Go, you chicken fat, go away!

It was 7:37am when I started and the sun was up.  It's been a couple of days since I ran this, so the only thing I remember is stopping to talk to Rob Carlock, my old supervisor at RWCD.  I asked how it was going and he said, "It's dry up."  We had a chuckle together.  He asked how far I was walking.  I told him I was actually jogging, and I'm just getting over Covid, so I'm just doing a mile and a half.  That pretty much ended the conversation.

I finally did two loops.  It was nice and dark out.  6:45am when I left.  A bit cold, but as usual, I was wearing shorts and a T-shirt.  I was thinking I wasn't going to see anybody today.  But as I was heading south after crossing Adobe, I saw two walkers on the other side of the Canal.  (BTW, I know it's not proper English to capatlize Canal in the context I'm using it, but since I'm referring to the Roosevelt Water Conservation District Canal, and I used to work for them, I do.)  Since the Canal is empty right now, one of the walkers decided they would take the opportunity to walk down the steps.  It was dark, but I could tell she was a girl.  I wasn't sure about the other.  But they both sat down on the steps and when they said good morning to me, it was obvious that they were both girls.  One of them put her phone on the sloped bank of the Canal.  It started to slide down, and they both started saying, "Oh no!  Oh no!"  It was mildly funny.  I finished my two loops and I'm feeling A-ok.

About a week ago I received a package in the mail from Ragnar.  It was a box of Emergen-C that they sent out to all the 2020 team captains.  That was nice.  I set it on my night stand.  A few days ago I brought it upstairs and asked my wife where I should put it. (We're still renovating, so I have no idea where anything goes anymore.)  She said she was going to take it to Maggie.  Maggie thinks she has Covid.  So it was put on the stand next to the front door.  And there it remained until today.  I texted Maggie to see if she was feeling better and if she still wanted the medicine.  She said no and yes.  But she didn't respond until after I had started running.  My plan was to just run it over to her house.  Luckily she responded during my first loop, so I just ran home, grabbed a Walmart bag, and ran to her house.  We talked for a while.  At one point my knee started to tense up, as it sometimes does after I finish running.  I thought I was going to fall down, but I stood there and pretended it didn't hurt.  Then I ran down to University, over to the east side of the Floodway, and back home. 
 

I just hit 700 miles on these shoes.  I almost hit it on my last run, but I was 0.03 miles shy.

I saw two of the white cats that roam our neighborhood this morning.  We had one of them, but one night as I was taking Herbie for a walk, we heard her scream, ran to the backyard to see what was going on, but we never saw her again.

I saw a couple walking their dogs as I entered the Floodway.  I passed them up and said good morning while they held the dogs still.  As I approached Brown, I saw this old lady I see every once and a while.  I said good morning to her.  She actually beat me to Adobe and she kept heading south, so I figured I might pass her again once I headed north from University. 

I saw a man down in the bottom of the Floodway after crossing Adobe.  I lost sight of him as he approached the toe of the channel.  Then I saw him as he walked up the service ramp.  We waved at each other and I didn't think to much about it until I heard, "Is that you, Burt?"  I recognized his voice right away as Tom O'Hare.  Tom is one of my favorite people from the ward, but he doesn't know that.  He's so genuine and funny.  He's a convert to the Church with a Catholic background.  I love Catholics.  But they don't know that.  I stopped to talk with him, but he said, "Don't let me stop you."  So I was off again.  I turned north on, now back on the east side of the Floodway.  When I got to the green belt, I passed the dog walking couple, on the west side of the Floodway.  Then I realized that I never saw the old lady.  She must've turned off at the green belt.

Two  nights ago my wife told me she was taking the girls to the gym to work out.  I said, "What about dinner?"  She said I could just make myself something or she'd make me something when she got back.  I looked around in the fridge and was like, I have no idea what to make.  So I grabbed a cheese stick.  I texted my wife later and told asked her to make me something when she got back.  I got in bed and started watching Netflix.  I was almost asleep when she brought me three delicious shrimp tacos.  I ate them and promptly fell asleep.  Bad idea.  I woke up at 3 in the morning and was not feeling well.  Like my food was just sitting there in my stomach not digesting.  I got up and sat  on the toilet a while.  That helped a little, but I couldn't get back to sleep.  I decided not to go running because I wasn't feeling good.  Last night I made sure not to go to bed until it had been a while since I ate.  I think I fell asleep around 10pm.  But again I woke up at 3:15am and couldn't go back to sleep.  I decided I should go running.

