Go, you chicken fat, go away!

I just hit 700 miles on these shoes.  I almost hit it on my last run, but I was 0.03 miles shy.

I saw two of the white cats that roam our neighborhood this morning.  We had one of them, but one night as I was taking Herbie for a walk, we heard her scream, ran to the backyard to see what was going on, but we never saw her again.

I saw a couple walking their dogs as I entered the Floodway.  I passed them up and said good morning while they held the dogs still.  As I approached Brown, I saw this old lady I see every once and a while.  I said good morning to her.  She actually beat me to Adobe and she kept heading south, so I figured I might pass her again once I headed north from University. 

I saw a man down in the bottom of the Floodway after crossing Adobe.  I lost sight of him as he approached the toe of the channel.  Then I saw him as he walked up the service ramp.  We waved at each other and I didn't think to much about it until I heard, "Is that you, Burt?"  I recognized his voice right away as Tom O'Hare.  Tom is one of my favorite people from the ward, but he doesn't know that.  He's so genuine and funny.  He's a convert to the Church with a Catholic background.  I love Catholics.  But they don't know that.  I stopped to talk with him, but he said, "Don't let me stop you."  So I was off again.  I turned north on, now back on the east side of the Floodway.  When I got to the green belt, I passed the dog walking couple, on the west side of the Floodway.  Then I realized that I never saw the old lady.  She must've turned off at the green belt.

Two  nights ago my wife told me she was taking the girls to the gym to work out.  I said, "What about dinner?"  She said I could just make myself something or she'd make me something when she got back.  I looked around in the fridge and was like, I have no idea what to make.  So I grabbed a cheese stick.  I texted my wife later and told asked her to make me something when she got back.  I got in bed and started watching Netflix.  I was almost asleep when she brought me three delicious shrimp tacos.  I ate them and promptly fell asleep.  Bad idea.  I woke up at 3 in the morning and was not feeling well.  Like my food was just sitting there in my stomach not digesting.  I got up and sat  on the toilet a while.  That helped a little, but I couldn't get back to sleep.  I decided not to go running because I wasn't feeling good.  Last night I made sure not to go to bed until it had been a while since I ate.  I think I fell asleep around 10pm.  But again I woke up at 3:15am and couldn't go back to sleep.  I decided I should go running.

I picked out my green shorts and my old faded orange Ragnar Ambassador shirt.  Hey, nobody would see me in the dark.  I started running at 4:50am.  I noticed that my shirt was starting to ride up my belly.  My weight gain is out of control during the pandemic.  I pulled it down while I was running down the street in case someone drove by.  But once I got to the Floodway I just let it be.  I wondered how far up it would go.    Before I knew it, I was wearing a crop top.  Hey, nobody would see me in the dark.  I just let it sit there until I almost reached Brown. 

It was dark.  You know how when you're driving down the highway at night and a car is coming toward you, there's that time when the headlights are in your eyes and you can barely see the road?  That happened to me.  The street light from Brown Road was shining in my eye, and I thought I was going to step off the trail, and I almost fell.  I got to the other side of the Floodway which is also the RWCD road.  I saw tail lights all the way down at Adobe.  They then became headlights.I thought it was weird to see headlights on the RWCD road at 5 in the morning.  If memory serves me, shift change is at 5:30am.  But then again, it's dry up, so they're not running shifts.  After a while the headlights turned east and drove away.  I got to Adobe and could see the reflection of a vehicle sitting in front of the gate.  Then I heard a dog bark.  As I got closer I could see the owner struggling to get his two dogs under control.  I told him good morning, so he would know that I'm coming through.  He said, "You're all right."  The dog he had a hold of was barking at me and the other dog ran behind me and barked once.  I said, "Hi puppy!"  Who walks their dogs at 5:07am?  Probably a lot of people. 

When I got in line with my house, I could hear David crowing.  Stupid rooster.  I figured that would be the end of the excitement for the day, but as I was running north on the east side of the Floodway, I could make out the outline of an owl in the top of a palo verde tree.  I decided to take a picture and I think it turned out pretty good.  Stay away from my chickens, owl!  But you can take David.

I finally got some decent sleep last night.  I went to bed early.  At 11:30pm I was awakened to the sound of my daughters laughing.  I thought, "oh no, I hope I can get back to sleep."  Luckily I fell asleep again not long after that.  I woke up at 5am and started running at 6:24am.  It was still quite dark.  Yesterday when I checked the temperature on my phone, it said 38º.  Today, 53°.  As I made my way to Adobe I could see someone running west on Adobe.  I knew I had no chance of catching them.  When I turned the corner at Adobe I could see the figure still running up ahead, crossing over the Floodway.  And I saw another figure.  One of them looked like they turned north to run on the west side of the Floodway.  It was real dark, and hard to tell even though the street light was on.  The other one stayed there.  The closer I got the more visible he became.  He was just standing in the road.  Not in the driving lane, but right next to the stripe.  I thought that was queer.  But he was looking at his phone.  I wondered if he was timing someone.  The other person?  But they came from the other direction.  I think.  Who knows?  It was too dark.  So I just went north on the east side of the Floodway as usual.  After about a minute I could see the glow of the guy's cell phone.  Ah, he was just catching his breath.  Probably doing half mile intervals.  He passed me up pretty quickly, and I tried to keep an eye on him.  But even though I left an hour later than yesterday, it was much darker than yesterday.  No stars.  Was there a haze blocking them?  Was it so close to sunrise that the suns rays were blocking them?  I don't know, but I had to concentrate hard on the trail to make sure I didn't run into a tree or something.  Every now and again I would look across the Floodway to see how far ahead of me he was.  Then about half way to Brown someone shined a flashlight at me.  I don't know if they were shining it at me or down in the Floodway, truth be told.  But I thought it was the half mile interval guy.  So he's only doing quarter mile intervals?  But I then I saw the soft glow of his cell phone way up ahead.  So maybe this was the original guy (or gal) that turned north.  So many mysteries in the dark.  When I got to Brown, he was no where to be found.  I'm guessing he continued north. 

Now that I was on the RWCD road, I could see much better.  The RWCD road is nice and straight as opposed to the winding trail on the other side of the Floodway.  Also, there's no trees blocking what little light is given off by the street lights and neighborhood lights.  Speaking of street lights, have you ever been walking down the sidewalk at night and you get close to a street light and it turns off?  Do they have motion sensors?  Shouldn't they turn on rather than off?  You would think as a civil engineer, I would know the answer to that.  Anyway, after I crossed Adobe I could hear the refuse man in the rich part of the ward.  So there's a neighborhood just to the west of the Canal.  That's the rich part.  The neighborhood south of them, south of the green belt, where Maggie lives, is the poor part.  Sorry Maggie.  My neighborhood is the in-betweens.  Anyway, the refuse man.  I say refuse because I don't know if it was the recycling man or the green waste man.  Although, I think they are one in the same right now.  Once the pandemic and lockdown started, they same truck was picking up both.  I don't know if they've gone back to separate or not yet.  Also, I shouldn't say man, because there was a lady driver a while back.  She was nice.  I didn't think my recycling was out to the street yet.  Or my green waste, but what are the chances anything is in the green waste barrel?  I hoped I would make it back to my house in time to take them out.  I did make it back in plenty of time.  Also, the green barrel was full.  Someone chopped up our Christmas tree and filled the barrel up.  But I'm guessing it's going to take 4 or 5 barrels to get rid of all of it.