I have an appointment to see my neurosurgeons PA on Monday, but the pain was so severe and relentless yesterday that I requested Nikki take me to the ER at OSU. I was admitted for observation overnight and scheduled for an MRI overnight. I will get the results later this morning and I should be discharged tomorrow morning as well.
Author Archives: JerryLukins
Christmas 2017
This Christmas I didn’t get to see Nikki or the kids. It seems everyone is busy with their own lives and the only time they could schedule a gathering was the only time of the year I get to see my cousins and Aunts and Uncles and I had already planned on seeing them several month before. I hope this isn’t going to be a new trend.
More back issues
My back started causing me problems again when I woke up on the 17th of December with severe pain in my back and my sciatica. It appears to be the same type of pain I was experiencing from two years ago that lead to me having surgery at the end of April in 2016. Let’s hope this time it doesn’t require surgery
Thanksgiving 2017
This Thanksgiving was different than most. We traveled down to Cincinnati the Sunday before Thanksgiving to visit with them. Ashley came along as well and we brought our dogs for the first time to visit Braxton at his home. I was scheduled 2 months ago to work on an upgrade to production that day and my tasks were running late and I ended up driving myself later. As soon as I finished my migration tasks, I left and wasn’t 20 minutes on the road when the team I was helping out was reporting an error and asking for my help determining the cause. I ended spending most of my time at Stephanie’s and Marcus’ on my laptop trying to figure out their issue, which later turned out to be a missed task on their end which prevented their system from talking to our system.
We had beef that Nikki cooked up before we left and it was delicious. I then was able to enjoy a little time socializing with the family and watching the dogs play. Braxton has so much energy he wears our girls out! I was the first one to head out as we were still trying to figure the production issue and I had to get to bed as I worked at 6:00 am the following morning. Almost the entire time traveling down and back, I was on support calls. I had originally told the family the only day I couldn’t go was the 19th. But it was determined that was the only day they could do Thanksgiving and it was miserable for me as I was unable to participate much and made it easy for everyone on the team to point fingers at me at the time, even though the issue was unrelated to our team.
Jonny came home Tuesday night and he ran in the Annual Granville Turkey Trot race. There were almost 2689 runners in the race and Jonny got to see a lot of his old High School team mates. He took 2nd place behind Tyler Otterstead who was Jonny’s team mate in high school when he was a freshman and Tyler was a senior. Tyler runs for Columbia University now.
Jonny then went over to Alyssa’s for Thanksgiving dinner and Nikki and I were home alone for the rest of Thanksgiving day with the dogs.
Jonny runs an 8K at the MAC Championships
It’s the end of the season for Jonny as he ran in the Mid American Conference Cross Country Championships held at Miami University in Oxford, Oh. This time in Oxford was very different than when we were there earlier in the season. Earlier is so hot they ran early to try to avoid the 90 degree heat. This time it was windy wet and low 40’s. Parts of the course had standing water from the rain the had gotten leading up to race time. At least it didn’t rain during the race.
Jonny completed the 8K course in 27:11.7 and placed 74th out of 81 participants. The official results can be found here at TFRRS.
This completes Jonny’s career as a cross country runner as his coach is going to take the mid distance track runners out of competing in the fall in cross country in the upcoming years. We are going to miss watching and cheering him on in races in the fall. He has always been fun to watch run.
Here is the video I took of his final race.
Jonny runs at the Penn State National Open
Jonny ran at the Penn State Nation Open today in State College, PA at Penn State. The campus was very nice and beautiful and the event was held on the Blue and White Gold Course.
This race was a 5.2 mile race instead of an 8K race which is 4.97 miles, so this would be Jonny’s longest race yet. He was racing against schools all across the country including Penn State, Oklahoma State, Villanova, Cornell, North Carolina, University of California Davis, Akron, Bucknell, Lehigh, Duquesne, Loyola, William and Mary, and Kent State.
Jonny ended up 113 out of 131 runners with a time of 27:57. At the 5K mark he was 119, so he passed 6 more runners in the final 3+ Kilometers of the race. The official results can be found here on Athletic.net.
After the race he said he wasn’t feeling well and thought he may have been sick.
Here is the video I took of the race.
Ashley and Shane honeymoon in Hawaii
Ashley and Shane left on October 1st for a week long Honeymoon in Hawaii. They landed on the island of Kauai and were planning on snorkling, kayaking and hiking.
