Go, you chicken fat, go away!

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.