Go, you chicken fat, go away!

I went to bed early and had no problem getting up when the alarm went off.  There were a lot of bugs out this morning.  One flew in my mouth.  I started about a minute before Mike and was ahead of him for the first mile.  I thought about what I'd say to him when he caught up to me, but when he did it was just awkward silence.  There was a lot of runners and cyclists out this morning.  All of the cars seemed to be coming in groups.  I guess that makes sense because they all probably get stuck ath the stoplight together.  Anyway, I would tell the other runners I saw good job and they all seemed pretty friendly.  Runners.  Gotta love 'em.  So when I got to almost the top, my sweaty pocket stopped my Strava.  As I was running back down I could hear my phone making noises so I pulled it out and didn't think to look to see if my Strava was stopped.  About a half mile before the bottom I finally looked at it and realized it had turned off.  So I turned it back on and it only recorded 4 miles.  Boo!  But I think I fixed it.  I just would have liked to have been able to compare my times from last week.  I guess it's time to put a code on my phone.

It's a holiday.  No school for the kids.  I felt like doing a longer run than normal even though it was 7am before I finally got out.  It rained last night so I knew it would be humid.  I kept a nice easy pace.  There were a lot of walkers out and a few runners.  And a couple of cyclist, one of which was crusing pretty fast.  This was on  the Canal path so I don't know how he was going that fast.  I thought maybe he had a motor on his bike but I couldn't hear anything.  Anyway, I saw a pack of condoms on the side of the road when I crossed McKellips.  They looked like they were two to three sizes larger than I would need, so I left them there.
 

Today's run was eventful.  And by eventful I mean full of events.  First, I almost got attacked by a dog.  But I'm not afraid of dogs.  I saw a lady up the path, but then she disappeared.  When I got closer I could see that she had got off the path and went over to the bank of the Floodway.  Her dog was not on a leash.  By the time she saw me and realized that her dog was running up to me, she had that, "Oh, crap" look in her eye.  (BTW - I've always felt like crap is a cuss word, so I never say it.  Typing it is different, right?)  Well, the dog just ran up and sniffed me.  The lady, after seeing that it didn't bite me, started nervously laughing and assured me that the dog doesn't bite, although she sounded like she was trying to convince herself.  All in all, I saw a total of four unleashed dogs.  Two of them sniffed me.  I felt like I was running stronger than normal today.  I think I was.  More on that later.  Right before I got to Greenfield I could see someone running on Greenfield.  But they stopped and walked right before I crossed.  Luckily there was a break in the traffic right when I got there so I didn't have to stop.  I kept going and I think it was him, maybe it was someone else, caught up to me and left me in the dust.  After a mile I could tell they were about a quarter mile ahead of me.  So, my son is a pot head.  He likes to go in the "sun room" and do his thing.  Sometimes I walk in there after he's recently been in there, and it stinks.  This morning it smelled like pot outside.  Maybe it was just the orange groves.  Or maybe that smell was stuck in my nose.  Anway, I crossed McKellips and I could see this guy coming down the path sitting on a cart being pulled by a horse.  He waved as we passed each other and I recognized him.  He was this 80+ year old man that lives down the street.  He's a real good friend of my wife's best friend, Dartell.  The reason I know that is because I had a run in with him while I worked as a zanjero.  Apparently one night I short changed his order.  I didn't think I did, but later looking back, I realized that I had.  Someone else had ordered water downstream of him, so I pulled the board early that I needed to split the water for the other customer.  When that happened it took a while to build the water level back up in the canal and he lost probably 15 minutes worth of water.  Well, the next order he had two weeks later, he really let me have it.  I mean he was just running me down telling me how crummy of a job I was doing.  I could have ignored him, but he was being a total jerk, so I had words back at him.  Anyway, it wasn't pleasant.  But two weeks later, when I had realized what I did and it was indeed my fault, I apologized to him and he apologized to me.  He said that's not the type of person he is.  I was going to take a picture of him before I realized who it was, because it's not often that you see a horse and cart on the Canal path.  But I opted not to.  I kept running and got to the turn around point which is a chain link fence.  I always touch the fence as I turn.  Today I didn't really look at the fence as I reached for it.  I almost missed it.  I spent the next quarter mile contemplating on whether or not I would have turned around to touch the fence if I had missed it.  I think I decided I would not have.  I was heading back south and I could see old man Hatch coming back.  This time I decided I would take the picture so that I could send it to Dartell.  As we were passing I asked him if he knew Dartell.  He didn't understand me so he stopped the horse.  I had gone a few strides past him, but I stopped, too.  I had to ask him a couple more times before he understood.  Dartell is an uncommon name.  He said he did.  They shared the same birthday.  We talked for about 10 minutes.  I told him that I used to work for RWCD and that we had met before.  But I didn't tell him that it was me that he ran down.  I think we got closure on that already.  So, he said he needed to get going and I looked at my phone and saw that it was 6:30am and I needed to be home by 7am to wake up my daughters for school.  I was only 2.25 miles from home, so it wouldn't be a problem.  But the whole time I was praying (not literally) that my Strava's autopause was working.  I think it did, but my overall pace is probably off by a few seconds.  Maybe.  I ran a 10:01 pace per Strava, so maybe it was slightly under a 10 pace?  Oh well.  With just under three quarters of a mile to go this lady runner was coming up on me.  I waved and said hello.  The way she said hello back to me made me think she was deaf or partially deaf.  With about half a mile to go I could see two more runners coming up on me.  They were kind of chuckling.  I wondered briefly if they were laughing at me.  After they passed I looked down at my shorts.  These were my shorty shorts that I don't wear very often, but there weren't any other clean ones.  I was sweating so bad that it looked like I had peed myself.  So, maybe they were laughing at me.  Can't blame them.  I got home and had to go through a bunch of screens in my Strava to get back to the stop mode.  It had turned on again in my pocket, but at least it didn't stop like last time.  I finally have put a lock on my phone now, so hopefully it won't happen anymore.  The time that it took me to finally stop the recording allowed me to see that my wife was coming home from her run/walk.  I went down the street and ran the last 100 yards with her.  Then I jumped in the pool.  So, that's it.  And if you read all this, you must have a lot of time on your hands.
 

