GEORGE

Last Friday morning, I headed, like usual, to my awesome chiropractor, Dr. Lynn Kerew. One of the best parts of visiting her office is seeing George. He's the office manager >> a runner himself, one of the sweetest and most friendly sort of people you could ever hope to meet, in his 40s, I'd say. He always makes you feel like a rock-star. He's interested in your life, asks questions, and gives lots of encouragement always making you feel like a million bucks. On Friday, he was really interested to hear about the Santa Barbara triathlon which I was going to race in the next day. George was always impressed with triathlon and often told me he might like to try one. He told me I looked great and he knew I'd do awesome. Then, as I was leaving, I promised to tell him all about the weekend on Monday, when I'd see him again -- like always.

I left the office early, to head to Santa Barbara with Dani. Traffic was really bad, even though we headed out at 2pm. When we got to SB, it was just beautiful and we were both so happy to be there. We picked up our race packets and stood in the warm sun chatting with buddies as they arrived. Later, we enjoyed a low-key evening, having a pasta dinner with Sharna, Mike and Chris on State St. Each talking about our expectations for the race.

Sat. morning, we headed to the race bright & early (really, dark & early). It was a long one for me. It was a mile swim, 34 mile hilly/technical bike course + a 10mi run. My highlight was running the last half of the run course with Marielle, who was equally untrained for this undertaking. We visited and took it slow, more enjoying the afternoon and each others company than anything else.

That night, in typical LA Tri Club-post-event-celebration fashion, a crew of us got together for a dinner at Carlitos. We had many, many laughs, great food, wayyyy too much to drink (Thanks to shots provided by Jamie and Konrad). And, just celebrated the season and a great race-day.

The next day, we drove home >> no traffic, thankfully, this time. I got to work, uploaded some photos from the weekend, sent a few emails and headed home to take it easy and recover.

This morning... I was looking VERY forward to my chiro appointment. Monday's are always the most welcome visit because I usually get all out of wack after the workouts or races during the weekends. I was also excited to report back to George -- I was looking forward to his enthusiastic interest in how the weekend went and just his typical George greeting. But, when I arrived, he was not in his seat, someone else was there. I asked, disappointed, "Where Is George?" and when this woman said, "there is no easy way to say this", I thought, you've got to be kidding... did he quit.... I could not imagine that. But, I could not imagine even more what she said -- That George passed away yesterday. A heart failure. A condition that was genetic which had gone undetected. No warning. He was never sick. His heart just failed due to this unknown genetic fault.

This was a man who I've seen about 3x per week since the beginning of the year. I can't remember a day he was not chipper. A kind and patient man. I can only imagine how many lives he touched. He was such a star. I'm very sad today. I can't imagine how sad Dr. Lynn must be, and the other patients who've known him even better or longer than I have. George was a lovable man, a friend, who I'm very sad is lost. Really puts things in perspective.