Go, you chicken fat, go away!

Today my friend was trying to get rid of some of her civil engineering books because she has to move and needs to get rid of a bunch of stuff.  I went over to see if there was anything I could use.  She's older than I am and still had a bunch of her college text books.  So, yeah, I left those.  But I grabbed a few things.  She lives right off of Ellsworth Rd., which is essentially Usery Pass.  So I decided to run from her house up to the Usery Park entrance.  Normally I run to the park entrance from the other side of the hill.  It's steeper on the other side.  And it's a 9.2 mile loop.  This was only 166 feet of elevation gain and a 3.1 mile loop.  A nice little 5k.  Anyway, by the time I was done rummaging, it was almost 8am.  So it was getting pretty warm.  I had a water bottle in my pocket, so I was good.  It was a nice run.

It's been a while since I've run 5 miles.  Sounds crazy.  I began at 7am.  Still not early enough.  I just decided to run north up the Canal until I hit 2.5 miles, then turn around.

I got up way too late this morning.  I think I might start setting my alarm again.  It's so nice working from home and not having to.  But it's summer, and if I want to keep running, I'm going to have to get up early.  I just ran one loop today.  As I was coming back I could see an animal figure up the way.  I originally thought it was a bird.  But then I started seeing other birds and I realized this one was rather larger than the others.  So I thought it might be a dog.  Then I thought it might be a shadow from the overhead electric lines.  When I finally got within range to make out what it really was, I realized my first guess was right.  It was a large vulture chewing on a dead bird (dove or pigeon) that I've seen for the last couple of runs. What happens is the owls come out at night and the swoop down and grab the smaller birds and snap their heads off with their sharp beaks.  And you know what vultures do.

The bottom of my foot hurts.  Feels like a strained a muscle.  Almost feels like plantar facisits, but it really feels like a muscle strain.  Hopefully it's not a stress fracture.  Can a stress fracture feel like a strained muscle?

I finally got out again this morning.  I felt all right.  Just a few niggles.
 

Two of my daughters are at Girl's Camp this week including Abby, who shares a room with Emily.  Emily doesn't like being alone, although she's not too afraid.  And when she gets an idea in her head, there's no stopping her.  So she told mommy that daddy was sleeping in her room last night.  My plan was to sleep for a little bit and then go back to my room, but I slept all night in her room.  I got up nice and early at 5:30am, but wasn't able to get out the door until 7:30am.  It's already hot by then.  Also, it was a little bit humid this morning.  I took it nice and slow.  Last night there was a group run at Cadence that I planned on attending until my foot started hurting last week.  I'm kinda glad I didn't go because it was 109º.  Also, although I felt good after my run yesterday, as the day went on I could feel my legs getting more and more sore.

Since my wife and I started our diet she has told me that we should do a 5k at least once a month.  I held her to it this month, and we did the 22 too Many 5k.  This race is organized  by local race director Shawn Chambers and his Run Your Race AZ.  Shawn does a lot of good for our veterans.  I really enjoy his events because the people that come are genuine and good people.  22 is the number of veterans that take their own lives each day mostly due to PTSD.

We got up early and discovered that it was raining outside.  It rained on us all the way to the event and then stopped right when we got there.  I saw a couple of my friends including Andre, Kim, and Sarah.  There were 317 participants in the race and the chute is pretty narrow.  They told everyone that the competitive runners should start at the first taped off area and the walkers/stroller pushers/ dog owners should start at the next taped off area.  My wife and I lined up right at the front of the 2nd taped off area right behind Kim.  The race started and it took a while before I could even get running due to the crowd.  The first thing you do is take an immediate right and run half a mile.  I stayed right behind Kim and Andre wanting to catch up, but having no intention of pushing it.  When we made the turn around the corner, somehow they both got way in front of me.  I started running back and saw my wife.  After a while I saw Kim stop and start to walk.  I patted her on the back and encouraged her.  She started running again and stayed with me for a bit.  We kept running down the path until we made another 180 turn around another set of cones.  Then we ran back to the start/finish line.  On the way back I saw a dead scorpion on the path.

I picked up the pace the last half mile.  It's an interesting dynamic when you purposely run slow.  All the people you are running with are not that fast and can't maintain the pace they started at.  So you really don't get passed at all.  When I finished I got my medal, caught my breath, picked up an American flag that someone had dropped, and headed back out to meet my wife.  I found her at the scorpion.  She had run the entire way, which was great for her.  We stayed for the award ceremony and the raffle, but we didn't win anything.  Afterwards, we were going to have lunch with Andre, Kim, and Sarah, but on the way there our grandson's mother called to see if we could pick him up.  I forgot to say that Andre had started at 3am because for the last three years he runs 19 miles in advance and runs the remaining 3 with us so that he can have 22.

It was warm today.  I just did one loop.
 

Last week was not a good week for my diet.  First of all, I took a cheat day on Father's Day.  I'm sure that would have been fine being just one day, but my wife and I went on our anniversary vacation starting Thursday and ending Sunday.  Subsequently, we made all those days cheat days, too.  I gained 5 lbs this week.  The first 5 weeks of my diet I was averaging losing 5 lbs a week.  So it's almost like two weeks lost.  Oh well.  We went to Colorado.  When I ran Ragnar Colorado a couple of years ago, we went through some cute little towns that I thought would be fun to take my wife through some day.  So I finally decided to take her there this year.  She found that it would be cheaper to fly into Colorado Springs than Denver, so we ended up doing mostly things around the Springs.  We actually never went to those cute little towns.  But there was plenty to do and see.  Who knew?  The first day we immediately went to the top of Pike's Peak.  In hind sight that wasn't the smartest thing.  I got elevation sickness and had a bit of a headache for about a day and a half after that.  But it wasn't too bad.  Just bad enough to make me not want to run any while I was there even though I had packed running gear.  The next day we went to the Royal Gorge.  I had my first ziplining experience, and that was pretty fun.  The next day we went to 7 Falls and the Garden of the Gods.  The last day we went to Cave of the Winds.  We did a lot of hiking and stair climbing, so I was hoping it would help with the days off I've missed running.  My legs weren't sore except for my ankle joints from hiking on unsteady rocks and stuff. 