I got the jump on Mike again this morning.  I was ahead of him for the first 0.6 miles.  Then he caught up to me.  But then he had to stop to tie his shoe so I passed him.  He passed me again at 0.9 miles.  His first mile was 8:57.  Mine was 10:50, almost 2 minutes slower.  I think he was running fast to catch up to me because his second mile was 10:40 and mine was 11:48, barely a minute faster.  Again his third mile was 10:26 and mine was 11:36.  So I was able to keep him in my sights almost the entire way up the hill.  When I finally lost sight of him about half quarter of a mile from the top, I could see a couple of runners coming down.  I wondered if one of them was Mike.  But it was two girls.  Mike was about a tenth of a mile behind them.  I was hoping I'd be able to see more than just Mike on the way down.  But the thing about Mike, he's very competitive.  He made sure to catch up to the girls and pass them.  I only saw momentary glimpses of them on the way down.  This was my fastest time on this route this year, but it seems it may have been Mike's also.  He even went sub 8 on one of his downhill miles, while my fastest was a 9:21.  But progress is progress.  So as we were driving up the hill to go home we saw this girl running down.  About a half mile later we saw this other girl.  Mike was like, "Didn't we just see her?"  Later while looking at my Strava Flyby's I realized they were twins.  So I text Mike, "Those girls were twins!"  Except I sent it to my elder's quorum group instead of Mike :(

I ate too much junk food over the weekend.  I wasn't feeling great, but I trudged through my miles anyway.  My pace was about the same as my pace from Saturday.  There were a lot of people out this morning.

We had the full time missionaries from our church over for dinner last night.  My wife asked me what she should make and I told her to make her world famous stuffed french toast.  She said it's not keto.  I said that's ok.  So I was feeling it this morning.  Again.  The run didn't feel great, but I realized when I was done that my pace was decent.  A little faster than normal.  Definitely faster than yesterday.

Yesterday was my lovely wife's birthday, so I didn't run.  We went to this sushi bar that has conveyor belts that run along the seating and you pick the food off that you want to eat as it goes by.  I had some chocolate cakes and other goodies, too.  I felt kinda blah again today.  As I was heading north on the Floodway, I could see Rich Porter on the Canal road.  He was walking.  I ran up to Brown Road and turned south down the Canal road.  We said hey and then he turned and started running with me.  I was just going to do two loops today.  Emily has been sick so I haven't had to get up as early and it was already after 8am.  In fact, my wife didn't call the school early enough to cancel the bus, so I actually stopped the bus on my run and told her she was still sick.  Anyway, we ran down to Adobe together which is where I planned on continuing south down the Canal road, but Rich turned to go back into the neighborhood.  I decided I would run with him to his house.  He asked me which way I was going.  I told him I was only planning on doing 2.5 miles, but I would do whatever.  He was only going to do 3 miles, but we passed his house and went down to Higley Road.  I figured we'd just turn around and go to his house, but he again asked which way I was going so I said, "Let's run down to University, then down to the the Floodway and come back around.  That would be about another mile.  It was a good talk.  I didn't know he'd been out of work since January.  I pray that he finds something soon.

