Go, you chicken fat, go away!

I woke up late again.  It was going to be light out when I ran, but I had to do it.  There was a beautiful sunrise that I wish I could've enjoyed longer.  But sunrises don't last all day.  There wasn't that many people out, but I could see the few that were.  As I was heading south on the west side of the Floodway approaching Adobe, I could see two people walking.  I could also see something shorter out in front of them.  Possibly a dog?  I got closer and realized it was a tiny human.  Then another.  Then another.  None of them could be older than 3 years old.  Who has that many tiny humans?  Then I saw the mom was carrying an infant in a pouch on her chest.  I finally realized that it was the Smith's from the ward.  I stopped and talked to them a bit from a distance.  Sis. Smith told me they had just picked up another foster child.  I told her my wife is jealous.  She wants a foster child.

I downloaded Spotify.  It's nice because unlike YouTube, I can turn the screen off on my phone and the music keeps playing.  So I listened to music blaring out of my pocket while I ran today.

It's been hard to be an NBA fan lately with all the nonsense and down right dangerous rhetoric that some of the players spew.  But it's hard not to be when you've been one for most of your life.  I still get messages on my phone when the Suns play.  Late last night I saw a message and checked the score.  There was just seconds left in the game and the Suns were down by 2.  The Suns hit a 3 pointer with just over a second left and ended up winning.  I also get suggestions to watch the game recaps the next morning after a game.  The recaps are between 9 and 10 minutes long with just highlights of both teams scoring.  I decided to watch the recap this morning to see just how exactly they pulled it off.  I did it while I was stretching out.  I usually don't stretch out for quite that long.  Devin Booker hit the three with Chris Paul assisting.  I started my run and I knew that I was a few minutes earlier than yesterday, so maybe if I was lucky I would get to see a beautiful sunrise.  I can't see the sunrise when I'm running north (north by northwest really) because it's behind me.  But I can see it when I'm running south.  So halfway through my first loop I was treated to a beautiful sunrise with the American flag waving in the midst.  But despite all my stretching out, my legs felt uber tight, and I decided one loop would be all I should do today.

Ever since we bought our house just over a year ago, we've been trying to renovate it.  When I say we, I mean my wife and my daughters.  So far they've ripped apart one of the upstairs bathrooms, tore the drywall out of the kitchen, and graffittied my office wallpaper.  We've had a couple of contractors come by to give us quotes, but then they seem to disappear.  But we did have one guy do some work in our laundry room.  My wife demo-ed the cabinets and the tile.  Then the guy came in and installed the new flooring.  It's supposed to be waterproof.  Well, we had some flooding issues and it appears it's not as waterproof as advertised.  So we called my old friend to see if he could help out, and it turns out, this kind of stuff is exactly what he does for a living.  So during this week, their team has come by to remove the flooring, cut out drywall, put fans out to dry everything up, and eventually they'll put things back together.  As part of the renovations, my wife wants to remove our bathtub and construct a walk-in shower.  I told my friend that after they pulled out the vanity and the toilet, and he said now's the time to do it.  So thinking that today might be the last day I get a decent shower, I better go running.

We're down to one toilet in the house now.  It's all the way upstairs and I have to go through Julianna's bedroom to get to it.  After my normal daily routine of sitting on the throne for half an hour, I headed back downstairs to get dressed.  My legs felt stiff and sore going downstairs.  I wasn't sure if it was from running or from sitting on the toilet for half an hour.  But as I started running, I felt surprisingly well.

The moon looked to be about half phase, but it was providing decent light.  I could actually see my shadow from the moonlight.  As I approached the Floodway I saw two fast moving figures approaching me.  I realized it was a couple speedwalking.  They were probably speedwalking faster than I was running.  I ran north on the Floodway path and saw two more figures approaching.  It was the two old ladies I see from time to time.  Going south down the RWCD road, I saw another runner on the other side of the Canal.  When I got to Adobe, I could see a cyclist coming down the road.  I must've fixated on it, because there was a lady running west on Adobe and I didn't see her until she said good morning to me.