I picked out my green shorts and my old faded orange Ragnar Ambassador shirt.  Hey, nobody would see me in the dark.  I started running at 4:50am.  I noticed that my shirt was starting to ride up my belly.  My weight gain is out of control during the pandemic.  I pulled it down while I was running down the street in case someone drove by.  But once I got to the Floodway I just let it be.  I wondered how far up it would go.    Before I knew it, I was wearing a crop top.  Hey, nobody would see me in the dark.  I just let it sit there until I almost reached Brown. 

It was dark.  You know how when you're driving down the highway at night and a car is coming toward you, there's that time when the headlights are in your eyes and you can barely see the road?  That happened to me.  The street light from Brown Road was shining in my eye, and I thought I was going to step off the trail, and I almost fell.  I got to the other side of the Floodway which is also the RWCD road.  I saw tail lights all the way down at Adobe.  They then became headlights.I thought it was weird to see headlights on the RWCD road at 5 in the morning.  If memory serves me, shift change is at 5:30am.  But then again, it's dry up, so they're not running shifts.  After a while the headlights turned east and drove away.  I got to Adobe and could see the reflection of a vehicle sitting in front of the gate.  Then I heard a dog bark.  As I got closer I could see the owner struggling to get his two dogs under control.  I told him good morning, so he would know that I'm coming through.  He said, "You're all right."  The dog he had a hold of was barking at me and the other dog ran behind me and barked once.  I said, "Hi puppy!"  Who walks their dogs at 5:07am?  Probably a lot of people. 

When I got in line with my house, I could hear David crowing.  Stupid rooster.  I figured that would be the end of the excitement for the day, but as I was running north on the east side of the Floodway, I could make out the outline of an owl in the top of a palo verde tree.  I decided to take a picture and I think it turned out pretty good.  Stay away from my chickens, owl!  But you can take David.

I finally got some decent sleep last night.  I went to bed early.  At 11:30pm I was awakened to the sound of my daughters laughing.  I thought, "oh no, I hope I can get back to sleep."  Luckily I fell asleep again not long after that.  I woke up at 5am and started running at 6:24am.  It was still quite dark.  Yesterday when I checked the temperature on my phone, it said 38º.  Today, 53°.  As I made my way to Adobe I could see someone running west on Adobe.  I knew I had no chance of catching them.  When I turned the corner at Adobe I could see the figure still running up ahead, crossing over the Floodway.  And I saw another figure.  One of them looked like they turned north to run on the west side of the Floodway.  It was real dark, and hard to tell even though the street light was on.  The other one stayed there.  The closer I got the more visible he became.  He was just standing in the road.  Not in the driving lane, but right next to the stripe.  I thought that was queer.  But he was looking at his phone.  I wondered if he was timing someone.  The other person?  But they came from the other direction.  I think.  Who knows?  It was too dark.  So I just went north on the east side of the Floodway as usual.  After about a minute I could see the glow of the guy's cell phone.  Ah, he was just catching his breath.  Probably doing half mile intervals.  He passed me up pretty quickly, and I tried to keep an eye on him.  But even though I left an hour later than yesterday, it was much darker than yesterday.  No stars.  Was there a haze blocking them?  Was it so close to sunrise that the suns rays were blocking them?  I don't know, but I had to concentrate hard on the trail to make sure I didn't run into a tree or something.  Every now and again I would look across the Floodway to see how far ahead of me he was.  Then about half way to Brown someone shined a flashlight at me.  I don't know if they were shining it at me or down in the Floodway, truth be told.  But I thought it was the half mile interval guy.  So he's only doing quarter mile intervals?  But I then I saw the soft glow of his cell phone way up ahead.  So maybe this was the original guy (or gal) that turned north.  So many mysteries in the dark.  When I got to Brown, he was no where to be found.  I'm guessing he continued north. 

