Go, you chicken fat, go away!

Season 9 of the Walking Dead is now available on Netflix.  What better way to spend a Sunday than by holing myself up in my room and binge watching?  I can't think of any.  I actually only watched one episode.  My grandson was in the room with me so we were probably watching that weird rabbit cartoon.  But I got this alert on my phone that there was a severe storm alert for the Maricopa area.  I looked outside and the wind was blowing and clouds were moving in.  I went outside because the temperature had dropped and it felt nice.  We hardly got any rain, though. 

This morning the temperature was actually 81º despite me leaving to run at 7:16am.  So that was nice.  I saw mostly dog walkers out.  As I was heading south on the Canal road I could see the hobo standing up looking over the Floodway.  I wondered if he was taking a tinkle.  I wonder where he usually takes his tinkles and poops.  I'm guessing he must go somewhere or by this point I would be able to smell it.  When I was heading back north on the Floodway path I saw another dog walker.  I also saw a tree that had been blown over in the storm.  I had to take a picture of it, and I had to tell the lady walking her dog that I was going to take a picture of it so that she wouldn't think I was a creeper for stopping right when we passed each other.  Then I ran past the hobo and yelled, "Did you see that tree that blew over down there?" He grumpily said, "Yes."  I think all he hears is, "I live in a house, and you don't!"  I'm the worst.  But I'm trying.
 

My feet are still a little sore from Saturday, but today's run felt like one of those runs where you could have gone faster.  Like parts of my legs wanted to run faster, but my sore feet did not. 

As I was running south on the Canal road, I saw a lady walking ahead of me.  I knew she was too far ahead for me to catch, but when she got to University, I lost sight of her.  Turns out she went over to the Floodway path, and I just didn't see her for some reason.  I finally caught up to her right after we passed the hobo, and I was so afraid that she was going to think I was the hobo chasing her.

I woke up at 5am this morning.  Well, I'm sure I was awake before that, but I got out of bed at 5am.  It was a little dark out, but the sun was on its way.  My phone said it was 87º out, but I think it cooled down.  There weren't very many people out.  I saw two ladies walking their dogs while I was heading south on the Canal road and they were heading north on the Floodway path.  There is a dip in the path where the green belt spills into the Floodway.  I saw one of the ladies run up the dip.  I crossed University and saw another runner.  We said good morning to each other.  Then right before I reached University again I saw another runner.  He looked familiar.  Turns out it was Matt Bell, a guy I've friended on Strava.  I sent him a message on Strava saying, "Nice seeing you this morning," even though I didn't recognize him at the time.  After I crossed the dip section I saw the two ladies again.  I was then able to recognize them as Sis. Porter and her daughter.  They were probably like, "Gross.  Br. McCumber is so sweaty."  Then I turned on Adobe and saw my wife.  She was just starting her walk.  She's been dealing with tummy issues the last week or so.  I gave her a quick kiss and headed home.

My wife has been complaining of stomach cramps for the last couple of weeks.  I got them last night.  As soon as they hit, I went and laid down.  They weren't that bad this morning, but I had two bouts with the toilet and finally started my run (my run-run, not the other kind) at 6:26am.  It was 85º.  I had this funny idea to try and run fast today.  So I picked up the pace.  I realized that it hurts to run fast.  I'm not used to it anymore.  And I certainly couldn't sustain a faster pace for much more than a quarter mile.  So that's what I did.  Run as fast as reasonably could, slowed down, then sped up.  I quit after a mile and a half.

I just wanted to do a nice and easy run this morning to recover from yesterday's "speed work."  Also, I'll probably run Usery Pass tomorrow, and I want to be ready for that.  Even though I was purposely trying to go slower, I actually was running about the same pace as usual.

I had a restless night sleep.  But I got much more sleep than my wife who got less than 3.  We're headed up to Kingman today so I can bless my niece.  But we still had time to run Usery.  It was me, Vickie, Mike, and Glen today.  Nice to have the band back together again.  For Mike, it was his first time running since basically Ragnar.  Still he ran faster than me.  I didn't really push it today.  I wanted to make it to the top, and I did.  Mike passed me first.  Glen had given us a head start.  When he finally caught up to me his headlamp was so bright that it made my shadow look enormous.  The traffic wasn't quite as bad as last week.  Probaby because we started an hour earlier and it wasn't a holiday weekend.  A few cyclists passed me going uphill as I was going up, but no one passed my going down as I was going up until I hit the 1 mile to go mark to the top.  Then there were about three more after that.  I crossed the road at the top and texted my wife.  Strava shows that she still went up a little ways after I texted her.  Maybe she didn't receive the text right away or maybe she wanted to ge a little extra.  It didn't seem like Glen and Mike were too far ahead of me.  In fact, I was surprised at how close to Glen Mike was.  It made me wonder if Glen kept going a little ways after reaching the top before turning around.  I didn't ask.  My shoe was coming untied, but I didn't want to stop until I got to the top.  About a tenth of a mile from the top there is a place where cars pull off the side of the road.  I saw some people in the dark around the truck so I ran up to them to ask if I could use their tailgate to tie my shoe.  It was two 12-ish year old boys holding shot guns, a dog, and their dad.  They were happy to let me.  I was happy to not get shot.  The way down was almost worse than going up because we had a headwind on the way up that helped cool us down.  Ooh, I almost forgot.  We got a few sprinkles on the way up.  Just bareley.  Made me wonder if it was bugs or something.  But Glen and Vickie confirmed that it was rain.  Mike didn't feel it.  Anyway, on the way down I could see Vickie at about the 2.25 mile to go mark.  I didn't catch up to her until 1.5 to go.  I briefly stopped to take a selfie with her.  Then I ran about another half mile and texted Mike to say that he could come pick us up if he wanted.  But he didn't reply back until I was basically at the stop sign.  So I just finished up, and I knew Vickie wasn't too far behind so we waited.  She was so close to 6 that she ended up running a little extra 'til she reached it.  I'm proud of her.