I got out the door at 7am this morning to run.  I planned on running three loops so that I could hopefully lose some weight before weigh in.  It was already hot.  When I got to exactly a mile I had to stop and stretch a little.  My sore ankles were starting to bother me.  I decided to just do one loop.  I'll try again tomorrow.
 

I failed to mention yesterday that as soon as I turned on to the Floodway path, I saw my wife and Vanessa on their morning walk.  I was able to grab a drive by smooch.  Today as I approached the Floodway I saw a lady walking towards me, and my first thought was, "Do I get another kissy today?"  But I immediately noticed that it was not my wife.  Then I saw another figure up the way, but could tell that it was a runner with a dog.  And it was a man.  But then I saw two females approaching.  One of them appeared to be my wife, but the other did not look like Vanessa.  So as they got closer I could definitely tell that it was my wife, but who was this other mystery woman?  It wasn't until I was right up to them that I could tell it was Sister Green from the ward.  I stole another smooch from my wife and continued on my way.  I could see that the other runner had moved over to the RWCD Canal road.  He stopped to catch his breath or for his dog to catch his breath.  He started again and now I wasn't too far behind him.  I wondered if I'd be able to catch him at my incredibly slow pace.  Then his dog stopped to take a look in the Canal.  The owner only let him stop for a second before he got him going again.  But about 20 feet later the dog said, "I need a break", and it went down in the Canal to cool off.  So I passed them.  I was feeling better than yesterday, so I did another loop.  When I got almost to my house I saw two birds in the road.  One of them looked like it had a broken wing.  I felt pity on it so I scooped it up and brought it home.  I laid it in the shade of a tree.  Then I went inside and grabbed a scoop of chicken feed so that I could feed our last remaining chicken.  (Either our dog or our pig killed the other one about a week ago.  They were both eating it.)  I gave the bird about 5 pellets and continued to the backyard to feed the chicken.  When I came back I grabbed a gallon of water that we had randonmly sitting in the front yard.  I was going to pour it some water.  But when I got to it, it had rolled over on its back like it was about to die.  The other bird was there, too, but it flew away as I approached.  I noticed the pellets were gone.  I turned it back over and tried giving it water.  But the poor thing died right there in front of me.  Now I have a couple of theories about how it may have died.  The most obvious is that I poisoned it with chicken feed.  I think if that were the case there would be more dead doves around.  My second theory is that the other bird came and ate all the pellets and pecked at the injured/dying bird to the point where it couldn't recover.  My third theory is that it had been struck by a car which caused the broken wing and some possible internal injuries which it succumbed to.  Luckily today was trash today and I was able to lay it to rest...in the top of the trash can.

Yesterday when I woke up I got a terrible calf cramp.  The kind where it just hits you all at once, and you can't remember if you're supposed to point your toes up or down.  It hurt so bad, I struggled to walk, let alone think about going running.  But it got better as the day went on, so I was able to get out this morning.  I went real slow (as usual.)  Actually slower than usual.  I saw a zanjero up at the RWCD Canal and Brown Road (or Lateral 3, as they call it.)  I wanted to see who it was, but I wasn't fast enough.  That has happened a lot lately.  I did see that it was Truck #5A, which generally means it's a lead zanjero's truck.  I did my loop turning around at Brown Road and heading back down the Canal road.  After a while I could make out a vehicle parked on the west Canal road in front of the gate at Lateral 3-1/2.  Occasionally people do that, but they're not supposed to because it blocks the access for the RWCD workers.  Then I saw the RWCD truck pull up and I wondered if he would ask them to move.  Getting closer, I was able to see that the vehicle was actually the 5A truck and the other truck was the 1A truck.  The 1A truck is just the regular zanjero truck, which is what I was for the year that I worked there.  I was able to get there in time to stop and talk.  I didn't know the regular zanjero.  He was a new guy.  He must've thought I was a crazy guy when I approached them.  And the lead zanjero was just a regular zanjero when I worked there.  He said the guy he replaced was "asked to leave."  That's too bad.  Well, I didn't talk to them long, and I went to finish my final loop.  I noticed that my pace increased.  I guess my body wanted to run at the speed it's used to running lately.

Just one lop today because it was 7:30am before I got out.  I tried picking up the pace today in short intervals.  It felt good.
 

I texted Mike yesterday to see if he wanted to go running.  Mike has an air conditioning company, so he's super busy in the summer.  He told me we'd have to go super early.  I said that's fine by me.  He came and got me at 4:00am and we got to Usery at 4:30am to start our run up the hill.  Mike hasn't run since two weeks after Ragnar when he did the Phoenix Half Marathon. But he still is faster than me.  I had to borrow one of his headlamps.  I actually think it's my old headlamp that I lost.  Hmmmm...  Anyway I stayed close to him for longer than usual.  I felt pretty good until about 1.75 miles.  Then I started to feel a little sluggish, but I know that after 2.5 miles, it gets easier.  But I still had thoughts about turning around when Mike was coming back.  The only problem was Mike was only about a half mile ahead of me, which means when he came back, I was only a quarter mile from the top.  So I went to the top, and turned around.  It was a nice run, but my legs werer feeling it.  The sun came over the top of the mountain at about 5:30 am.