Go, you chicken fat, go away!

It was so warm today!!  I didn't get out until 7:30am and already it was in the mid 80's.  I ran so slow and I sweated like a pig.  Looks like there might be two hobos now.  I'll have to see if the other one takes up residence.

I felt a little better today.  My pace was over 20 seconds per mile faster.  I think I've lost about 10 lbs so far.  Gotta be careful, because I can gain that back in a day!  The other hobo appears to have moved on.

I guess taking Saturday and Sunday off made me nice and fresh.  I did better on my diet this week, too, so I'm sure that helped.  Today's pace was a minute and three seconds per mile faster than Friday's. 
 

I think I forgot to mention last week that I saw Rich Porter's wife, Lindsay and their son, Ashtin as they were taking a walk.  Ashtin was one of my scouts about a year and a half ago.  I said, "Hi guys."  Well today as I was heading down my street I saw someone running towards me from the other side of Adobe.  I thought it might be Rich.  It wasn't.  It was someone else with grey hair.  I didn't recognize him until he said, "Hi Burt!"  Then I realized it was Byron Allen.  He lives right down the street from me and we have neighborhood barbecues at his house every three or four months.  But not in the summer.  It's just too hot. 

I decided to do just one loop today because it's the first day of school for my kids.  I headed up the Floodway Path and as I approached Brown, I could see the Gradall on the west Canal road.  The Gradall (pronounced grade-all) is usually run by Lonnie.  He's older than the dirt he scoops out of the Canal.  There was another RWCD truck there, too, but I didn't recognize the driver.  Maybe he was new.  A Gradall has two compartments.  I've never been in one, but I believe one is for driving and the other is for scooping.  So as I was running by I was looking in the front one for Lonnie.  There was nobody there.  Then I felt stupid because he was in the back one waving at me.

I continued back towards Adobe and saw another man walking down the east Canal road.  I didn't know if I would catch him.  But I finally caught up to him as we both reached the fence at the same time.  Luckily he was just walking up to the fence and turning around while I was going through the gate.  It would've been awkward if we both tried to go through the gate at the same time.  He was a big boy.  Even bigger than me.

Slow run today.  So humid.  The Gradall was scooping out more muck today.  Summer is a good time to do it.  Unless it rains.  They just scoop out the muck and pile it next to the Canal.  Once it dries out, they scoop it up and haul it away.  I saw Gordon on the other side of the Floodway as I was heading south.  I didn't think I'd see him on the way back since it would be over a mile to get back there.  But he was there.  He had stopped to talk to another dog.  I said hi to him and reached out and petted him for the first time.  I'm glad he didn't bite me.

I got some real sad news yesterday.  They are only going to do the Del Sol Ragnar one more year.  I almost cried.  I'm going to captain it up for the last time.  I'm sure I will continue to do other Ragnars, but this one holds a special place in my heart.  It was the first one I did.  It's my favorite course.  And I've done all of them.

I saw Sis. Lee again today.  She was running with her dog.  I didn't recognize it was her at first because there was this older couple in front of her walking their dog.  It was a small dog and it wasn't on a leash.  I wondered if there would be a confrontation with Sis. Lee's big dog.  Those little dogs are yippers.  But there wasn't.  I also saw the Ray's again.  Sis. Lee's boy was one of my scouts and the Ray's son is currently one of my scouts.  I texted both Br. and Sis Ray to see if they wanted to join my last team.

Another hot and slow day.  I lost 5 lbs this morning.  I saw a family walking down the street a ways off.  I could tell they were all wearing red shirts.  How fun, I thought.  I couldn't recognize them because they were far off and it was a little dark out still.  Then two of them started racing each other through the little park on the corner.  When they finally got close enough, I could tell that it was the Ashcroft's.  The Ashcroft's recently decided to foster a child.  They just wanted one young one.  Well, after a month or so they got a phone call saying they had found their foster child's brother and sister.  So now they have three foster kids on top of all of their own kids.  Now my wife wants a foster child and it looks like we might get one here shortly.

