Go, you chicken fat, go away!

I wanted to do three loops this morning because I didn't get a long run in last week.  But I also had to leave the house at 7:30ish to make it to my job site meeting on time.  I took a solid nap yesterday, and didn't sleep too well last night.  Often when I take naps I get sleep paralysis.  I try to wake up, but I can't.  But over the years I've managed to train my arm to move a little.  Sometimes it's just enough to get it over the side of the bed so that once my arm falls down, it wakes me up.  Or sometimes it's enough to reach over to my wife and shake the bed so that she wakes me up.  I remember doing that last night and she tried to wake me up, but I just wasn't coming out of it.  She would shake my arm and tell me to wake up, but it wasn't happening.  So I just kept shaking the bed until finally I woke up.  I don't like it.  Maybe I shouldn't take naps.  Anyway, that was around 3am, and I slept restlesly after that until 5am.  Also the darn rooster keeps cockledoodledoing.

Well, I didn't get out early enough to do 3 loops.  I barely had time for 2.  I jumped in the shower and got ready as fast as I could.  We loaded up the van with the survey equipment and headed out.  Google maps said we would be 4 minutes late, so I tried to drive a little over the speed limit.  We got there right at 4 minutes after the hour.  But we got there right before the city inspector, so it was all good. 

The run was nice.  Lots of familiar faces.  Weather wasn't too bad today.  My legs felt good.  But it's 4pm now, and after walking around all morning at the job site, my legs are sore.  We'll see how I do tomorrow.

It's Friday.  I haven't been keeping up with blogging.  Oh well.  Here goes.  This morning (Tuesday) I thought, "Let's try bringing the dog with me for 1 loop."  Why not?  What could go wrong?  Besides the fact that a few nights ago as we were walking, and as we were going down the steep bank of the Floodway, Herbie spotted a coyote.  After watching it a few seconds, he decided to lunge after it.  Knowing I would fall down for sure, I just let go.  It was dark out, and I couldn't see exactly where he went after he got on the other side of the Floodway.  But I could see another coyote that started following them.  I tried to run after them, but I would have to stop and listen to try and figure out where they were.  I couldn't hear anything.  I kept going south until I almost got to the well site.  That's when I called my wife and said, "I can't find Herbie."  It had only been about three or four minutes.  I figured maybe he chased it all the way down to University or something.  So, my wife said, "Do you want me to come help you look?  Wait a minute.  I hear a dog barking."  Herbie had found his way back home.  He must not have chased very long.  Such a dumb dog.  And a smart dog, too, I guess.

Back to today (Tuesday.)  I leashed him up and started running.  He was like, "Okay.  We're doing this?"  He tried to run too fast, but I reined him in.  He still wanted to sniff and pee on every bush, but I wouldn't let him.  He wanted to check out every person we went by, but I wouldn't let him.  But then he wanted to poop, and I couldn't stop him.  Luckily I had brought a baggie with me for just such an occasion.  But that ended the loop.  I immediately turned around and ran back home.  It was 1.14 miles. 

I wasn't satisfied with just 1.14 miles, so that night after dinner I went back out and did another loop by myself.

Last night's run was nice and slow, so even though it had only been 9 or so hours since then, I felt good.  I don't remember much about this run other than seeing two guys in the bottom of the Floodway letting their dogs play together.  When I looped around the one guy was leaving towards the north and the other guy was going south.  The southern guy was actually jogging while wearing jeans and a cowboy hat.
 

What do I remember about this run?  Not much.  It was only yesterday so I should remember something.  Oh well.  If I do, I'll come back.
 

Yesterday and today are supposed to be 108º.  It was warm.  Oh, now I do remember something about yesterday.  I was wearing a black shirt, and I was extra warm.  Hmmm, I'm not going to go back and edit that one in.  Anyway, our dryer broke, and I don't have a lot of clean running clothes right now.  I wore a pair of shorts that I don't usually wear.  They were kind of loose and I couldn't untie the draw string to tighten them up.  But they stayed up.  Mostly.  There was a lot more people out this morning.  At one point I saw two walkers in front of me.   One was about 100 feet in front of the other.  Right before catching the first one, two cyclists passed us up.  The right when I caught the first walker, two other walkers were coming towards us.  I had to run right in the middle of all of them.  I said in a loud voice, "It's like Grand Central Station here!"  They all looked at me bewildered.  I looped around and saw this tall all lady that I see a lot.  Usually she's jogging, but today she was walking with a friend.  Also I was following the cowboy jogger from Tuesday.  He was once again running and wearing regular clothes.  I looped around at University and saw Jeff laying down up against the wall.  I barely make eye contact with him anymore.  Then I saw a lady (looked like a high school aged girl, except for her forearm covered in tattoos.)  She looked like she was about to start running, but then she saw me, so she casually walked back to the park entrance, sat down and pretended to tie her shoe.  That's when my shorts started to sag and felt like they were going to fall off.  So I took my phone out of my pocket and carried it the rest of the way.  I saw the Grand Station Central couple again, and the man said, "You're doing good today."