Looking down the RWCD road, I could see a bright light that looked like it was on the road, also, but appeared to be way down the road.  Like past University.  The Canal takes a slight angle about half way between University and Main, so whomever it was, they must've been near that point, which was about 3/4 of a mile away.  I started thinking about how I don't normally see this many people out this early.  Then I remembered that yesterday when I took my daughters to school, I saw 5 runners within the first half mile.  The first one I saw was a blonde girl.  Now I've seen this blonde girl before and she looks exactly like the Schumacher's youngest daughter who has recently returned from her mission and gotten married.  The Schumacher's have beautiful children.  The boys are handsome, strong, square jawed chaps, and the girls look like blonde bombshell Barbie dolls.  But I thought, it can't be her because now that she's married, I'm sure she doesn't live with her parents anymore.  They do have one son and his family that moved back in with them, Blake.  Blake was the Sunday School President, and his father, Bruce, was his Secretary.  Then Bruce got released and I was called to be the new Secretary.  But this was all during Covid, so we never did anything.  Now there's a new President and I'm still Secretary.  I did take attendance in the last Zoom meeting we had.  Anyway, I realized that the first girl I saw wasn't the Schumacher girl.  When I pulled up to the light at 48th and Brown there was another girl about to cross the street.  Lo and behold, she was the Schumacher girl!  I said to my daughters, what is she doing in this neighborhood?  She doesn't live with her parents, does she?  My daughter said she didn't think so, but she probably does live near here because she's in charge of Mission Prep.

So as the memory of yesterday's drive to school were playing out in my mind, I could still see the light way down at the end of the Canal.  It didn't seem to be getting closer.  I would have guessed by how bright it was, that it was one of those lights cyclists screw on to their bikes.  But cyclists move relatively fast, even if they are pedalling slow.  I started to wonder if it was a runner and they for some reason had their headlamp on backwards, and that's why it didn't appear to be getting any closer.  But, I thought, they should be hitting that angle soon, and I wouldn't be able to see them anymore.  Eventually I realized there were two lights.  They were coming towards me, but at a very slow pace.  It didn't dawn on me that they could be walkers.  But they were.  I saw them cross University.  Their lights were so bright, that they could probably see me and recognize me from a distance if they knew me.  I planned in my head what I would say to them: "Good morning.  I could see you guys from a mile away!"  And that's exactly what I said, but right after saying good morning to them and spitting out the rest of my packaged greeting, one of them said, "Good morning, Burt."  It was the Schumacher's!  What a funny morning.

Yesterday was Emily's birthday.  She wanted Olive Garden for dinner.  So we did an online order and had a veritable feast.  I don't even want to know how much we spent on it.  There's tons of leftovers.  We also had ice cream for dessert.  Lots and lots of ice cream.  I thought I would have a rough night of sleep.  I slept fairly soundly for the most part, but I did wake up to switch from my right side to my left side and vice versa often.  But I would immediately go back to sawing logs.  At some point during the night Emily joined us.  I usually hear her come in, but didn't last night.  Maybe it had to do with all the fans blowing for the construction.  Anyway, around 4:30am I was trying to wake up, but had another bout of sleep paralysis.  I was doing everything I could to break out of it or to alert my wife so she could shake me out of it.  But with Emily between us and the fans, she didn't even notice.  I finally woke up.  Blah!  I went upstairs to use the bathroom.  Despite all the food I ate last night, I didn't have a bowel movement, and I hoped that wouldn't come back to haunt me during my run.  It did.  I had to stop to compose myself a couple of times, but it wasn't too bad.

It seemed to be just a hair darker than yesterday.  Approaching Brown Rd., I saw a figure moving towards me and then I could see a dog, also.  I thought it might be this girl I see sometimes walking her dog, so I said in a pleasant voice, "Gooooood morning!"  Then I realized it was Jesse Lee and he said, "Good morning, Burt."  Oh.  I lowered my voice down a couple of octaves and in my manliest voice said, "How's it going, Jesse?" 

I felt all right during the run other than my battle for composure.  On the last leg of loop 2, I saw two bright lights on the other side of the Floodway and thought it must be the Schumacher's again.

We spent all morning Saturday cleaning up the junk on the side of our house.  Then to make my neighbor happy, we trimmed some of the trees along the wall.  The City of Mesa had brought out a bunch of large trash bins and placed them throughout the neighborhood.  It was a lot of hard work, and I was quite sore for a few days.  However, I've also been lazy and busy with work.  I finally decided to get out and run this morning.  The front door was open.  At least the screen door was closed.  It was a little cold in the house, but not too bad.  I saw the Schumacher's again with their headlamps on.  I think their batteries are going a bit low.  They were halfway across University when I turned to go to the other side of the Floodway.  When I got home I decided to cool off outside.  Sometimes I just sit on the side of the bathtub to cool off.  But we don't have a bathtub anymore.  It didn't seem like I was waiting too long when the Schumacher's came passing by.  I had left them behind with 3/4 of a mile to go.  I must've been sitting there longer than I thought.

