds fell to the earth dazed or blinded and the two cars that did go by did not end up in the ditch, although I thought for a moment that one was going to go in the ditch from laughing so hard at an old fart going shirtless and all the fat and stuff jiggling around. I guess I am one to talk about going out in public with no shirt on. 😉

Luckily no photos were taken and no cameras broken as a result.

However, the chaffed areas stopped bothering and I could feel the cool breeze on my back, so at that point, I really didn’t care who I offended with my shirt off.

I was much more comfortable running!

After that, it was all about getting back to the lower gate down-back and stop at 10K. Yeah, the weather was so nice that I tacked on an extra mile to the run, just because I could.

Then I walked back to the house…err I walked up Stevens Hill…shhh I just didn’t feel like dealing with that hill this morning.

The reality is that

I had a really good recovery run, enjoyed a pretty normal day, walked the dog, mowed the lawn, puttered around the garage, cooked supper on the BBQ, helped out a neighbor who was having computer issues and enjoyed the evening with the wife.

In other words another wonderful day in the life.

However, I will always remember and honor the sacrifices of those who made it possible and do it more than once a year.