Go, you chicken fat, go away!

I texted Mike yesterday to make sure we were going running.  He said he would see me at 4 in the morning.  I went to bed early and got up with my alarm at 3:32am.  I got dressed and looked at my phone to see that Mike had texted me at 3:23am to say that he wasn't feeling good and wouldn't be able to make it.  But I still wanted to get a good run in so I decided to try and do something I've wanted to do for a while.  If I start from the top of Usery Pass and run home, it is just over 10 miles.  I woke my wife up and asked if she'd take me.  She wanted to sleep.  So I just played Boggle on my phone and sat on the toilet until 4:40am when her alarm went off.  She got up, got ready, and we finally went over to Usery.  I started running at 5:24am.  It's pretty much downhill the whole way so I was feeling great for the first 4 miles.  I was just trying to cruise along without pushing it too fast, but I noticed that mile 2 was under a 10 min. pace.  The sun peeked over the mountain right at 6:00am.  It didn't take long for it to warm up, as it was already hot.  When I crossed Brown Road and turned west I texted my wife to say that I had completed 4.1 miles and was on Brown.  She texted back that she was at Hilltop.  That's a little hill she likes to climb.  Probably a 200 feet ascent, but fairly steep.  I was very close to Hilltop so I texted back if she could see me.  She said no because she was still at the base.  I was only about a quarter of a mile from the base so I kept an eye out for our car.  Then I got a text that she could see me, but I couldn't see her.  She had parked away from everyone else and then I spotted her.  She texted me asking if I needed anything.  She had extra water.  By that time I was all texted out and had passed her, so I tried to hand gesture to her that I didn't need anything.  I kept running and saw that I was coming to an uphill as Brown Road goes over the 202 Freeway.  I knew I would slow down, but like always, I told myself it was just an uphill.  You're not crashing.  But once I got to the downhill side I realized I was crashing.  It was getting warmer and warmer.  By this time I was over 5 miles in so I kept running.  By about 6.5 miles I decided to text my wife to say that I would take that water from her.  I had some water left in my water bottle in my pocket.  Oh, that reminds me.  About three quarters of a mile in to my run I heard a car behind me.  I turned around to look and I guess the contortion I made allowed my water bottle to fall out of my pocket.  Naturally it rolled right out into the street, and now the car was too close for me to go grab it.  Luckily the driver saw it and swerved around it.  Okay, back to me telling my wife I wanted more water.  That was just a ruse.  I really wanted her to pick me up.  She hadn't started her ascent up Hilltop yet because she likes to walk around the base first.  So she drove back to me.  By the time she got to me I was at 7.3 miles (about 3 miles from home), but I was done.  So I hopped in the car dripping with sweat.  My wife dropped me off and said she had to go to WalMart to pick up a new basket for the pool.  When she mentioned pool, I thought, "the pool sounds really nice right now."  So I jumped in with all my sweaty clothes on.  It was quite refreshing.