Next Friday is the last Del Sol Ragnar Relay. I wanted to have a confidence booster so I asked Mike to drop me off at the top of Usery so I could run home. Glen finally rejoined us to test out his knee. He and Mike ran 8 miles together at a slower pace than normal. I'm worried I might have to switch legs with him for Ragnar. We'll see. But that's why I wanted to make sure I could do a 10+ run without a problem.
They dropped me off and I briefly stretched out. I took a quick tinkle and headed down. I started to think about whether or not they would drive by me when they were done. But I realized that I would probably be a mile in to it by the time they even started. And if my wife runs the 7.4 miles, which she did, I would probably be over 9 miles by that point. It would take them another 20 or 25 minutes to drive back, so I should easily be able to get home before they did.
I started thinking about coyotes, but for some reason my mind switched to javelinas. I was running on the west side of the road which was with traffic. I knew it would be about 2.5 miles before the road split and I could run on a sidewalk. Since there's so much less traffic that comes this way (everyone is either heading to the lake or out of town) I hoped I might even be able to get there before someone drove past me. I got about a quarter of a mile away before a car finally did. And as evidence by the fact that I'm writing this entry, I did not die.
Now I was starting to get into a more rural area, so I was starting to see more people out. That was nice. Also, there were street lights and I could have taken off my headlamp, but I kept it on for a while. I got to Brown Rd. and knew I was at the 4 mile mark and was pretty confident none of the other runners had reached the top yet. I contemplated texting them to let them know, but I didn't. I ran by Hilltop and remembered that out of the 4 times I've attempted this run (this being the 4th) I've only completed it once. One time I had to call my wife right here because my knee started to bother me. To be honest, my legs weren't feeling great, but I was confident that if I kept running nice and easy, I could get home without a problem.
Now came basically the only extended amount of uphill climb. It doesn't even show up on Strava as uphill because it's artificial uphill in that it's a bridge over the 202 Freeway. I reminded myself that if I felt tired, it was because I was running uphill. But it wasn't bad at all. I also knew that this was the half way point. Now is where things got exciting.
There's a steep downhill after the freeway. I was cruising down and I looked in the median of the road and spotted a javelina. I immediately recognized it as one because they were already on my brain. Now, javelinas are not like coyotes in that they can be aggressive. Coyotes will pretty much leave you alone unless they're rabid. But javelinas will charge you although they have poor eyesight. So I stopped to take a picture, but was cautious and kept my distance. I figured if it started chasing me I would run out in the street and hope a car came by so I could flag it down or something. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and it was soaking wet with sweat. All the sweat on the screen was making it hard to turn the camera mode on. I finally found a dry spot to wipe it off and was able to snap a picture.
My glasses started fogging up a little, too. I noticed that when I would move a little, the javelina would get nervous and start to go away in the opposite direction. It seemed to be eating something. It was just starting to get light out and I couldn't make out what it was. Was it a bush? Was it another javelina? I didn't want to scare it out into traffic so I waited until it was clear. Then I stepped toward it and it scampered off across the street. Now I could go out into the median to see what the lump was. It was in fact another javelina. Dead. Most likely hit by a vehicle and it's buddy had no choice but to eat him.
I sent the rest of the team the pictures. My wife texted me back to show me that this was her fastest run going uphill. She had probably just gotten to the top at that point. I started running again and reached my daughter's high school. The track team was out doing an early morning run. They were all very friendly as they ran by. Power Road is 3.1 miles from my house. Just a 5k to go. I was feeling good. I had taken off my headlamp at this point so I had my phone in my left pocket and my water bottle and headlamp in my right pocket.
It looks like Mike and Glen finished when I got half way between Power and Recker. So I still had 2.6, maybe 2.7 miles to go. I got to Higley and took a picture of the intersection. I texted it to the team and tried to say "1 mile to go", but again my screen was so wet that I couldn't get the 1 to work. It kept recognizing 2. So I just texted the picture so they could figure it out for themselves. According to Strava, Vickie finished when I had 0.6 miles to go. I took my gloves off and stuffed them in my right pocket. I took another swig of water and had just a little bit left, so I crumpled up the water bottle as much as I could, put the lid back on and stuffed it in my right pocket, too. It must've fallen out shortly thereafter. I turned on 48th and ran the last 0.6 miles and texted Vickie to see where she was at. She responded saying that they were waiting for Alyssa still. Alyssa ran 8 miles real slow. So I ended up beating them home by 30+ minutes. I went inside to find Emily watching Peppa Pig, eating an ice cream sandwich for her breakfast.
| 