Today is Feb. 15th.  I realized I didn't blog so I'm going off of memory.  The trouble is, I don't remember too much.  However, as I was running this morning I remembered that I forgot to mention one thing.  Now I know why I forgot.  Because I completely forgot to blog!  I will now mention that one thing.

I did my usual two loops around the Floodway/RWCD Canal.  As I was about to hit the last leg of the second loop I saw someone walking toward the gate.  I thought it might be Jeff, the hobo, and it was.  He went over to his little corner.  Then I saw someone else walking down the path.  He had on a backpack and what looked like Army camo.  Another hobo.  So I ran a little and stopped to see if he was going to interact with Jeff, which he did.  I trust Jeff, but I don't trust anyone else I haven't met.  Then I realized there was another hobo walking along the top of the bank of the Floodway.  He probably saw me watching them.  So I ran away and there behind an umbrella on the ground was another hobo.  This place is becoming skid row.

I got up later than I wanted to this morning.  But then again, I went to bed later than I wanted to.  Saturday we did one more load of tree branches.  My allergies have been acting up for the last couple of weeks as a result.  But at least my yard looks better, right?  So says my neighbor. 

I ran north on the Floodway path and was brooding about my wife kicking me off the toilet.  I wasn't done!  I guess at the time I thought I was done, so I can't blame her really.  I went to the other side of the Floodway to head south and I saw someone coming.  She had to wait for me at the gate so we didn't bump into each other.  It was Edythe.  Later I saw two more runners, a girl and a guy.  The girl was about 20 feet ahead of the guy.  I said good morning to her first, but she didn't say anything back.  Then I said good morning to the guy and he did respond with a good morning of his own.

I was running even slower than usual this morning for reason already mentioned.  I even had to stop and compose myself briefly about 0.05 miles away from home.

Other than the two cyclists I saw at the intersection, there was nobody else out this morning.  It was cold.  It was dark.  Only a lunatic would be out in shorts and a T-shirt at this time of day.

My wife is going to go on a hike tomorrow with her group of friends from Kingman.  I decided I would like to join.  I woke this morning at 3:30am and thought I would go back to sleep for another hour and then go running.  But I woke up after 6am.  I didn't start running until 6:45am and it was already light out.  I ran into Edythe again.  She was walking today.  My legs were really sore.  Like really sore.  So I decided to just do one loop so that I would be all right for tomorrow's hike.
 

This was a hike, not a run.  Daylene and crew came into town again.  They planned on doing two hikes this weekend, Weaver's Needle on Saturday and Daisy Mountain on Sunday.  My wife told me that the hike was 12 miles long.  I said I wanted to go.  Honestly, if she would have said it was 13 miles long, I probably would have opted out.  It turned out to be 13.71 as measured by Strava.

We were supposed to meet at 7:15am to start.  We were just a couple of minutes late as Vickie was putting her stuff together.  She had bought a new backpack and water pouch.  She was trying to close the lid and she said she kept feeling like it was not going on straight.  I grabbed it, turned it upside down, squeezed it, and it wasn't leaking.  So I said it must be good.  She discovered it was leaking during our ride out there.  She also forgot to grab the two water bottles she had gotten out to take with her.

Weaver's Needle is in the Superstition Mountains in Apache Junction, AZ.  Vickie had told me to bring a jacket, which I did, but I took it off as soon as we got there.  Some of the other hikers said it will probably get cold as we get up to higher elevation.  I knew I could tough it out, and it never did get colder.  It did get pretty warm.  Not hot, but warm.

There were a lot of cars in the parking lot.  We figured it would be pretty busy.  The first 2.5 miles was kinda busy.  I guess a lot of people just hike the Peralta Trail up to the point where you can see Weaver's Needle.  Then they turn around and go back.  After that, we hardly saw anyone. This is a picture of the point where everyone turns around.

