A couple of times anyway. A couple of miles each.

Louis seems to feel best just after PT, so last week when T-Rex needed my car at the same time I had her drop me off at Team Rehab and ran home from there. It's a little over a mile and a half. I had to walk twice because I'm so out of shape, but it was enough to officially call it a run. There was no watch or phone and I didn't record it anywhere. The pain I've been having wasn't any worse than before. I need some kind of movement or it's like the whole inside of the left leg tightens up and pulls on the tendons. EXCEPT ... those muscles don't seem to be tight at all. I'm normally a pretty limber guy, especially for a runner, and I've no issues with any of my normal stretches, or any of the ones Amanda has given me. Any ideas, Loopsters?

That was Monday. Did it again on Wednesday. On Friday, I ran two miles with one walk break. Saturday was OK but hurt on my walk. Sunday and Monday it was sore. Monday night I decided to wear a sleeve on it. Big mistake. Kept it on at work and it was the most pain I've been in since before surgery. Took it off after lunch and it was better. Not good, but better.

Talked to Amanda about it. She's not sure what to do. Tomorrow is my last day and I don't know that I've made any progress. The exercises they've given me are beneficial, I suppose, but there isn't anything that I'm doing now that I couldn't do when I first came in. And still the pain. So, since it seems that running isn't painful and doesn't seem to increase my pain, we're going to try that. I ran two yesterday, will do another couple today and see what two days in a row do. Maybe I just need to run more. Another visit with the doc?

Friday afternoon I went into the yard to trim the trees. Just a few of the lower sagging limbs to give the grass underneath a little light. Did the pear tree. Did the cherry. Then I moved to the Japanese maple at the corner of the house. Cut one tiny little branch. Heard a loud buzzing in my ears and felt something brushing around my head. Swatted at what I figured was a big fly. It didn't scare, but came at me even more aggressively. Uh-oh.

That got my heart rate up right away. Where did this clown come from and what was he so mad about? We often have bees - honeys and bumbles - around, pollinating the flowers, but they pretty much leave us alone if we don't mess with them. Anyway, I swatted at him again, and again. Still he came. Then he had company. Then I felt the stings. Left arm, right arm. I'd knocked my glasses off my face and had run to the patio, where I imagined I'd be out of range. Nope. There was still at least one trying for an opening. Mrs. Dave heard what were apparently my little girl screams and was trying to open the door. I'd come from around the garage side of the house and the back door was still locked. One of those sliding doors (Did you know they call them "door walls" in Michigan? Weird, I know.) with a second lock near the floor. That took precious seconds while my enemy penetrated my defenses and jabbed me in the neck. B@$#@&D!!

The door finally opened after what seemed to me 3-4 hours and I tumbled onto the family room carpet. Mrs. Dave saw the attacker still on my neck, brushed him off and stomped him. The first casualty.

I had three stings. The one on the back of my neck, one above the left elbow on the inside of my bicep, and another a couple of inches above the right wrist. Lucky there were only those, I guess. Put some ice on them and then realized that my glasses were still outside, no doubt on the grass where I'd been trimming branches.

Seemed to me that the 30-40 feet between the patio and the area where I'd been attacked was far enough that I could go have a look and even avoid the flyers while I retrieved them. Nope. I only made a few steps off the patio when I heard and saw something at me. It was like he'd been waiting for me. And he was huge. He looked like a crow, I swear. It was big and black and headed directly AT MY FACE! I tried to duck but it was too late - or maybe just in time. He hit me right below my left eye near the bridge of my nose. The sting was instant, although I did get some satisfaction from making him the second casualty of the skirmish. Back inside.

We could see my glasses on the ground, half way between the cherry and the maple.

We could also see this, about ten feet in the air, with who knew how many big black fliers circling menacingly around my ladder and both trees.

Oh. Freaking. Em. Freaking. Gee.

So much for trimming the trees this weekend. Interesting (not going to say "funny" here), I'd spent the previous two days watering the grass, mowing and digging out another tree stump in the back yard, some of that work exactly there under that thing with no idea that this mammoth-sized bug condo was hanging just a few feet above me.

I'm not one to interfere with the creatures of this world. I know they have vital functions to perform in the circle of life and deserve to live out their existence free from the depredations of man. But this is my back yard. There are billions of acres on the planet far enough away from humanity for wasps to build nests and do whatever it is they do. Not in my house. And they came at me first.

There are only a couple of options for this type of campaign. I had what I thought was a full can of wasp killer from another nest that I'd had in the front yard a few years ago. That one was near the sidewalk and I had concern for the neighborhood kids who walked nearby. It seemed pretty easy as I remembered it. But if they were patrolling the whole yard, how was I going to get at them? The instructions said to wait for dusk when they were the least active. But my glasses!

I waited for several hours, wearing my contact lenses that I usually only use for running nowadays. Every time I looked through the window they still seemed pretty excited. Later that afternoon I thunderstorm came through and that seemed to settle them down. I sprayed at them from an upstairs window, but maybe because of the age of the can or maybe I'd partially emptied it on that other nest, it only gave me a few seconds before petering out. So off to The Home Depot for reinforcements.

I was able to give them a decent soaking, but it wasn't as thorough as I'd remembered doing the last time. You' supposed to wait until the next day to make sure you catch any stragglers who might have been away from home when you sprayed the first time. So I stayed inside until Saturday morning, then went out to check. I guess I expected to see a pile of carcasses on the ground under the tree. What I found was big black bugs flying in and out and around the football-sized thing hanging in the air. Not dead. Not crazy and swarming all over like the day before, but definitely not dead. They must be made of harder stuff.

Anyway, since the bugs insisted on surviving, I decided to get a bigger gun. Back to HD where I bought the biggest gun I could find.

That's right - PRO. I was now a professional killer. What's that you say? Chemical weapons were banned by the 1925 Geneva Convention? The 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention ban (signed by 165 countries) prohibits the production, stockpiling, and use of chemical weapons and their precursors. Sue me.

This time the stream was strong and solid. I soaked the nest from two sides, then went upstairs and gave it another shot from above. I let it soak through the day and checked it again after work, PT and my run on Tuesday.

This time - like an attack by the Dread Pirate Roberts - there were no survivors.

The war is over. I won.