I had been doing so well on my diet that I decided to take a cheat weekend.  That was a bad idea.  I felt terrible today.  I just did one loop.

I felt better today.  Now that Emily is in junior high her bus doesn't come until 8:47am.  But it usually comes a bit earlier than that.  I told my wife that I was just going to do one loop, but she said she could get Emily on the bus so I could go further if I wanted.  I didn't want to because I figured it would be too hot.  But it wasn't too bad, and as I said, I was feeling better.  So I went two.  I passed the hobo.  I'm pretty sure I could smell him even though he was 50 feet away.  Maybe it was me.  Then I got a phone call from a client.  I stopped and answered.  It was probably only a 2 minute call.  I started again and went about 100 feet and got another call from another client.  I didn't answer this one.  But it did slow me down because I didn't want to put my phone back in my pocket lest I pocket answer them.  Then I realized I might be able to make it home before the bus got there.  I picked up the pace and turned the corner at 8:45am.  I wasn't sure if I'd be able to get there before the bus left, but I just barely made it and was able to wave goodbye to her.

Feeling better and better.  I started out seeing 5 out of 5 regulars.  I ended up 6 for 7.  The one person that wasn't a regular will be soon.  I've seen her once before.  The first person I saw was Gordon's owner.  I didn't see Gordon right away.  He was off his leash.  His owner said he was hunting birds today.  Then I saw my wife.  I stole a dozen kisses from her.  I saw and passed up the old man in the fisher hat.  The temperature was much cooler than yesterday.  That's because I got out a lot earlier.  And my pace was faster than yesterday even though I ran an extra mile today.

I took it nice and easy today because I was feeling a little sore from yesterday.  I saw my wife at the intersection while I was stretching out.  I waited for her to get home before I started.  It felt real warm out but my phone said it was only 80º.  As I was coming down the last stretch of the Floodway I didn't see the hobo under the tree where I usually see him.  I thought this might be the first time I don't see him.  But then I saw him on the path under another tree.  I'm the worst at making conversation.  Knowing I would only be able to get about one line of conversation in, the only thing I could think of to say was, "It's supposed to be another hot day."  He then said in the most pathetic voice, "Yeah."  Then he looked at his arm.  I thought he might be looking at his watch to see what time it was, but obviously he doesn't have a watch.  So maybe he was doing the universal gesture to ask what time it was, because he often asks me what time it is.  But then I noticed his blotchy skin and I wondered if he has some sort of skin cancer.  So, here I am spending another hot day indoors while he's outside with his skin cancer.  I'm the worst.

I didn't run yesterday because I wanted to be ready for a long run today.  Yes, 6 miles is a long run for me nowadays.  It was 5:50am when I began.  83º.  I started off noticing a lot of people out walking their dogs.  One guy was cutting across the retention basin/park on the corner.  I recognized the dog as Gordon.  They got to the Floodway before I did.  I was able to say hi to Gordon, but then I noticed another dog on the other side of the Floodway.  But where was the owner?  I couldn't see an owner anywhere.  Then I realized it wasn't a dog.  It was a coyote.  I said to Gordon's owner, "There's a coyote over there on the other side."  He said, "Oh yeah.  I see it."  As I kept running I saw someone walking towards the coyote on the other side.  But coyotes like to avoid humans, so it had scampered down into the bottom of the Floodway and was skimming along the side of the bank.  The guy probably had no idea he was there.  Anyway, that was early on and the rest of the run was pretty uneventful.  I finally saw people that were walking without dogs.  Then I saw a couple of runners, but not until I had turned around and headed back.  It was warming up, but not too bad.  I jumped in the pool as soon as I got home.

It was 7:53am when I started running.  It was warm.  I was a little sore from Saturday, but not too bad.  I was listening to Chael Sonnen on his YouTube show talk about the Saturday night fights.
 

Emily has been sick again.  Not even two weeks into the school year and she's already missing days.  Two nights ago I fell asleep on the couch upstairs.  Only about an hour.  I went downstairs to find Emily asleep on my side of the bed.  Normally I would just push her over to the middle, but she was sleeping on top of the covers and had her own covers.  One of my employees was still here working, and I thought it would be weird if she went upstairs to get a water bottle or something and saw me sleeping on the couch, so I decided to hole up in the toy room on this tiny little couch.  That wasn't comfortable at all and I woke up with a sore throat.  So I didn't run yesterday.

