Go, you chicken fat, go away!

So my wife asked me to send out a group text to see who wanted to go running this morning.  I got one reply right away.  It was from Maggie.  Come to find out, Maggie had told my wife to tell me to send the text out.  Conspiracy!  Anyway, it ended up just being me, Vickie and Maggie.  We picked her up at 5am and drove out to Usery.  Again the sign for no parking at the sherriff's station was still there.  So this time we kept driving to another parking lot down by the river.  Luckiy we had a Tonto pass.  This parking lot was 1.1 miles away from our regular parking spot.  We decided to do 5 miles, 2.5 up and 2.5 down.  Vickie and Maggie got a small head start on me.  I caught up to them before a quarter mile.  At a half a mile with Vickie and Maggie just behind me I ran past a truck parked on the side of the road.  As I approached I saw this head pop up from the back.  Someone was sleeping in it and had just woken up.  I also saw a girl sleeping in the passenger seat.  Even though they looked harmless, I made sure to watch that Vickie and Maggie got by them safely.

At three quarters of a mile I stopped to take pictures of the wild horses.  There were a bunch of them just north of the Salt River Tube rental parking lot. 

I checked my Strava when I passed our regular parking lot to see how far I'd gone.  1.1 miles.  So now I had an idea of where I'd need to turn around to get 5 miles done. 

It was a busy day.  Lots of cars.  Lots of cyclists.  And even a handful of runners.  I saw the first two runners when my Strava said I was at 2.3 miles.  They were running downhill.  I was worried that I'd reach 2.5 right when we got to each other, and it would be creepy to them if I turned around with them.  But they were fast and it still said 2.4 when they went by.  Then I saw another runner.  She for sure would have been 2.5.  So I just kept running.  There is a little hill right before a dip in the road where I know is usually the 1.5 mile mark.  So I ran to there, which would give me a little over 5 miles.  Oh, I forgot to say.  I kept looking back to check on Vickie and Maggie.  They were never too far behind.  But one time I turned around and they were gone.  I wasn't sure if they stopped to walk or what.  Anyway, after I turned around and still couldn't see them, I checked my phone again and saw a text message that Vickie had sent me 6 minutes ago.  She said they turned around at two miles.  So I ran down and while I was running I turned behind me to look at a vehicle and saw another girl runner about to pass me up.  Where did she come from?  I found out later from Strava that there were a group of girls that had started at the top and ran a 10k downhill. 

As I approached the intersection I could see the girl that passed me and two other girls up ahead beyond the stop sign.  I figured they had all parked at the same parking lot we had.  But then I was like, "Where's the other girl?"  Then I realized that the two girls way up ahead were Vickie and Maggie.  I wasn't sure if I would catch them right away, but they were walking.  Apparently they ran the two miles up and walked the two miles down.  I thought about cutting through the desert to beat them to the van, but I didn't. 

When I got home I finally gave myself a hair cut.  I did not trim my beard, and I gave myself a mohawk.