Go, you chicken fat, go away!

I didn't wear my Garmin today.  I couldn't find it.  I was going to use the timer on my phone, but I was worried that it would start raining again.  It didn't.  And man it was nice!  It feels good to be running (more) regularly again.  Just as I'm sure it feels good to be regular.  The run was pretty uneventful until right towards the end when the crazy guy saw me again.  This time he just waved at me.  He's crazy.  Well, crazy about waving at me.  Anyway, I waved back and then did the two-handed point.

I decided to look for my Garmin today.  It was next to my dresser where I keep the charger.  So that's good.  Just another ordinary run on an ordinary day.  Nothing special about it.  Nope.  Nothing.  Enjoy this picture.

I heard that allie and Tara are getting hit pretty hard with the wind storms lately.  Keep them in your thoughts.

Ran at work.

I had to go check some well sites.  I got to one and knew the other one was a quarter a mile away.  I decided to jog to it.  When I got back I realized I'd left my keys in the lock.  Rookie mistake.  Jogged back and got them.

A family I got to church with lost their baby to meningitis.  They put on a 5k to raise funds for the funeral expenses.  This is taken from the facebook page:

  Briana Louise Dimon came into this life on August 26, 2011. For the first five weeks, she lived the life of an average and very cuddly newborn baby girl. On October 1, 2011, Briana woke up with very high temperature and rushed to the hospital. After receiving breathing and other treatments, she was admitted to Cardon Children's Hospital and quickly diagnosed with Strep B Meningitis. It was discovered that, due to seizures and other issues, the other half of her brain was damaged and if she did survive it, she would have little to no quality of life. With much prayer and fasting from many in the community, we decided we needed to let our sweet little one return to Our Father In Heaven. Briana passed away 7 weeks to the day she was born surrounded by her loving parents and family. Although she was with us for such a short time, our little Bri touched numerous lives from many various places and situations. We will always remember the love and happiness Bri brought to our lives, and look forward to seeing her in the Eternity's to come.

I had no intention of running fast.  I thought maybe I'd run with Bishop Stradling.  Then I saw Mike King and decided to run with him.  I was thinking I'd like to run a 9min. pace, since that's all I ever run anymore.  But we ran a bit faster.  Scott LeSeuer was right behind us the whole time just like he said he would be.  I told him that if our backsides fall off, just scoop them up and give them to us at the finish line.  I was kind of surprised that he stayed with us the whole time.  He's old and doesn't look like he's in that good of shape.  But I guess we were only running an 8:18 pace.  He caught up to us at the end and I was hoping we'd all do the honorable thing and cross the line together.  But Mike sped up to finish a step ahead of us. 

I felt good and my hamstring didn't bother me.  I'm sure I could have run faster.  Way faster.  But not all races are races.

Splits - 8:08, 8:28, 8:21

Another mile at work.  No javelina or coyote attacks.

I finally got out for a run.  It's been years since I ran.  I think.  It felt pretty good.  But at a 9:14 pace, I don't expect that it would feel bad.  39° is just about too cold for me.  Well, too cold for shorts and a short sleeved T.  But I wore them anyway.

Also I saw RUN2DAY as I was driving down the street in my old neighborhood.  He was running, of course.  Merry Christmas everyone.  Remember the reason for the season :)

I went for a run this evening in my new shorts and shoes.  I may not be fast, but I was styling.  The shoes felt good, but I started to notice some pain on top of my foot after a while.  Was it the shoes or the fact that I haven't been running much lately?  Time will tell.  No Garmin.  My rubber handle has split, so I'll have to get that replaced.

In other news, I recently was asked to vote on the best marathon medals of 2011.  Apparently, some guy named Frank Shorter was asked to be on the voting panel, but he never got back to them.  As usual, I stepped in at the last second to save the day.

2 miles in the frigid 37° cold.

I am always self conscious on cold days when you can see your breath about passing gas.

Well, it's nice to know I can still run 10 miles.  I can't do it fast, but I can do it.  Glen the Gazelle and I drove together to the race this morning.  I really enjoy his company.  There were a lot of familiar faces.  Which means a lot of fast faces.  I knew I was not in race shape, so I told Glen that I was not going to get caught up in the heat of the moment and try to run fast, and that he should go do what he do.  (I love talking like that.) He beat me by almost 20 minutes.

Since I'm still waiting on a replacement handle for my Garmin I remembered the time Glen told me about how he downloaded a free app called Endomondo for his smart phone that works like Garmin.  So I downloaded it before the race.  Luckily I had my new shorty shorts (there not that short) with the zippers on the pockets.  I had my truck keys in one pocket and my phone in the other.  At times during the race I could hear my pocket talking to me, but I couldn't tell what it was saying.  At the 8 mile marker I pulled my phone out, and it said 8.25 miles.  Hmmm...piece of junk!

I was running with a group for a while, but they slowly pulled ahead of me.  In my mind I thought, "No problem.  We're all running slow.  I'll throw in a 6:30 last mile and pass them all!"  But my legs did not agree with my wild imaginations. 

The course was out and back.  We had to cross the street  right before mile 4.  That's when I saw the leaders coming back.  Holy cow!  That means they were already more than two miles ahead of me.  Then I started counting people.  Glen was in 36th place and looking good.  At the turn around I was in 59th place.  But I got passed twice on the way back.  I hit the wall at 7.5 miles.  How sad is that?  I hit the wall in a 10 mile race?  That's what a steady diet of holiday chocolate will do for you.

At mile 8 there was a bag lady pushing a grocery cart.  When I passed her, she said that we were all insecure.  Then when the lady behind me caught up to me, she told me the bag lady said to her that she better be careful because I was looking to punch someone.  So, I did punch her after the race.  Right in the knuckles.  At some point Endomondo stopped working.  Hard to say when because it wasn't recording the distance very accurately.  Oh, and there were a lot of bridges that we had to run under.  Every time we did I would hear people's Garmins going crazy.  But you would think if I lost satellite reception that it would measure it short.  Right?  Anyway, I'm not sure on my exact time, but it was in the general ball park of 1:33.  

Happy New Year everyone!