Easy 4 this morning.

QOTD: Hahaha. Yes. I am usually pretty aware, and I can't think of anything in particular. But I have put my foot in my mouth many times.

I am heading to the planet of fitness myself at lunch for usual nonsense to keep me buff and manly. Might trail jog a few miles in the evening on the local trail as well.

QOTD: Haha... good one runtrail. I do stuff like that often enough but can't recall any recent ones.

Interesting run to report from last night. I decided to take the Lady out to Monocacy Hill trail as we hadn't been there in ages and I can manufacture a short loop out there. Plus it's a cool place in the fall as if you take the trail up to the top of the hill, the viewpoint, the scenery is fantastic as you can see 30-40 miles in the distance including Mt Penn in Reading and far out to the Adamstown Ridge and beyond. Plus this time of year we have the fall colors, and early sunset so if you do the climb at the end of the run and time things right, the view point offers and amazing sunset.

Anyway, we started our run and an older lady (no not my Lady the gsp, but an actual human) asked me how far I was going and when I told her 4 miles or so she asked me to be on the look out for an older man who had separated from the group who had been out hiking. She thought he might have went up to top of the hill and was worried because he had some dementia. I told her I'd wander some lower trails and then head up there just in case. So we did our run, saw no one for several miles until we came to the trail junction for back entrance for the summit trail. At that junction I saw 2 guys with these odd looking white sacks that looked sort of heavy. They told me they were bags of sand, and they were training for a Spartan race by climbing up and over the mountain carrying said bags of sand. Um, ok. I wished them well, and while I had planned to hike the steep 1/4 mile section up to the summit, decided I better push the pace and run most of it, as well, want 56 year old man wants to be beaten by two youngster up the hill who are carry heavy bags of sand? Not me. So I had a bit of tempo effort and pushed myself up to the top of the hill in pretty good time, only walking the last ridiculously rocky patch.

Once to the top I planned to take in the view and wait for the crackpots with sandbags so I could thank them for making me push myself a bit. But it was sort of a scene at the summit with a couple, a pair of antsy but friendly barking dogs, and an elder gentleman who was very talkative and a little confused. Turns out he was the lost elder gentleman the lady asked me to look for, and meanwhile the guy with the dogs was on the phone talking to emergency services. Apparently the older gentleman was worried about getting himself back to the trailhead as he did not know the terrain. How he made it up there, I am not sure, but since he did I assumed he was in good enough shape to make it down the gentler side of the slope, assuming he could navigate a few small rocky escarpment patches. So since it was nearing sunset and getting dark, I offered to escort him through the rocks and down the trail. I figured it was best to move him as quickly as possible before darkness hit, even though we may have had fire department rescue on the way. He was leery at first, but I kept a steady hand on him during the tricky parts, then the sand baggers showed up and we had a large escort for him through the rocks and down the trail. Meanwhile the sirens were wailing down below and when we off the hill to the flat approach to the trailhead here came the fire crew guys with the 4 wheelers and other gear. But we had down the hill already safe and sound and in one piece. The family was all very happy to see him again. Sort of a funny older man, in good shape really, who just rambled a lot about his family. I am glad we were out there to help him.

No run today.  Knee feeling pretty good, so can't wait to get out tomorrow.

dc - haha. Be careful insulting those Montgomery County old ladies.  They can get mean down there.

XT - Wow.  How the heck did they let a man with dementia get away.  DW works at a large Residential Senior Living Center (formerly called a  Nursing Home) and she "meets' the same people every day.  They give a nice talk to relatives about keeping an eye out for your loved ones as dementia progresses. Good thing you were there.

QOTD:  Hell yes.  One that I easily remember is when I was telling an older patient about why she need to stay away from "Cult Fit" since it likely caused her neck injury, and she told me her son owned the local store. Oops. Should have softened it a bit, and probably not a good idea to have used the word Cult.

 

QOTD:  Oh yes, the dreaded foot in mouth disease. Strikes me too often.  Like mistaking a older lady for a mans mother when she was his wife and younger then him to boot. Or the mother who looks like she's younger then her son and therefore I think it's his wife.

 

The biggest happened long time ago. In the 80s and 90s I had some not so nice encounters with some deadheads that left me a little less tolerant of them. Then In '95 I was in Paramedic school when Jerry died and made so comments that weren't in my normal nice guy character only to find out that there were some closet deadheads in the class, oops.

 

I'm always pretty careful what I say, but sometimes things slip out the wrong way.

Don't worry Muppy, he doesn't mean you and I.  

AT, yes exactly. I was wondering how they let that guy slip away. I think he got to the top and just froze, not sure if could make it down. The back side up the hill is smoother but very steep. Like I said, he made it up there and he wasn't hurt so figured he could make it down with some coaxing. There was a couple up there before me but they seemed more interested in catching the sunset than helping him down so they called rescue. The sunset, it was a good one, I caught a glimpse of it coming out from behind a low cloud base on the horizon just as we left and made sure the old man looked too since he bothered to go up there.

Dreamer, the 2 guys in the first ATV were pretty young. Probably had no trouble getting up there. The guy behind them in the bigger vehicle with the stretcher type thing, not sure about. It's 300-400 foot climb, but the top are patches of rocky escarpment. They would have had to hike some at night over the rocks to get him. I think they had the entire Amity Township fire department at the trailhead when we emerged!

Funny, a remember a year or two ago, same place I finished a run and they were just getting ready to go search/find someone. That crew did not look to fit but I guess they managed. I volunteered to run another loop or two locate the missing guy but they declined my assistance.

Did 4 after work today.  Nice and cool here.  I now you're sick of hearing about it, but my calf is not getting better.  I've now tried complete rest and some light running.  Neither have helped. I now have some ointment junk on it with a wrap.

XT, cool that you were able to help out.  Maybe they should put a spot tracker on that guy. I'll bet my DW will get one for me some day.

qotd:  Yeah, as they say "open mouth - insert foot".  Can't remember any recent mishaps.