I woke up a few minutes after 6am this morning.  Abby was in the shower, so I had to wait a little bit to use the bathroom.  But that was good because it had given me time for my bowels to wake up.  When I was finally sitting on the pot, I could hear a lot of sirens.  I finally texted my wife to make sure she was all right assuming she was out on her walk.  She was upstairs.

I finally started my run at 6:57am.  I felt quite sore.  I thought that was weird for having taken a day off.  But I'm probably still a little under the weather.  I was just going to do two loops.  Maybe even 1.  But I could do 2 if I ran slow.  So I started my 2nd loop.  After about a quarter mile into the second loop, I thought that if I kept this slow pace up, I could do 3 loops.  So I decided to do three loops.

When I got to the University, which is where I commit myself to that 3rd loop, I saw the sirens about a quarter mile to the east.  There must've been an accident because I saw a tow truck, also.  I continued south and when I got to the bend, I saw another runner.  He looked much faster than me, and he gave me a thumbs up.

Before I knew it I was back at University and looking for the hobo.  He wasn't under the tree that he is usually laying under.  So I looked to see if he was on the trail.  Once the trail straightened out enough for me to see, I spotted him standing there talking to someone.  I saw three tiny little dogs, too.  As I got closer the other guy started to walk away.  Then I noticed the hobo was eating a sausage biscuit, most likely from the corner gas station convenient store.  I asked him, "What's new?  Same ol', same ol'?  He didn't answer.  I think he was crying because the other guy bought him a sausage biscuit.  The biscuit buyer must've heard me because he turned around.  He told me good morning.  I had to weave through his dogs as they weren't leashed up.  After passing the second dog something small scurried across my path.  I almost stepped on it.  It was a horned toad.  I totally stopped and pointed it out.  That's when one of the dogs started barking at me.  I said, "Don't bark at me.  Bark at this guy."  Biscuit eater said they love to chase lizards.

I headed home and as I turned the final corner I could see people walking out of my house.  It was my wife and two high school daughters.  For some reason I thought they would've been gone already.  But it was 7:42 am, which is their normal time that they leave.  I got to say good bye and sneak a kiss from my wife.

I just realized that I didn't blog today.  (Today is tomorrow.  Or tomorrow is today.  I don't know.)  Now I can't remember if anything significant or funny happened.  Maybe I'll come back to this if I remember anything.  I'll put it in the comment sections since I get very little comments these days.  Ooh.  That reminds me.  I just read through all of my blog entries for this year.  There seems to be a recurring theme that I'm getting old, fat, and struggling to stay healthy.  Diet has been a big thing this year.  I've been sticking to it pretty well since coming back from vacation.

So I was walking my dog a couple of nights ago.  It was around 6:30pm and still 110º.  I noticed that when we got down into the bottom of the Floodway, it was significantly cooler.  Like 10º cooler.  I thought this might be good information for the hobo to know.  I don't usually go that far south on my nightly dog walks as I generally cut through the green belt.  So we walked by the hobo and I started out the conversation saying, "Do you ever see any coyotes around?"  He said not usually.  I told him about the coyote we used to see and how I saw one the other morning on the other side of Adobe.  Then he asked me if I smoke.  I said no, and that pretty much ended the conversation.  I was left thinking about how awkward my conversations always are with him.

Today I got up early and was out the door earlier than normal.  I started running at 5:51am.  When I got to the hobo, he actually initiated the conversation.  He said, "You're earlier than usual."  I said, "Yep."  Then he asked what time it was and I told him.  It was another awkward conversation, but at least he started it this time.

I went to be early last night, but I decided to finish binge watching the final season of the show that I'm watching on Netflix.  Said show will remain nameless.  Anyway, the problem with Netflix is that once you finish one season of a show you you've been watching, you start the next one.  Then you finish that one and you start the next one.  Before you've even finished watching them all, the next seasons come out.  Not sure what time I finally fell asleep, but I'm sure it was after midnight.

