Go, you chicken fat, go away!

MLK Day.  No school.  My wife and I went to Hilltop and just did one climb.  On the way down I was following this Native American lady and there was this old man on the trail in front of us.  When he saw us coming he moved over and said to the lady, "I'm watching out for.  There's Indians around.  I've spotted a few."

Just two nice and easy loops today.  It had been raining, but it was mostly done by 7am when I went running.

This might be long, depending on how many details I decide to share.

So yesterday we bought a house.  It's the house we've currently been renting for the last 6 years.  The recession hit us hard and we lost our last house, so we've been renting ever since.  To celebrate we went to Buca di Beppo.  But before we did that I had to take Herbie on his daily walk.  It had been lightly raining for most of the day.  Sometimes Herbie likes to pull real hard on his leash.  Well, a lot of the time.  I always have to be real careful when he walk down into the Floodway because it's steep and he tries to go so fast.  But because of the rain, it was slick and he pulled hard which caused me to slip.  I scratched up my arm some, but I was more mad than anything.  He kept wanting to pull hard, and I just wanted to kick him, buy you know, animal cruelty and stuff.

After a little bit he started to pull real hard.  Now I know he only does this when he sees a coyote, so I started looking for one, but it was dark out.  Then I saw it near the bottom of the west bank of the Floodway.  It trotted over toward the middle and stopped on the trail in the middle.  We got pretty close to it before it ran off.  We chased it a little bit.  I figured I was going to have to change my shirt anyway since I slipped in the mud.  If I start to sweat a little, what's the harm?  We chased it to the east side of the Floodway where it ran up the bank, went about 10 feet north and then came back down.  We followed it a little more and then we saw another coyote.  So we chased that one, too.  They weren't running away to try and get away.  They were just running enough so we couldn't catch them.  But then I noticed that once we stopped chasing one, I would turn around and the other one would be right behind us.  Not only that, but now there was a third one. 

They say coyotes aren't pack animals, but they certainly do hang out together.  But what I noticed is that they separate from each other instead of hanging together to fight together.  So we'd chase one and then we'd turn around and see the other two surrounding us.  It was like they were velociraptoring us.  I finally convinced Herbie to just walk away, but they were following us.  So we'd chase them off, but they still stayed close by.  I think the closest we got to one was about 8 feet away.  I tried to take some video, but it was too dark.

Fast forward to this morning.  I had gotten dressed to go on my run.  Vickie had already left for hers.  She texted me to say that it was foggy out and it was kind of eerie.  I immediately took Herbie out back for his morning pee, but it wasn't foggy out.  I figured it was probably only real foggy out near the Floodway where the fog likes to settle in the channel.  So I rushed Herbie back inside and fed him.  I didn't want to miss the fog before it lifted.  I didn't even stretch today, which I always do before I run.  I got to the Floodway and sure enough, there was fog.  I snapped a picture.

Up ahead on the path you can see a couple and their dog.  As I got nearer to them, I saw a coyote run out in front of them on the path.  I asked them if they saw it when I passed them and they did not.  I ran to where I had seen it and it was still there on the top of the bank.  Plus, there was another coyote with it.

I pointed them out to the couple and then I saw another one on the opposite side of the Floodway.  I titled my run on Strava - Coyotes in the Mist.  I ran up to Brown, crossed the Floodway, and headed back south.  I had seen the coyotes at the half way point between Adobe and Brown, so I kept my eyes open to see them again.  They had all moved down about an eight of a mile south towards Adobe.  Now they were all on the west bank together.  I took some more pictures.

You can see all three of them in this picture.

There are two of them in this picture.

I couldn't stay much longer because my glasses started to fog up and I couldn't see anymore.  I'm guessing they were the same three from last night, but who knows?

I crossed Adobe and saw a group of old men walking towards me.  I told them about the coyotes.  Then I saw Vickie running towards me.  We stopped and kissed and I showed her my pictures.

The End.

It was a nice morning out.  A tiny bit of fog.  No coyotes.  There were a bunch of people out today.  I saw the two old ladies that I've been seeing a lot lately.  They run together and I'm slightly faster than they are.  Then I saw another lady running towards me.  I don't think I've seen her before.  Then I could see someone sitting on the Floodway path from the other side.  I thought it was Jeff.  I haven't seen him very much.  The last time I saw him was Saturday when I drove by there.  I ran further and saw Jeff near University.  Yesterday there was a huge accident right here as a car hit a city bus.  The police had it taped off.  But it was open this morning.  So the person sitting on the path was not Jeff.  Turned out it was some guy with a skateboard and a hoodie playing a game on his phone.  After that there was a gaggle of old people on their walk.  I saw them yesterday, too.  Anyway, it was a nice day to be outside.
 

I've just been doing two loops all week because I want to be able to run a 10 miler tomorrow.  But my legs felt like lead today.  Is it weather?  Old age?
 

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.