Ashley and Shane with leis
Lei
View from the hotel room
Snorkle Face
Hawaii Overlook
Hiking in Hawaii
Monk Seal on the beach
Waterfall
2017 All Ohio Cross Country Championships
Jonny ran in his third collegiate cross country race and his second 8K race today at Cedarville University located in Cedarville, Ohio. This is the biggest collegiate race in the state of Ohio. All colleges and universities are invited from all divisions. Only 5 Universities in the state didn’t show up with their varsity team. Two of those teams sent their running clubs instead. Jonny was excited for this race, as we was going to be able to see all his friends from high school that went on to run cross country at the next level in the state of Ohio.
Stephanie came up from Cincinnati to watch him race and brought her puppy Braxton as well. After the race she came up to visit for the weekend.
Of the 38 Men’s varsity teams that attended Kent State came in 6th overall, placing 4th out of the 7 Division I schools. Jonny placed 114th overall out of 325 runners in the Men’s Varsity race with a time of 26:52.9, which averages out to a 5:24.5 average mile pace. In Division I he placed 44th out of 68 runners. Out of Division I runners at the varsity level Jonny placed 6th out of 17th runners. Overall out of freshmen runners in the Varsity race Jonny fisnished 15th out of 96 freshmen.
It was a fun race to watch as it reminded me of some of the big high school races Jonny used to run in.
The official results can be found here.
This meet they live streamed and the event and then offered the live stream on demand, which can be found here.
Jonny’s Birthday and Red Hawk Rumble
Jonny’s 19th birthday is today and we got to see him on his birthday down in Oxford, OH at the Red Hawk Rumble invitational where Miami University Red Hawks hosted the Kent State University Golden Flashes. It was unusually hot for the end of September as the temps were in the low 80’s and the humidity was 82%, not an ideal day for the runners. They were originally going to race after noon when the temps were going to be approaching 90 degrees but the coaches decided to bump up the schedule almost 2 hours so the kids could compete when it wasn’t going to be as hot. This meant that Nikki and I had to hustle to get there as we were planning on arriving at 11:00 and now they were racing at 10:30. We pulled into the parking lot and made it to the start line as the official was ready to start the race.
This was Jonny’s first 8K race as the last race was reduced to a 5K due to weather up in Akron. After a the first 200 meters he was near the back of the pack, but settled into a good rhythm and started to advance his position shortly after that, Jonny ended up 21st out of the field of 44 runners. Due to the temps and humidity 8 runners were not able to finish the race. Of the 10 Kent State runners Jonny finish 6th with a time of 27:36.4.
After the race it looked like he jumped in a pool with his clothes on! He was a sweaty mess. Just like high school he went around and congratulated everyone for doing well in a tough race in harsh conditions.
We only got to spend about an hour with him before they were preparing to load up the school vans and head back to Kent State on the opposite corner of the state. It was good to see him and watch him compete again and display his sportsmanship after the race.
The official results can be found here at crossroads timing.
Jonny after running an 8K in the heat and humidity at Miami University.
Here is the video I was able to get of the race. You could see most of the course which was great, but when zoomed in so far, I really need a stabilizing stick for my video camera.
The track team took their team photo this last week as well.
2018 Kent State Men’s Track Team
Tommy Evans Invitational (Akron) – September 7, 2017
Jonny ran his first cross country meet for the Golden Flashes today at Silver Creek Metro Park which is the home of the Akron Zips. The weather was cool in the upper 50’s leading up to race time. Just before the girls race started there was thunder and lightning and the race was delayed 30 minutes. The wind really picked up and the rain started coming down harder with more thunder and lightning. We were told the race was cancelled. We met up with Jonny to drop off more provisions for his pantry in the dorm room and started heading home. We got about 20 minutes away and Jonny texted back saying the race was just delayed and they were planning on running. We turned around and headed back and parked the car and waited for the rain to stop. We were checking the live timing site and as we were looking at the site trying to get some information, they changed from girls preparing for the race to boys on deck. We got out and started walking towards the course and within a couple of minutes we heard a gun go off. We talked to some of the Akron volunteers and they decided instead of scrapping the entire evening they were going to run both the boys and girls in a 5K race instead of the boys running a 4 mile race. They started the boys and after they were on the course for 5 minutes they started the girls, so they had boys and girls on the course at the same time, but on different parts of the course.
Because of the change of events, Jonny didn’t get a good long warm up and they walked the course earlier as a 4 mile course. So Jonny wasn’t really sure exactly where he was in the race since the course changed on him. He looked nice and relaxed on the course and after the race he said it was more like a hard workout than an actual race. He didn’t kick until late, but finished very strong with a time of 16:22.4 and finished 34th out of 45 runners.
We were happy we got to see him run instead of them cancelling the entire race after driving 2 and a half hours to get to the meet.
The official results can be found here on the Finish Timing web site.
I took some video of the race.