I didn't get out the door until after 8am this morning.  That was a mistake.  It was hot.  I'm glad I brought a bottle of water with me.  I was running real slow.  Before I crossed Greenfield, I could see two figures out on the Canal road.  Everytime I see someone I wonder if they're on Strava.  As I got closer I could tell at least one of them was on a bike.  A little closer and it looked like one of them might be on foot as they appeared smaller.  Then I realized it was a dad and a daughter riding bikes.  Right before I got to them the daughter had veered over in front of me.  She kept veering over towards the Canal and I thought she was going to ride right in.  Luckily she was able to correct course and went around me.  I think her dad was worried, too.  Right after that I saw a lady and a dog.  I got to the Canal gate that indicated half a mile away from McKellips.  There's a dirt road and a fence gate that lead up to the Canal gate.  The fence is about 3 feet away from the block walls that form the alleyway.  This is so pedestrians can get through, but vehicles cannot.  I saw an old man about to come through the fence.  Well, older than me.  He would be right behind me and I thought for sure he would pass me.  I was getting pretty close to the dog and the lady and the dog started trotting over to me.  But actually it was trotting to the old man behind me.  The lady said, "Is that daddy?"  So apparently they were one big happy family and he never passed me. 

I kept going and got to McKellips.  This is where I started doubting if I really wanted to go all the way to McDowell, another mile.  So I decided to just do maybe a little over 5 miles.  From previous runs I knew if I turned around at the Canal gate a quarter of a mile south of McDowell I would be around 5.25 miles.  But as I neared the gate, I could see another couple walking down the road.  I kept thinking how awkward it would be if we both reach the gate at the same time and I turn around with them.  So I checked my Strava and I was at 2.5 miles.  I went a little further and turned around.

There was a bit of a headwind, which was nice, but the sun was getting hotter and hotter the further I went.  The last two miles were a real struggle and I thought about calling my wife to come pick me up.  But then I thought, it's okay to walk some.  So I walked a little here and a little there.  The final mile I walked a lot.  In fact, I started running in between trees and then walking in the shade.  I finished my water bottle and figured I'd fill it back up at the water fountain even though it's only 0.15 miles away from my house.  I'm pretty sure I saw Kori.  It was her car at least.  That's funny because I had texted her and her husband before I went running to see if they wanted to be on my Ragnar team.  She hadn't replied yet, but she has since.  Perhaps because she saw me.  They are maybes.  So I went to refill my water bottle, but only hot water was coming out of the fountain.  I must've let it run for a full minute and still hot.  I thought, "This is ridiculous.  I'm almost home."  So I just ran the rest of the way home.  I've lost about 15 lbs. since my vacation.

I slept a lot this weekend.  I felt pretty good this moring, but still it was hot.  My pace was faster than it has been lately, but still slow.  I saw this one dude.  I'm going to call him Trent Cox.  Thank you Strava.  We both headed north at Adobe at the same time; he on the RWCD east road, and I on the Floodway path.  He was running almost twice my speed!  Geez!  Strava shows him averaging like a 6:45 pace!

I woke up at 5am.  Our landlord wants a realtor to come look at the house this Thursday.  So we've been cleaning and trying to fix things up.  Last night we had someone fixing the flooring in the kitchen, so my wife didn't want to cook dinner.  She asked me if I'd rather want Del Taco or Little Caesars.  Little Caesars usually makes me sick for some reason, so I said Del Taco.  I probably ate one burrito too many last night.  Anyway, I got out the door just before 6am.  It was light out, but the sun hadn't come up quite yet.  Still it was already 83º.  It seems like every time I look at the temperature in the morning it's 83º.  I started running and felt surprisingly good considering the extra burrito.  I decided to do three loops and my pace today was faster than yesterday's two loops.