Now that I was on the RWCD road, I could see much better.  The RWCD road is nice and straight as opposed to the winding trail on the other side of the Floodway.  Also, there's no trees blocking what little light is given off by the street lights and neighborhood lights.  Speaking of street lights, have you ever been walking down the sidewalk at night and you get close to a street light and it turns off?  Do they have motion sensors?  Shouldn't they turn on rather than off?  You would think as a civil engineer, I would know the answer to that.  Anyway, after I crossed Adobe I could hear the refuse man in the rich part of the ward.  So there's a neighborhood just to the west of the Canal.  That's the rich part.  The neighborhood south of them, south of the green belt, where Maggie lives, is the poor part.  Sorry Maggie.  My neighborhood is the in-betweens.  Anyway, the refuse man.  I say refuse because I don't know if it was the recycling man or the green waste man.  Although, I think they are one in the same right now.  Once the pandemic and lockdown started, they same truck was picking up both.  I don't know if they've gone back to separate or not yet.  Also, I shouldn't say man, because there was a lady driver a while back.  She was nice.  I didn't think my recycling was out to the street yet.  Or my green waste, but what are the chances anything is in the green waste barrel?  I hoped I would make it back to my house in time to take them out.  I did make it back in plenty of time.  Also, the green barrel was full.  Someone chopped up our Christmas tree and filled the barrel up.  But I'm guessing it's going to take 4 or 5 barrels to get rid of all of it.

I woke up shortly after 3am again.  My wife was telling me how she tossed and turned the night before.  She got mad at me when I told her she might be going through the change.  I noticed that she was tossing and turning again.  Well, once I was up, I was up.  I tried to go back to sleep, but to no avail.  I decided to sit on my throne for an hour and then go running.  Right when I finished and before I could flush, I heard a crash outside.  Whenever I hear a noise outside my mind goes to - coyote jumping over the fence to steal my chickens.  So I ran to the window to look for the culprit.  There was no coyote, but the trees were getting tossed around.  The crash I heard was the sun room door slamming from the wind.

Now I was excited to go running.  Sometimes I love facing the elements.  Today was one of those days.  It was 5:26am when I started.  I thought I would have the whole loops to myself.  Who else would be this crazy to be out in the wind this early?  The sky was overcast and it was actually light out.  My theory from the other day must be wrong.  The lights from the City were illuminating the clouds and I could see quite well.  It's been a few days since I ran, so I was a bit stiff.  But I was enjoying the run, and the wind died down a little.  In the home stretch between University and Adobe, I saw the owl swoop down in front of me and land on the wall.  I was going to take a picture, but when I pulled my phone from my pocket, I realized it was raining.  I mean, I knew it was, I just thought it was a light sprinkle.  So, I opted not to take a picture.  I continued running and saw two figures approaching me.  It was two sweet old ladies all bundled up.  I, of course, was not, so one of them said, "You're getting all wet."  My response?  "Yeah, and I just saw an owl."

Just in case you're wondering, I did go back and flush the toilet.

