Go, you chicken fat, go away!

Yesterday I saw that there would be an 80% chance of rain this morning.  It did indeed rain.  We could hear it starting around 6am.  I still wanted to run so I got dressed.  It started coming down harder.  Then I looked in the laundry room and saw that water was coming in the door.  This does happen from time to time when it rains just right.  But now that our pig has destroyed the rain gutter downspout, I'm sure it will happen more often.  So I went around the house and started scooping buckets of water out and tossing them in the yard.  The rain kept coming and I was getting drenched.  After a while I was noticing that it was filling up faster than I could scoop.  My wife came by and I asked her to get the tarp.  My son brought it out and of course as soon as we got it hung up, it stopped raining.  I then decided to clean out the pool because that's a mess, too.

Finally I decided I could go running.  But my shirt was so soaked that I took it off as soon as I hit the Floodway.  I figured nobody would see me, and I was mostly right.  I didn't worry about puddles because my shoes and socks were beyond drenched by that point.  The Floodway was half full and I stopped a couple of times to take pictures.  There were a lot of ducks in it and I was worried that they lay their eggs in the bottom and now they would be lost.  When I got back around to Adobe, I saw another runner wearing what looked like a green cotton T-shirt.  He turned north on the the other side of the Canal.  I don't even think he saw me.  I continued south crossing Adobe.  I could hear the frogs again.  I stopped a couple of more times just to watch the water flowing by and try to look for frogs.  Jeff wasn't there.  Hopefully he found shelter somewhere.  As I was approaching Adobe again, I saw green shirt again.  This time we were on the same side of the Floodway so I said good morning to him.  He probably thought I was a weirdo for not wearing a shirt.  I think he's a weirdo for wearing a cotton shirt.  I put my shirt back on before I got out of the Floodway and into the neighborhood.  I got home and noticed my pace was faster than usual.  This tends to happen I've noticed when I run in the rain.
 

I had to purchase a new radio for our survey equipment yesterday.  That was a quick two grand.  [Insert crying face emoji].  It works well.  We even used it immediately after picking it up.  It was late in the afternoon before we headed home and my wife was taking one of my daughters to a job interview, so she told us to buy our own dinner.  I was going to stop at Jalepeno Bucks again.  But they were closed.  So we went somewhere worse.  Filiberto's.  I tossed and turned all night last night.  I've got to stop doing that. 

I felt terrible as I started running.  I decided to just to one loop.  But once I got close to Adobe I decided I could easily do another loop.  My pace was a lot slower than yesterday, but that's okay.  I saw Jeff.  He asked me what time it was and seemed to be in a good mood today.  Not sure if it's going to rain more today, but it is cloudy.
 

I had sore muscles in places where I don't usually have sore muscles.  I ran slow again today, but it was a little faster than yesterday.  Jeff stopped me today to see if I had seen Dave.  Dave must be biscuit buyer.  Then he apologized for making me stop.
 

Well, our new radio still wasn't transmitting.  That's kind of frustrating.  Could just be site specific.  I hope it is.  It worked fine the first day we got it.  Anyway, I had to go out with the boys this morning to do our survey by hand.  I had to make sure I got up early.  I was feeling better today, so I decided to do 3 loops.  I saw the Porter girls.  They seemed to be getting in better and better shape.  I saw a couple more runners pass by me on the Canal road.  And I saw Jeff, but we didn't speak today.  When I got home and looked in the mirror I could see red dots around my left nip.  I thought, "Did I bleed on such a short route?"  I mean, I did sweat a lot.  Then I looked at my right nip and could see a stream of blood going down my shirt.  It wasn't much, but I thought it would sting when I took my shower.  Lo and behold it was fine.  That is until the water hit my right armpit.  Then holy Hannah, it stung!  I guess my shirt tore the heck out of my under arm.  I'm going to have to get rid of it.
 

I guess I forgot to blog again.  (It's Saturday.)  Let's see what do I remember about this run?  Lots of sweat.  Definitely lots of sweat.  Jeff asked me what time it was and said it couldn't possibly be past 6am, could it?  It was 6:45am.

Well, I have to say this is the most miles I've gotten in a month in a while.  Just a guess.  I might go back and look when the last time I got this much.  I'm not sure if my shoes will last another 50 miles, but I'm optimistic.

This morning it was me, Vickie, Mike and Glen.  No Maggie.  She was sick.  It didn't seem like there was as many cyclists this morning as last week.  I had stretched out before Mike came to pick us up, so I only needed to stretch a little before I started.  I got another head start on everyone.  The first cyclist came cruising down the hill and turned around and headed back up.  I could hear him saying to Glen and Mike that they were the real men.  Glen caught me at the half mile point.  Mike caught me right around 0.9 miles.  Mike ran 14 secons per mile slower than he did last week.  I ran 10 seconds per mile faster.  When Glen passed me it was like I was standing still.  And he runs so effortlessly.  It's amazing.  I was able to keep Mike in my sights for most of the time.  Mike is really tall.  Like 6'5" or 6'6". He looked real stiff this morning and I thought he looked real goofy.  But then I thought, "He just passed me.  I must look even goofier."  Before I got to the top I saw another runner running down.  He was not part of our group.  Then I saw Mike coming down.  That means Glen had continued on.  When I got to the top I could see him coming back.  Last week we both got to the top at the same time.  This week I was a little ahead of him.  I stopped to take a quick drink out of my frozen water bottle that was mostly thawed out by this time, but still had a chunk of ice in the middle.  Oh my gosh, cold water during a run is soooo good.  Then I plodded downhill.  I don't know if it was my plodding or Glen's stealthiness, but I didn't hear him when he caught up to me and it startled me a little.  I asked how far he went.  He said down to the shooting range.  I asked if that's how far he went last week.  He said yes.  So I guess I'm getting faster and he's staying the same?  Anyway, I saw my wife right after she passed Bulldog.  That means I was a mile ahead of her.  Her goal was to average a 15:30 pace going uphill.  She average 15:36.  My water bottle stayed mostly cold on the way down, and I would take a couple of swigs every mile.  I finished it right before the stop sign.  I called Vickie to see if she wanted us to wait for her to finish or pick her up.  She said she was at 5.5 miles and wanted 6, so we should wait 10 minutes and then come get her.  So naturally I waited 5 minutes and we went and picked her up.  She got 6.2 miles.  Another fun run, but man I was sweaty.