I was snacking on mixed nuts while I was walking along, and I would take sips from my Camelback.  We stopped near the halfway point, and I was starting to feel tired.  I hoped after I ate some more food, I would feel better.  My appetite wasn't great, and I could only eat half of my ham and cheese sandwich.  I forced down a piece of beef jerky, also and a couple of miniature cookies.  We started off again, and I was lagging way behind the rest of the group.  After a while they stopped and waited for me.  They started again as soon as I caught up and now I was in the middle.  Well, there was six of us, so Daylene and Chuck were in front of me and Vickie, David, and Toby or Koby or Colby was behind me.  Vickie poked my shoe with her walking stick and apologized.  I moved over so they could pass me so I could be behind everyone again.  I prefere to hike alone because sometimes I want to go fast and sometimes I want to go slow. 

I realized I was starting to crash.  I felt like I was ok, and would be able to make it, but that I would have to go real slow.  The group stopped for me again right before a very steep climb.  This is where I really had to stop and get some rest.  My wife said she still had a liter of water.  She asked how much I had.  She pulled it out of my pack and I realized I had hardly drank any even though I had been sippping on it quite often.  That was my problem.  So I took some big drinks and at some energy beans.  That climb was brutal, but after I got up it, I started feeling better.  I was now drinking more and more water.  The wind started to pick up, too.  It would completely dry my mouth out which would make me drink more.  By this time we had told the rest of the group not to wait for us.  With about four miles to go, Vickie was out of water.  She thought we only had three miles to go, but I said I think it's going to be closer to 4.  I was right.  She said she would be fine.  We kept going and stopped to rest one more time.  I found a patch of grass and laid down.  If my legs weren't on top of rock, I probably would have taken a nap.  We started going again and I asked Vickie if she wanted any of my water.  She said she was fine.  I then took another sip and realized that was the last of my water.  We still had 2.5 miles to go.  I was feeling better now despite not having water and now Vickie started to lag.  I just kept going so that I could get back to the parking lot and hopefully someone would have water.

Now we were starting to see more people again.  I was able to follow them to know that I was on the right trail.  Vickie has the AllTrails app, so she wouldn't get lost.  I know she's a stronger hiker than I am, but I felt bad about leaving her.  I tried to go slow so she could catch up, but she never did.  There were still some more significant climbs in those last two miles.  Luckily the mountains provided shade for a bit of it.  But the wind was still blowing and making my mouth dry.  My lips were getting cotton mouth.  I just had to keep moving forward so I could get to the parking lot. 

Finally I saw the parking lot.  It looked like it was a mile away, but I knew it was closer.  I was so thirsty.  Also, for much of the hike we were without cell service.  But I was back in range.  Since I hadn't seen my wife for a while now, I called her.  She answered and I asked how she was.  She said fine.  She didn't sound happy.  Next, I called Daylene.  She said she was still there waiting for us.  I said, "You didn't have to wait for us, but since she did, did she have any water?"  She said that Dave had some.  What a relief.  I just had to get there.  The final half mile was all downhill.  But it was very steep and it had steps.  It was painful.  At least I could move my legs again, but they were continuing to ache with each step.  At times I would yell out if I started to slip or if a step down was real high.  I'm glad no one heard me.  I finally got to the parking lot, and wouldn't you know it, they didn't have any water waiting for me.  C'mon, guys!  LOL!  But they went and got it.  Not too long afterwards we saw Vickie coming.  She was exhausted and dropped all her gear when they handed her the water.

I guess I really don't like hiking that much and I had forgotten that.  That's why I didn't do Rim to Rim with my wife.  Maybe if I get in better shape and lose a few pounds.  Oh well.  We went out to eat with the group once we were done.  This turned into an all day thing even though we thought it would only be half a day.  We had plans to finish cleaning outside, but that didn't happen.  I guess we'll have to do that next weekend.

My legs were finally feeling recovered enough to go for a run.  I decided to just do one loop even though I felt like I could do two while I was running.  While I was heading north on the Floodway path I turned around.  Maybe because of the scary movie I watched last night that was trending #2 in the world.  I saw a light behind me.  I've run this route enough to know it wasn't just a street light or a house light.  Someone was behind me.  But I promptly forgot about it until I crossed over to the other side of the Floodway and saw the person about to reach the gate.  I then watched him as he crossed over to my side.  I figured he'd probably catch me, and he did.  He said, "Good morning!"  I said, "Is that you, Jesse?"  It wasn't.  It was an old man that looked like a prospector.  He totally had a full blown conversation with me even though he was running faster than me.  It ended with him saying, "See you Monday."  I couldn't help but notice how short and choppy his stride was.  Am I really that slow?  Obviously yes, but still.