Yesterday, we lost my brother-in-law, Rob.  As my mother told me yesterday, it’s been a tough month.

Rob was a very cool guy, married to Becky’s older sister.  He and Carolyn were simply made for each other.  They struck me as relics from the 60s, still carrying the values of the youth of that era.  Anyone who knows me well, knows that for a long time I felt like I was temporally misplaced, and should’ve been a contributing member of the latter part of that decade.  As it was, I was just turning six at the dawn of the 70s, and so only read about that era.  To me, Rob and Carolyn brought that decade alive for me every time we saw them.

Rob was a hyper-distance runner, and man do I wish I’d talked with him about that!  As I continue to struggle through learning how to run and how to enjoy it, I’d love to have picked his brain around his running regimen, and how he kept motivated to do it.  If you search the internet, you’ll find records of him running from 50km to almost 200km in events through the midwest.  That’s amazing, especially to a big ol’ guy that looks at 5km as a big deal.

He was a gentle man, and a very unique guy in a world that needs more unique in it.

Run, Gutdayzke, run.