Go, you chicken fat, go away!

Recovery run.  It's nice to see that when I'm purposely trying to run slow, I'm about the same pace as I was a few months ago when I was trying to run fast.  I guess that's something.  Although it's more likely that I haven't tried very hard.  But today felt great and it's a beautiful day out.

I tried to run faster today.  I picked up the pace early, but my knees started to hurt, so I stopped and stretched.  After 3/4 miles I sped up again and tried to maintain the pace for a half mile.  I'm not used to running fast, so it was difficult.  Then I slowed back down for another half mile.  Then I was going to pick it up again for 1/4 mile, but I didn't get very far before my calf muscle started to hurt.  So I stopped again and stretched some more.  Then I ran slow all the way back.  The End.

Nice and slow.  Just trying to get a few miles in and not injure myself by overdoing it.

Mike wanted to pick me up at 5:30am this morning.  I was fine with that.  I set the alarm for 4:40am and hit snooze a couple of times.  I sat on the toilet for about half an hour.  I got some out, but not nearly enough.  I packed some TP, grabbed a towel, my butt lamp, my headlamp, and two bottles of water.  I told Mike yesterday that I was contemplating having him drop me off at the top of Usery Pass and I would just run home.  That would be about 10.3 miles.  But since Ragnar is less than a week away, I thought it would be best to do some more uphill running.  So I told him let's do the same thing we did last week.  On the drive down we saw 3 horses and 1 pony.  It was dark, but they were pretty close to the road.  They were on the side that we run up.  I hoped I would see them while I was running.  We got to the Sheriffs' station and started to stretch out.  We both had to poop.  We were twinners.  So Mike found a roll of TP in his truck and I used my stash.  I was annoyed at how easy it came out now.  30 minutes on the toilet and barely anything.  30 seconds in the woods and, well, you don't want to know.  Anyway Mike took off thinking I had already left.  So I flashed him.  With my headlamp.  He waited for me to go around the barb wired fence so we could start together, but he immediately left me in his dust.  I was running faster than last week, but so was he.  That's a good sign.  There were lots of cars and cyclists again so I employed the same strategy as last week to move off the shoulder whenever they would zoom by.  I saw a few runners, but not nearly as many as last week.  Maybe because we started earlier?  The run was good, but I never saw the horses.  When I finished Mike was talking with some guy and the parking lot was full.  Apparently a mother and her daughter went missing on their hike yesterday and they were forming a search party.  I hope they find them and they're ok.  Mike said he saw the horses when he was coming back down.  They had crossed the road to the other side.  We slowed down to look for them where he had seen them, but they weren't there.  I kept looking though.  Then I spotted them behind some brush.  We pulled over and took pictures.  Pretty good morning.