I was awoken a few ticks before 4:30am by David crowing.  I was out the door at 5:23am.  The weather was nice.  I saw a police vehicle at the stop sign and it slowed down to check me out.  It wasn't too dark.  There were some clouds that were providing reflection from the city lights.  I looked upward and estimated between 40% and 50% coverage.  As I was about to enter the Floodway I detected the unmistakable odor of moss.  The Canal must be getting filled up.  I got to Brown and crossed the Floodway to the Canal.  The water was gushing through the radial gates.  There was water once again in the Canal.  Did they fill it up yesterday and I not know because I didn't run?  I looked down in it.  It was dark, but it didn't look full.  Hard to tell.  I could see the reflections of the clouds in the water and every now and then would spot the outline of a duck.  I got to Adobe and once again could hear the water gushing through those radial gates.  I didn't think about it at the time, but the water doesn't usually gush through.  When the Canal is full, the gates open from the bottom and water runs underneath.  This does cause some turbulence, but not a gushing turbulence.  At the half way point between Adobe and University is a well.  It only gets used about once a year.  When I passed by it, I looked down in the Canal and it was as dry as a bone.  What the heck?  I could've swore I just saw water!  I ran back to the other side of the well.  Clouds!  There's water.  Am I going mad?  Back to the other side, and ah ha!  Here comes the water.  It was just barely moving along despite the gushing sounds at the gates.  I guessed there couldn't be more than 1 cfs (cubic feet per second) moving through.  I wondered at this rate how long it would take to fill the Canal.  Maybe I'll do some math later.  Seems like it would take a while.  I texted my buddy Brad at the District to tell him that I had just passed the water as it was filling up the Canal.  I told him that I guess I'm faster than water.  Probably not the text he wanted to see before 6 in the morning.

I decided to do 3 loops today since I missed yesterday for no good reason.  I continued down to Main.  Once I crossed University it got darker.  I looked up and now it looked like there was only 20% to 30% cloud coverage.  There was quite a bit to the west of me, but nothing above or to the east.  I ran to Main and went to the other side of the Floodway.  Before I got to University, I saw a man in his backyard in the 55+ community.  His porch light was on.  I said good morning to him.  Right before University is their tennis courts.  There were no lights on, but a dog started barking at me.  I then saw the owner telling it to be quiet.  Since he probably heard me tell the other guy good morning, I said good morning to him, too.  I crossed University and looked down at the wall to see if I could see Jeff.  His sleeping bag was there, and it looked like he was in it.  On the other side of the wall is a small little neighborhood park. There's an opening in the wall for access.  Looking through the opening I saw another person.  Where are all these people coming from?  I looked at my phone and it was 6:06am.  I didn't think I was going to see anyone, but within two minutes I had seen 4 people.  I saw one more person before I finished.  They were wearing a headlamp.  I contemplated yelling at them that if they hurry they could catch up to the water.  But that would've been weird.

David woke me up again at the same time as yesterday.  So I was out and running at exactly the same time as yesterday.  5:23am.  But before that I had remembered that I left the water running in the backyard last night.  I meant to shut it off before I went to bed, but I forgot.  So my grapefruit trees are nice and watered.  But my orange trees didn't get touched.  About a month or so ago I noticed that a couple of chickens were roosting the night in one of the grapefruit trees.  This is what my remaining chickens from our previous batch use to do after the coyote attacks.  Then there were three in the tree.  The other night I saw four.  But this morning, even David was up in the tree.  I assume it was because I left the water on and it was flooding out their coop.  So, being up in the tree above the wall line, his crowing had no sound blocking whatsoever.  He usually crows when he wakes up in the morning and at least three more times for every hour after.  He also crows if someone turns on the sunroom light late at night.  And he crows if someone goes in the backyard.  So since I was in turning the water off, he started crowing again.  I bopped him on the head with a shovel.  That stopped him for about a minute, but then he was at it again.  I took the recycling and green barrel out to the street.  Then I started my stretch routine, and he must've heard me and started crowing again.  I keep saying he's got to go, but like Aunt Polly, I don't have the heart to do it.  (I'm listening to the Adventures of Tom Sawyer right now.)  So I was running north on the Floodway and I can clearly hear David again.  I'm like, "I've got to be half a mile away!"  I pull out my Strava and sure enough, half a mile.  He must be waking up everyone.  The rest of the run was uneventful.  The sky was overcast and gray.  The Canal is completely full and serene looking.
 

Saturdays are supposed to be my long runs.  But I'm not in shape for long runs.  But still, I should be able to do at least 4 miles.  Well, I got up this morning, later than the last few mornings, but it was still dark out.  My knees were sore.  Why are they sore?  I'm not running long or fast.  But they were sore.  I thought maybe I would just need to start going and they would loosen up.  I stretched out and started running.  I thought, well, I guess I'll only be doing two loops today.  I don't even feel like 3.

