My Father and I

My father and I are in business together in a company started by my grandfather, his father. The picture here is from a story done about our company in '04, Pressure-Packed Business. My father is 76 years old, and until he was in his 75th year was the picture of health. Until he began a series of 3 operations, he was at work every day. If you read the story, make note of his comments about enjoying your job. He is now in the hospital once again fighting various ailments. He went in New Years Eve, and yesterday, was put in ICU (Intensive Care Unit). He appears to be doing better today.
Yesterday, even though I had been going back and forth to the hospital, assisting my mother who is staying with me while he's here, I decided to go for both a 6 mile run with the marathon training group. And then run in a very casual 25/50k. The 6 miles went well, although we ran it faster than I had planned. I ran most of it with a couple of friends who were then going to join me in the trail run. One of them would be doing his first trail run. We got there, and started this informal run. This run was on the honor system, that is there was a sign in sheet, and when you finished, you recorded your time and distance. Most of my friends went ahead of me. I knew that if I was to do the whole 31 miles, I would have to "start off slow, and then back off." Within about 5 miles I had passed most of them, and continued on to the turn around point. This was a double out and back, but when I got to the turn around, my Garmin was reading over 8.5 miles. It should have been around 7.75. When I got back to the start, I had over 17 miles. Anyway, I went to my car to get another bottle, and decided to check my phone. I had two messages, both telling me my father had been transferred to ICU. I sat and thought about it, and decided that since there were several family members with him, I would go back out, but probably not do the whole thing. I started back out, did about 3 miles, and decided I needed to go. I headed back, recorded my miles and time, 23, 4:45, and headed to the hospital. Things were not as bad as had been conveyed to me in my phone messages, I suspected as much. But, he is in ICU, so it is serious. As a friend of mine says "thanks for listening."