I stretched out and had a nice liesurley jog today.  But I finally ran 10:00 even pace.  So it's good to see that even when I'm not trying.  It's also kinda funny to think that 10:00 is a good pace for me.  I'm old.

I got sick Friday afternoon.  My wife got sick Saturday.  That covers everyone in the household.  I texted Mike Friday evening telling him to check with me in the morning before coming over because I wasn't sure if I'd be able to go.  I wasn't.  I still did things Saturday, like going to the baptism of one of my scouts and then out to eat at Applebee's with the family for my wife's birthday celebration.  I was going to stay home from church Sunday, but I still went.  I was feeling better this morning and thought about getting a long run in to make up for Saturday.  But I didn't get out the door until after 6am, so I thought about just doing the 5 loop course.  I changed my mind and decided to do the 3 loop course.  But after a mile I changed it to the two loop course, and honestly would have been happy with the 1 loop course.

I was able to do my "5 Loop" run today.  I got up early and sat on the toilet for a while.  A long while.  Glad I did.  I finally got out the door just shy of 6am.  I ran north on the Floodway trail.  I saw that deaf lady again.  I think she's deaf.  Maybe some day I'll ask her.  I crossed Brown Road and right before merging on to the RWCD road I saw a little thing hopping across the trail.  I thought it was a bug or something.  Turns out it was a little toad, about 3/4" long from head to haunches.  I don't see a lot of those while I'm out running.  This very well may have been the first time.  I paused to take a picture.  The cute little guy wouldn't hold still.  I started running again feeling decent.  There were a lot of people out running today.  One guy was running without a shirt on.  He was tan and muscular.  But he was running with his arms straight down.  I thougt maybe he was carrying weights or something.  But I think he may have been crippled.  Good for him for getting out and getting some miles in.  Right before the fence where I turn around at, this girl came through the other side of the fence.  Her arms were flailing around.  I thought she might have been dancing.  Turns out she was talking on the phone with someone and she's the type of person that talks with her hands.  I wondered if I could catch her.  I touched the fence and turned around and noticed there was a young guy with mauve (maybe maroon, I'm not good with colors) hair that was running pretty fast.  I knew he would catch me and the girl, too.  He did.  As he passed me I said, "You're pretty dang fast."  He said, "Thank you.  It's a beautiful morning."  It was a nice morning.  I'm glad it's been cooling down at nights somewhat because we're still getting over 100º days here.  I wasn't able to catch the girl, not that I was trying.  She was putting some distance between me even though sometimes she was weaving across the trail.  But she stopped and turned around about an eigth of a mile from McKellips.  I waved again at her and told her good job.  I saw a few more runners on the way back.  Some of them were using Strava and I am getting familiar with their little profile pic icons.  The last mile was a bit of a struggle, but I maintained a decent pace most of the way.  Most of my miles were under 10, and I haven't seen that for a while.

Herbie woke me up at 5:30am to go the bathroom.  Well, to go potty.  Dogs don't really use the bathroom.  I didn't really want to get up, but I kinda did want to get up, but I really didn't.  So it was still dark out and I took him out back in my underwear.  He went pee, but the pig, Cupid, always bothers him.  Then he ran around to the side of the house.  Apparently he was trying to poop, but Cupid wouldn't leave him alone.  I heard some growling and some scuffling, so I called to him, but he wouldn't come.  I had to go over and make sure he was all right.  I finally got him back in the house, and he went straight to the front door.  I'm still in my underwear, so I don't want to take him out the front door where people might see me, even though it's dark, but there's the porch light and street lights, etc.  But he starts squatting down in front of the door, so I tell him no, no, no.  Then I take him outside because it's obviously an emergency.  I'm also barefoot and we have rocks in the front.  So I walk across the bricks and sit down on them so I won't be seen by any of the neighbors.  Herbie finishes up, and I have a hard time getting him back in the house.  That's when I notice that he did drop a load on the welcome mat inside.  So now I have to clean that up, but first I have to drop my own load.  20 minutes later I'm finally ready to clean it.  I just took it outside and sprayed it with the hose.  It's now 6:30am and I really only have time to run two loops.  That's probably all I should have run anyway.  I took it nice and easy and could feel some minor stomach cramps.  Half way into the run I noticed a few sprinkles.  By that time I was so sweaty, that they weren't bothering me at all.  When I turned back north on the Floodway path, it started sprinkling a little harder.  It felt nice.  I saw Sis. Booth from the ward walking down the path.  I put my hands up and said, "I love the rain!"  She said, "Isn't it awesome?"  The End.