I got to the Floodway and I saw a coyote running down Adobe.  I turned around for a second and then turned back.  I saw it standing in the middle of the road a few hundred feet away.  It was staring at me.  The street light had turned off.  I stopped and watched it for a while.  I thought I saw something smaller dart across the street.  Maybe a cub?  Nah, must be my eyes playing tricks on me.  But why is it just standing there in the middle of the road?  I thought I would wait until a car came by to scare it away.  The street light turned back on and I tried to hide myself behind the warning sign.  Still it just stayed there staring at me and no cars were coming.  As I was about to give up, my eyes finally adjusted to the sight, and I realized I was staring at a tree trunk.  What a fool I am.

I ran up to Brown and headed back down to Adobe on the other side of the Floodway.  I saw a black figure coming toward me.  I think.  Who knows with my eyes today.  But it was.  I couldn't tell if they were running or walking.  Walking.  Man or woman?  Woman.  Then I thought, "I bet that's Edythe."  And it was.  I said, "Good morning!  I'll see you tomorrow at church!"  Shortly after that I realized my knees were still hurting and decided just to do one loop.

It's been raining off and on for the last couple of days.  I didn't run yesterday because I took a nap Sunday and couldn't get to sleep until after 2am.  Even then, I tossed and turned.  I fell asleep early last night.  I got up early this morning and got ready.  My knees weren't hurting like they were Saturday.  I left my shoes somewhere.  Either upstairs near the sun room or downstairs in the laundry room.  I went outside to feed my chickens and got a bunch of mud and probably other stuff on them, so I took them off so as to not spread it all over the carpet.  Anyway, I didn't feel like going and looking for them, so I just grabbed another pair.  My flourescent Asic Gel Kayanos.  They felt a little tight.  When I started running it felt like I had some spring to my step.  But I realized it was just the shoes.  My legs were not feeling great and there was a tinge of soreness in my lower back.  It was finally cold, but luckily there was no rain.  I decided to just do one loop again.

Another early to bed, early to rise.  I wore my schnazzy shoes again.  It was actually cold this morning.  38º.  That's still short and T-shirt weather, though.  At least for me.  The moon was somewhat full.  But it still seemed rather dark.  I decided to try and push the pace a little this morning to help keep warm.  I ended up being 50 seconds per mile faster than my average lately, which isn't saying much.

I woke up before David again.  My phone said it was 52º out.  Nice.  I grabbed my shoes out of the sun room.  Less than 80 miles before I trash them.  They really should be trashed right now.  The sky was overcast with the moon shining behind the clouds creating a soft glow to light the way.  I was going slow today because I pushed it yesterday.  I saw something between the Floodway path and the wall.  I couldn't tell if it was a cat or a stump.  So I stopped and turned my light on.  Two eyeballs shined back at me.  As I was approaching University I saw a light coming towards me.  Must be a cyclist.  I watched the light as it crossed University and it pointed in all directions.  It was zigzagging.  I'm guessing the guy didn't know how to get through the fence.  But after he got through he continued to zigzag and I wondered if he was going to run into me.  So I yelled, "Good morning!"  He said good morning back and rode on.  As I exited the gate, I saw what I thought was a jacket hanging on the fence.  Then I noticed that there was something else hanging next to it, so I went over to get a closer look.  It turns out it was a bunch of pants and a few shirts.  I said out loud, "There's a whole wardrobe here."  Then I could see a light underneath the bridge and I said, "I see your  light."  But I didn't say it loud enough so that whomever it was could hear me.  I then crossed the Floodway and headed back north.  I saw Jeff's sleeping bag.  It was too dark to see if he was in it.  If I look at him at all, I just look for a lump.  But he's so skinny that I can't see a lump in the dark.  Approaching the green belt I saw another light across the Floodway over by a big tree.  I'm pretty sure it was the cyclist.  He had stopped there and turned his light off.  I then saw another sleeping bag between the path and the Floodway.  Someone was in it and I could make out other objects by him.  Maybe a bag and some trash.  It was one of those mornings where if I wasn't confident in my manhood, these things could have freaked me out.