NATHAN HAS A NICKNAME AND PROGRESS REPORT

Nathan will write later on the last few weeks of Sundays with Jarvis. While I have not been at all happy with my performance, the important thing is that I have finished the walk each week and have never taken longer than I did when we started this great adventure. Baby steps, remember?! My swimming and biking continue to get stronger. I am swimming between a half a mile and a mile several times a week. I am biking a great deal as well. Last Saturday morning I biked 11 miles outside in this very mild Houston heat before I crashed my bike. I let ego make me sloppy and hit a curb. That could explain the poor walk performance last week and again this week but everyone tells me that wrecking is expected. Jim has wisely advised me that I should not, however, make it a regular part of my training. He is SO wise. I am LOVING my training and workouts and am feeling stronger every day.

And now for this week’s great news. Nathan finally has a nickname. We have Iron Man Jim and Trisha, the Pie Lady. We have the Super Jocks and Trace’s Angels (who you will meet later.) Nathan’s new nickname is “THE HANDLER.” You can call him the White Chocolate Smoothie Handler if you like. Now I know that that name conjures images of an animal trainer and I expect many jokes and jabs at my expense that I now have trainers and handlers. In the legal parlance we call this “taking the wind out of the opponent’s sails” so I will allow time for you to make all of the appropriate or inappropriate jokes and references now. (Insert all jokes here along with a great deal of laughter. Trace pretends to be offended and hurt by them.)

Are we finished? Now the story. Nathan talked to the gentleman who will likely be running the CB&I triathlon next year because he wants to do the whole race with me, even though we would start at different times given the difference in our age. He was told that if he was my “handler”, then we would be able to start at the same time. So there you have it. Nathan will do the entire race with me. I only hope that he can keep up with me. I’d hate for him to slow me down.

With his new designation as handler, Nathan has demanded several perks. He wants to do the race in sunglasses. He wants a Secret Service Earpiece. He wants a black tshirt with the word HANDLER in big white block letters across the front. He will do the whole race talking into his earpiece and looking from side to side suspiciously.

As you can tell, I am having a BLAST with this. Life is good!

Good luck, KEEP TRYING and my best,

Trace