I woke up around 2:30am.  I couldn't get back to sleep.  I was sitting on the toilet when my alarm went off at 3:32am.  I was still sitting on the toilet when Mike got to my house at 3:50am. Luckily I had just finished up, so all I had to do was throw my clothes on.  And grab my lights.  And grab a towel.  And grab some water.  He brought Brian Stradling with him today.  Brian has run a handful of Ragnars with us.  It was his first time running Usery with us.  His brother, Tyler, had run with us a few times.  But Tyler lives in Texas now.  Their parents have also been on some of our teams.  In fact, they've got another brother and a sister who were on our Vegas team one year.  Their father has accepted the invitation to be on next year's team.  But Brian has not as of yet.  I think he will.  Why else would he go running with us? 

Brian is a pretty good runner.  But he was worried because he hasn't been running regularly.  I told him he'd do fine.  I started before both of them.  I was in the lead for about 0.4 miles.  Then Mike passed me.  I asked myself, "Where's Brian?"  I took a quick glance back and he was right behind me.  Not making a sound.  No footsteps.  No heavy breathing.  Just very relaxed and quiet, unlike Mike and myself.  He soon passed both me and Mike.  Knowing how competitive Mike is, I wondered if he'd pick up the pace.  Of course, he did.  This was my fastest time of the year.  I'm getting dangerously close to breaking that 10:00 min. pace. 

There was very little traffic this week, and zero runners.  I can remember only seeing two cyclists.  I wonder if it's because it's cooling down a little, so people aren't coming out quite as early to beat the sun.  I felt good running up.  I could see Brian coming back down the hill when I was about a quarter of a mile from the top.  Maybe more.  I finally saw Mike with about a tenth of a mile to go.  I found at later he stopped at the top to catch his breath.  I figured he must've.  Then he was off to the chase.  His goal was to catch Brian.  He caught him right before the bottom.  About a half mile from the bottom I saw Brian coming back up.  It was still dark out, but I recognized his reflective vest.  Looks like he wanted some extra mileage.  Mike and I weren't sure if we were supposed to wait for him or go get him.  We decided to get him.  Oh, I also saw the other Brian right at the bottom where we always see him.  He tends to take a break there before climbing the hill.  He runs a 20 mile loop.  I said, "Good morning, Brian!", and totally scared him.  He was on one of my Ragnar teams once, too.

Did my 5 loops today.  I saw old man hatch again on his stage coach.  I call it that now because come to find out, he was the model for the Wells Fargo bank years ago.  I saw the shirtless muscular guy again that runs with stiff arms.  I said good morning to him.  I finally ran under a 10 min. pace.  That includes the stopping at roads, so maybe it was a little less.

Yesterday I was helping my daughter and her husband move in to their townhouse they just bought.  I was up later than I wanted to be.  I only got about 4 hours of sleep.  So I hit snooze once this morning and decided I didn't have time for my weekly ritual of sitting on the pot for 20 minutes.  I'd have to excercise what we big boys call -self control.  Because of that I made it out the door a little earlier than usual.  When I walked outside I heard the neighbor's chickens in distress.  I went over to their wall and looked over.  But they've moved their chickens to the other side of their yard so I couldn't see anything.  Then I walked over towards the street and saw a coyote running down the road.  It was dark out, but I was 90% sure it was a coyote.  I couldn't tell if it had anything in its mouth.  I went back inside and put Herbie on his leash so I could take him outside to go potty.  After doing his business, I put him back inside and that's when Mike pulled up.  I told Mike I wanted to go check on Cupid real quick.  Cupid, our pig, was fine.  He'll make a fine meal some day.  For us.  Not for coyotes.  I hope.  So we drove down the road and we both spotted the coyote under the light of the street lamp in the retention basin on the corner.  Mike could tell it had something in its mouth.  So we drove closer and it was indeed a chicken.  It darted off with the chicken in its mouth over to the Floodway.  I got out to see the pile of feathers in the grass.  They were black and grey, so it may have been one of my chickens that went over to live with my neighbors.  Anyway, now I would be thinking about coyotes during my run.  Truth be told, I'm not afraid of them.  I'm sure I could take one in a fight.  We were driving down the street and I see this face of a Mexican in the back of a truck.  He was laying down like he was trying to hide.  It was kind of creepy, but not uncommon. 

I felt all right during the run.  I was over three minutes slower than last week.  But I'm ok with that.  I only ran once this week and with the Taco Bell, Barro's Pizza and lack of sleep, a slower run is to be expected.