Go, you chicken fat, go away!

I ran three loops today.  I put on a shirt that has chaffed my nipples pretty bad in the past, so I applied some body glide.  It worked great.  No problems.  My pace was a little faster than usual, but I still haven't broken a 10 min/mi pace.  Getting close.  I took a week off of my diet, but now I'm starting again.

I got another smooch from my wife this morning about a tenth of a mile in to my run.  I also saw a woman who appeared to be looking for her pet, and I'm pretty sure she didn't have any pants on.  So, that was exciting.  I just did two loops today.

Just a nice and easy one.  Hopefully get a long one in tomorrow.

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.

I tried not to take a nap yesterday.  It just happened!  So I went to bed late.  Watched a movie on Netflix called the Boy.  I think that's the name.  It had that girl from the Walking Dead.  It was decent.  I've seen similar movies, so it wasn't too scary.  Anyway, I got up a little after 7am, and it was quite hot out.  I decided to just do one loop today and make it a recovery run.  My legs are a little bit sore from Saturday, but not too bad.

I dozed off on the couch last night.  Not for long, but whenever I do that I find it hard to go back to sleep once I've crawled into my bed.  I finally fell asleep after 1am, but I still managed to get up shortly after 6am.  I wanted to get done before 7am because that's what time we wake up Emily for school.  Today is the first day of school.  She's a 6th grader now.  Queen of the elementary.  When I turned south on the RWCD Canal road I could see a man with his dog up the way.  When I got closer the man got a hold of the dog's leash and waited until I had run past.  Not long after that I hear the man yelling, "Roxy!  Get back here!"  I realized the dog was chasing me.  I'm not afraid of dogs so I just kept running.  I looked at it out of the corner of my eye and it got to about 10 feet away from me and stopped.  It turned around and starting heading back towards its owner.  He said, "Bad dog!"  Then he started yelling at it again because it had turned back around and started chasing me again.  The same thing happened.  It got to 10 feet away and stopped.  The dog looked like a wimp anyway.

I woke up at 5am and got out before the sun was up.  We had another nasty wind storm last night, but there have been awesome lightning shows for the past two nights, also.  The temperature was manageable.  There were some clouds, so I'm not sure the exact time the sun broke the horizon, but I'm guessing 5:85am was pretty close.  It made for a beautiful sunrise.  I see a lot more runners than I usually do.  I guess they know something about getting up early that I don't.  My pace was the fastest it's been so far this year, and I wasn't really trying.  So that's good.  Still not under 10 min/mile, but I'll get there.  I think.

I didn't feel well on Saturday.  I guess it was my turn.  However, Mike never texted me to see if I wanted to go running anyway.  I was feeling better this morning so I decided to do a longer than normal weekday run.  I ran north up the canal until I got to McDowell Road.  Then I turned around and came back.  There were a lot of runners out.  I saw one guy enter the trail with a dog running behind him.  I was pretty sure it was the guy's dog, but he never looked back to make sure it was following him.  I said good morning and he said good morning back.  Then I said, "Your dog?"  He didn't answer.  I saw another couple on the other side of the canal and they said good morning to me.  I've been using Strava a lot more lately since I'm not as embarrassed for people to see my pace.  Strava has a cool little feature called "Flybys" which allows you to see other Strava users' workouts if they come within close proximity to yours during your workout.  It turns out that the gentleman was using Strava.  When I turned around at McDowell I saw them coming back and said, "Great job guys."  I thought they were running faster than me, but I looked at their pace on Strava and I was running faster.  They also had a dog, so maybe that slowed them down.  Then I saw the other guy with his dog.  They had moved to the other side of the canal.  He was definetly running faster than I was, but he wasn't using Strava.  Anyway, the run felt pretty good up until the last mile when I could tell the blister that had formed on the bottom of my left foot a few weeks ago was starting to get aggravated.  I'll have to try and doctor it up tonight.

I wanted to run 3 loops today, but I never doctored my blister yesterday and it started to bug me.  Also, I took my dog for a walk last night and it's been so humid that my areolae (is that the plural for nipples?) have been getting irritated.  Despite putting on Body Glide this morning, they were not happy.  So I just did two.
 