I didn't run yesterday.  Too busy with work.  We got a thunderstorm yesterday evening.  Some of the thunder was instantaneous after the lightning.  The dog was scared.  Stupid scaredy cat.  It was humid this morning, and there was water in the bottom of the Floodway, but it was a few degrees cooler than normal.  I did three loops, and my pace keeps getting faster.  As I approached Brown I could see this woman walking on the Canal road.  It looked like it was Sis. Lowe.  As I headed over there, I saw a zanjero truck pull up.  It was Eric.  I stopped and talked for about a minute.  Then I ran down the Canal road and as I was catching up to the woman I realized it was actually Sis. Ray.  I stopped and talked to her for about 10 seconds.  When I crossed Adobe my wife saw me.  I did not see her.  Not sure how I missed her after looking at Strava, but maybe the sun was in my eyes.  She thought she would see me because she figured I would head back up at University, but I went all the way down to Main.  As I passed the hobo, I saw him eating another sausage biscuit.  I said, "That was some thunderstorm we had last night!"  He must think I'm a real douche.
 

First time I've run Usery in a while.  Last week I texted Mike and asked when we were going to start running Usery again.  He said today.  I texted Glen and Maggie.  Glen said he already had plans.  Maggie said she would love to join us if it's a weekend she doesn't have her kids.  So I texted Mike yesterday to see if we were still on.  He responded like 4 minutes later, but I didn't see it until I got a text from Maggie asking if we were going.  Then I looked back and saw that Mike had responded and couldn't go.  So I asked Maggie if she wanted to come along with my wife and I.  Have I mentioned that I finally talked my wife into running a Ragnar?  Anyway, I told Maggie we would pick her up at 5:15am. 

Vickie and I woke up at 4:47am-ish.  (For some reason I remember that being the time.  I think.)  I sat on the toilet for the longest time because running Usery and having to go is the worst.  I had texted Maggie at 5am to say - see you in 15 minutes.  But it was more than 15 minutes because it took me a while to have a bowel movement.  We drove to Maggie's and the over to Usery.  I was hoping we'd see some wild horses, but we didn't.  In fact, after we were done running I drove down by the river, but we still didn't see any. 

Vickie and Maggie were talking about divorces; Maggie about hers and Vickie about her sister's.  I started running in the parking lot, and they started running after the crossed the intersection.  I told them to be wary of cyclists.  They're probably moving down the hill at 35mph.  Since it's a holdiday weekend, there was a lot of traffic and a lot of cyclists. 

I was feeling pretty decent running up.  I had a frozen bottle of water in my pocket.  It was weighing my shorts down, and I had to stop to retie them.  I wasn't sure if I wanted to go all the way to the top.  So I opted to just run 3 miles up and 3 miles down.  It was hard, but not too bad.  My pace was comparable to the pace I've been running on flat surfaces lately.  So that's good.  Of course I run faster going down and the cyclists are riding slower going up, so every now and then on the way down a cyclists would tell me how good I was doing.  One lady said, "Lookin' good!"  Another said, "You have a lot more stamina than me!"  And a dude said, "Can you feel the tail wind?"  Well, that didn't have anything to do with how good I was doing, but still.  I had texted Vickie when I got to the turn around to let her know I was going back down.  I took my first drink of water and it was about half way melted.  It would be completely melted before I got all the way down.  Vickie and Maggie continued going up a little more after I texted her.  They wanted to get to 2 miles.  I finally saw them with about 1.75 miles to go.  I passed them with 1.1 miles to go.  It wasn't long after that I decided I better take my shirt off because my areola was getting a little sensitive.  But I didn't want to do it right in front of them because I didn't want them to think I was weird.  I took it off without about 0.75 miles to go and a whole horde of cyclists came cruising by.  I tried to hang my shirt over my shoulder and strategically pump my arms in front of my body so they wouldn't be able to see my fat white hairy gut.  I finished up and Vickie and Maggie got there about 10 or so minutes later.  They were still talking about divorce.  I had sat down on a picnic bench and they came over by me.  After a little bit all these bees were swarming Maggie.  She thought they were flies.  She said she had eaten garlic the night before and was afraid that she would smell like garlic today.  I guess bees are attracted to garlic.  Anyway, I told her she was getting swarmed and we better go.