Go, you chicken fat, go away!

So my friend Sarah who used to be one of the Third Thursday Adventure Run volunteers has been on a running streak.  Back when she was about to hit 600 days of running at least 1 mile a day in a row, I told her I wanted to join her for day 600.  But then I got Covid and couldn't.  Today was day 700, and there was no way I was going to miss it, even though I typically don't run on Sundays.  So my wife and I drove out to Tempe Town Lake and met up with her.  She wanted to do 7 miles for day 700, but I only wanted to do 3, so she ran 4 miles before we got there.  She was nice enough to slow down for us, but sadly my wife couldn't keep up.  We ran one mile and reached some picnic tables, so we decided to stop and wait for her.  We started running again and stopped at a shade structure/bench which was the turn around point.  After talking a while we started off one more time.  As we got to the last turn before the parking lot we stopped one last time for Vickie to catch up, but she was only about 200 feet behind us, so we started running again as soon as she caught up because we were only 6 or 700 hundred feet from the parking lot.

She was so grateful for us for coming out to support her.  I told her I was grateful for her for letting us, because it's kinda awesome that she's run so many days in a row.  I told her I wanted to join her for day 730 (2 years) and certainly day 1,000.  We had some good conversation, too, while running.  It was so nice to catch up.

About 30 miles to go on these shoes.

I snored myself awake this morning.  It was 5am.  I started running at 6:03am.  I had to take the garbage out to the street first.  I noticed one of the hinges was broken on one of our barrels.    The other one looked broken, too.  I also noticed what looked like diarrhea on our driveway.  And some hot dogs in the gutter.  Strange morning.

I ran towards Brown Road and could see a bright light coming even though it was getting pretty light out.  It was a cyclist.  Then I saw two men crossing the street.  About the time I reached the fence, they started to run.  I wondered if they were going to run or if they were just running to beat the traffic.  Once they got to the sidewalk, they started walking.  Ok, I guess they were just trying to beat the traffic.  But when they reached the fence, they started to run.  By this time I was half way across the Floodway and wondered if I could catch them.  They didn't look fast.

I followed them for a bit when I noticed another light coming towards us.  I could tell it was a person running, and knew it was the old man I've been seeing lately.  As we passed each other he said, "All right, man.  Good to see you."  I said, "Same to you."  I then looked ahead at the two other men and saw that they were way ahead of me.  I won't be catching them.  I wondered if the old man would turn around at the fence.  If he did, there was a good chance he would catch me.

I turned around to look when I reached the halfway point between Adobe and Brown.  Sure enough, he was coming.  I probably sped up a little.  As I approached Adobe I noticed that the two men were walking again.  Maybe I would catch them.  But they were quite a bit ahead of me.  What if they were only going to walk for a quarter mile and start running again?  I probably wouldn't catch them.  The old man was getting closer.  There's no way I can hold him off until I reach University, is there?

The two men kept walking once they reached the halfway point between University and Adobe.  I caught them!  Hey, it doesn't matter that they were walking.  I caught someone!  With about 20 yards to go before I reached the fence, the old man caught me.  He said, "You're running deceptively."  I asked, "How so?"  He replied, "I thought I was going to catch you a long time ago."  I said, "I may have sped up." 

He crossed the Floodway and started heading north on the other side.  I followed him.  There's a little dip on the trail right after you enter the fence.  When he started running down it, he stopped and walked.  He finally took his ridiculous light off.  Haha!  It was so light out by now.  He didn't even need it on the first time I saw him which was like a mile and a half away!  Anyway, I caught him.  That's three guys I caught in one day!  He said something about not liking running downhill.  He said some other stuff that I couldn't make sense of.  He started running again and I asked how far he runs.  He said according to [nonsensical noise] about 5.4 miles.  It takes him an hour.  I said, "That's great."  He had now passed me again and said that he would see me on Frid-, Thursday.  Tomorrow is his day off.  He's really friendly.  I think he thinks that we're best friends now.

When I got home I noticed the lid from the garbage was completely off.  How did that happen?  It was on when I left.  Did the diarrhea man do it?

I felt terrible this morning.  My legs were sooo stiff!  I ran a minute per mile slower than yesterday.

As I came up to Adobe, I saw a lady walking east of the intersection on the north side of the road.  I realized it was Edythe.  I wondered if she would follow me.  I got on the Floodway path and saw the two old ladies I see all the time.  I passed them up.  I didn't want to look back to see if Edythe was following me.  I ran up to Brown before looking.  She wasn't coming.  That means she probably crossed the street and went down the Floodway south of Adobe.  Probably trying to avoid me.  I stopped at a power pole to stretch out.  My legs felt a little better after that, but I still thought about only doing one loop today.  I got down to Adobe and figured I could go a little further.  I stopped again at another power pole.  I was leaning against it stretching my calves out.  That's when I saw Edythe on the other side of the Floodway.  I yelled, "Hi Edythe!"  She said good morning back in her usual cheery voice. 

I was going to cross the Floodway at the green belt, but I decided to tough it out and do the complete loop.  I think I stopped one more time.  Maybe twice.  Hopefully I'll feel better tomorrow.

My knees were hurting after my last run.  Everytime I would walk up or down the stairs, they'd ache.  My wife asked me if I wanted to run Usery this weekend.  I said it depends on how my knees feel in the morning.  I woke up around 5am and decided to go for it.  I said to my wife, "Hey, get up."  She got mad at me.  But she got up and we left.  There were vehicles all over the place.  There may have been some sort of activity going on.  I saw a RaceLab truck.  Or just a bunch of people getting up early to be active.  That being said, we were the only ones that parked at the sherrif's station.  That's typical.

We stretched out and headed out of the parkin lot.  I kept waiting for my wife to run, but she wasn't, so I just started hoping she'd follow.  It took her a while to start.  So I had a good head start on her.  Despite all the vehicles everywhere, there weren't that many road bikers.  I mean, there were, but not as many as I would've expected.  I remember one guy cruising down the hill.  I stepped off to the side and within moments he was passing me by.  He must've been going 40mph, easily.  A lot of the cyclists would stop at the bottom, turn around and come back up.  So I saw a lot of them twice.

I got to the two mile mark and crossed the street.  I could see my wife coming.  She was probably less than 0.2 miles away.  I told her she was almost there as I passed by her, but she had her headphones in and didn't hear me.  She just asked how my knees were feeling.  I think her overall pace was faster than mine today.  We got home and showered just in time for the first session of General Conference.