I got up nice and early.  Yesterday was a nice day, but I didn't run.  Today was a bit warmer.  I wanted to get a long run in so I decided to do the same route as Monday.  I was a bit slower today.  28 seconds per mile slower.  I failed to put on Body Glide this morning and I paid the ultimate price.  So I got home and my shirt is soaked with sweat.  My wife has hung a couple of hooks up at the end of the shower.  I'm sure they were supposed to be for her spongy thingies.  But I use them to allow my sweaty clothes to dry out.  So I took off my shirt and hung it up, then proceeded to go out back and feed the pig.  By the time I got back in the bathroom to take a shower, I noticed a streak of red running down the bath tub.  MY SWEATY SHIRT WAS DRIPPING SWEAT AND BLOOD DOWN THE SIDE OF THE SHOWER ALL AWAY ACROSS THE BATHTUB AND INTO THE DRAIN!!!!

Alarm went off at 3:30am.  Hit snooze once.  Got up.  Sat on the toilet for quite a while due to Mexican food yesterday.  Got a text from Mike at 3:50am that he was here.  Told him I'd be out shortly.  Got on the road at 4:00am and started running at 4:26am.  I noticed a large amount of moths flying around and getting plastered against Mike's windshield.  I wondered if they'd be attracted to our headlamps.  They weren't a problem.  This was my fastest run on this route this year.  First time being under 11 min. pace.   Mike got to the top of Usery about 0.4 miles before me.  As I approached the top I could see another headlamp.  I thought it was a cyclist, but it kept going out, then it would come back on.  I realized it was a guy getting ready to run.  There's a place where you can park on the side of the road about a tenth of a mile from the top.  He took off before I got to the top and turned around.  How do I know?  Strava.  I never caught him.  But I did get caught by three other runners on the downhill.  Only one of them was a Strava user, but I wondered if they were all in the same group because they all started from the top and ran down.  The first guy was huge.  Like very muscular.  Looked like a defensive end.  The next guy was also huge, but not as muscly.  He looked more like a lineman.  They caught me within the first half mile of the downhill.  Mike said they almost caught him, but he sped up so they wouldn't.  The last one was a girl.  I kept hearing footsteps behind me and would turn around to look but couldn't see anyone.  Finally I saw her.  She was wearing all black with very little reflective gear.  She had headphones in, but she said hi.  She passed me with just over 2 miles to go and I kept her in my sights the whole time.  With about 1.2 miles to go a runner was coming uphill.  He said good morning to me.  Turns out, thank you Strava, it was the husband of one of my former Ragnar teammates. 

I felt real good this morning except for wanting to drink some water and thinking I needed to go potty again during the last half mile.  It was nice to finish before sunrise today.

Did my 3 loops today.  I saw so many ants.  I wondered if they were getting ready for it to rain.  But it hasn't rained yet.  My wife, who got out before I did, said it rained a little on her.  So maybe they were doing damage control.  So humid.

3 Loops again.  My lower back was hurting a little bit today.  I passed these two ladies walking together.  I'm guessing they walked along the Floodway trail up to Brown Rd. turned around and walked to University, then turned back.  I passed them again later on the way back and said, "Good morning again!"  That means they covered about 1.75 miles in the time it took me to cover 3 miles.

Usery Pass.  We got there a little earlier than normal.  I took off a little before Mike.  I beat him to the stop sign, but then he went ahead of me.  He ended up beating me by 10 minutes.  But this was my fastest pace this year on this route.  I guess I'm getting more and more in shape.  I paused once to take a photo of the moon.  I don't know what phase it was in, but it looked pretty full.  I enjoyed watching it go down.  I beat the sunrise.  The run felt very good and doesn't seem like that big of a deal anymore.

Tried taking Herby on a run with me.  He's the worst.

If I were to guess, I'd say this is the first time I've run over two miles in under a 10 minute pace this entire year.  Maybe even for a couple of years.
 

Yesterday I purposely ran fast and today I purposely ran slow.  Hoping for a nice run tomorrow.  For the last week I've seen a gaggle of men's socks strewn all over the path.  I think a frustrated housewife must've given up on finding their matches and decided to get rid of them.  Her husband must be a slob.