Go, you chicken fat, go away!

This morning at 3:14am I was awoken by Herbie barking.  I looked at the time and immediately thought it was 4:14am and that Herbie must be barking at Mike and we were late.  But nope, we still had half an hour before we needed to be up.  I went upstairs to find Herbie.  He was actually in the room above me which is my daughters' room.  He was barking out the back window, so no idea what he was barking at.  Maybe a coyote jumped the fence?  Well, I still wanted that extra half hour of sleep.  But then at 3:22am Mike sent a response to the group text that he wasn't feeling well and wouldn't be able to make it.  I responded, "Ok."  Then I responded, "Everyone else, I'll pick you up an hour later."  Everyone else was my wife, Maggie, and Glen.  Then Maggie replied that her youngest was up and wasn't feeling well, so she wouldn't be able to sneak out.  It ended up being just me, Vickie, and Glen.  And we were a few minutes late because of the Jalapeno Bucks we ate for lunch yesterday.

We got to the sheriff's station and stretched out.  I was the first to leave with my wife right behind me.  Glen gave us a head start.  He caught me at the half mile mark.  Since we were out an hour later we didn't bring any of our lights with us, but Vickie and Glen wore reflective vests.  I just wore my orange outfit.  But since we were out an hour later, there were tons and tons of cyclists today.  Glen left me in the dust and I'm not sure how far he went.  I stopped once to take a picture of a tarantula on the side of the road.  I finally saw Glen when I got to the top.  He reached the crest a few steps before I did, but I had to wait for some motorcycles and cyclists before I could cross.  So he was a good 50 feet ahead of me again.  And at this point we were being attacked by gnats.

I had sent that picture of the tarantula to the group text.  My wife saw it and took her own picture and sent it out.  That means she wasn't too far behind me.  When I passed by her going down she was only about 9 tenths of a mile behind me.  She's getting better and better.  Glen was out of sight again.  And now is when just an entire horde of cyclists started riding up.  I spent more time on the side of the road than on the shoulder.  Of course that's not true, but with my left ankle still sore from yesterday, it felt like it.  I finally made it to the bottom.  It was nice and cool today and I still had plenty of water left.  I was going to run to our jeep, but I saw a bunch of horses in the Salt River Tubing parking lot across the street.  So I ran to them to take a couple of pictures.  Then I called Vickie to see if she wanted to finish so she could see the horses or if she wanted us to come get her.  She opted to have us come get her.  She was able to do 6.25 miles, her furthest run ever.