Go, you chicken fat, go away!

I've decided I want to try and hop on a Ragnar McDowell trail team here in the next couple of weeks.  I better join a team within the next couple of weeks because the race is in less than two weeks.  So I need to start doing more hill training.  I run up Usery Pass every Saturday, but that's a long gradual climb.  The hills in McDowell are shorter and steeper.  Ergo I chose to try and run Hilltop for the first time today.  My wife hikes it all the time.  I started the morning out by running my usual 2 loops around the Floodway/RWCD Canal.  Then I took my daughter to school and continued on to Hilltop.  My wife told me that it was 1.5 miles round trip.  I recorded 0.8 miles.  But it was quite steep and I wheezed the whole way up.  But I made it without stopping.  I'm going to try and do this as much as I can between now and the race.  I might even try doing doubles as soon as I feel I'm ready.

I did Hilltop again today.  I did it twice.  I guess I was ready.  I wasn't able to run all the way up like I did yesterday.  I stopped a couple of times.  So maybe I wasn't ready.  I brought my inhaler today because of all the wheezing yesterday.  I started out and immediately was wheezing again.  So I took a hit.  By my second ascent, I wasn't wheezing anymore.

I fell asleep early last night.  I knew that I had left my phone charger in my office, but thought I might get up during the night and get it.  I was awakened by my wife moving my phone and thought I saw her putting it on the charger.  I thought, "How sweet.  She got my charger for me."  Only she didn't.  There is another chord next to my outlet, but it's not the right one.  So I woke up to my phone being at 27%.  I was up pretty early, too, but I didn't go running.   I thought maybe I'd do a 5 mile loop, but my two youngest daughters are staying home again from school, and my wife said she had to take our other daughter to school early for some testing.  She said she was going to do Hilltop afterward and asked if I wanted to come.  So I agreed to.  As we drove through the second roundabout crossing the freeway, I saw a chicken in the road.  The poor thing was trying to make it to the side.  Where my wife parked was only about 0.4 miles away, so I decided to run back to it to see if it was okay.  I crossed the road (no jokes, please), and ran back to the roundabout.  I couldn't see it.  I slowed down and started running back looking for it everywhere.  That's when I heard a car on the other side of the road stop and start honking.  I quickly crossed over to the median. where the, not chicken, but rooster, had gone to the other side.  It tried to run away from me, which I figured it would, but it was in pretty bad shape.  I tried to pick it up, but it wriggled away from me.  I let it walk a little more across the road.  Luckily there wasn't a whole lot of traffic, but the few cars that were coming were being courteous and driving around us.  I tried picking it up again, but it wouldn't let me.  Then I heard a lady hollering that she had a box.  I looked down the sidewalk and a the lady and her daugher were hurrying up the way with a box and a towel.  By now the rooster had gotten to the other side of the road, and had stopped right at the curb.  And there were a lot of cars coming.  So I reached down and got a good hold of it, picked it up, and put it in the box.  They covered it with the towel.  She wasn't sure what she was going to do with it.  She said she was a teacher and was going to bring it to school.  I said I hope it survives.  They said they saw it get hit by a car.  It probably has internal bleeding and I'm afraid it won't last much longer.

When I got back to where my van was parked, it was gone!  I briefly entertained the idea that my wife was hiking up the hill and it had been stolen.  I called her to see where she was.  She was having tummy issues and went to the local grocery store to relieve herself.  So, I decided to start without her.

I started running up the hill.  I had forgotten my inhaler, and I was wheezing a bit.  I had to stop like three time going up.  Right before the top I saw this guy that looked like a real mountaineer.  He had a long scraggly beard and those mountain poles.  He was booking it down.  I got to the top and decided to wait until my wife came back so I could wave at her from the top.  At least 5 minutes went by.  I was just about to call her again when I saw the van pull up.  I waited another minute or so until she finally got out of the van.  She started walking around the base of the hill.  I waved, but she couldn't see me.  So I called her.  As soon as she heard the phone ring, she looked up and waved.  She answered and I asked what she planned on doing.  She said she would do whatever until I was done.  Well, I was hoping she was going to hike to the top and back.  I was going to tell her that I would just run down the road towards home and she could pick me up when she was done.   But since she was hiking around the base, I decided to just run down and try to find her.

When I turned around to go down, the mountain man had reached the top again.  He was running around the plateau, and I started running down.  It wasn't long before he was running down and hot on my tail.  I moved over and ran in the sand so that he could pass me.  The last stretch down the hill is very rocky due to the recent storms we've had.  At least, that's what my wife says.  I've never seen it any different, so I'll take her word for it.  But it's rocky enough where I'm gonna slow way down, so that I don't trip.  Mountain man just kept cruising.  By the time I had gotten to the bottom, he had already turned around and started back up.

I wasn't going to do doubles today, so I ran down the dirt road that I had seen my wife walking on.  I ran all the way around the west side of the hill and saw that the road was about to dead end.  I looked around for my wife, and spotted her up on another trail on the hill.  I hollered at her, but she had her ear phones in and didn't hear me.  That's when I had the idea to sneak up behind her and scare her.  I started running up the trail which went up and as it turns to go around the north side of the hill, goes back down.  I saw that she covered this part pretty quick, but she was walking and I would be able to catch her soon.  I tried to run on her left side because I figured if she turned her head, it would be to the right.  When I was about 20 feet away she turned her head to look up the hill to see if she could spot me.  Unfortunately she spotted me behind her.  I scared her a little.  But I really wanted to make her pee her pants.  Oh well. 

I walked with her a little bit until the trail ended at a golf course.  I said where now?  She said that sometimes she cuts through, which is tresspassing, and sometimes she walks around and turns back around to follow the trail back.  I told her that I would meet her at the van.  I then finished up my run by going back to the locked van.  I sat down on the bank of a small wash and waited for her.  My phone was down to 5%, but it lasted.  When I got home and looked at my Flybys on Strava, I realized that the mountain man was my old friend Brian that I see all the time when I'm running Usery.  How embarrassing.  I didn't even recognize him behind all that scruff.  I sent him a message apologizing.  But overall it was a fun morning.  Prayers for the rooster.

My legs felt completey wrecked yesterday from all the hill work the first three days of this week.  So I took yesterday off.  I did a nice and easy run today to shake them out for tomorrow.  I averaged a 10:01 pace.  Nice to see that my easy pace is now what my fast pace was a few months ago.

Woke up to a text from Mike saying that he wasn't going to be able to make it today.  But I had already texted Glen yesterday to see if he was coming.  After I saw Mike's text, I texted Glen to see if he wanted a ride.  He said - sure.  I picked him up, and although it's only been a couple of years, we had a lot to catch up on.  We ran together for most of the way up chatting the whole way.  Mostly about our pets.  A little bit about our kids.  Right before the top we saw this other couple running down.  They didn't have headlamps or butt lights, and very little reflective gear.  We got to the top and turned around.  It wasn't long before we had almost caught the couple.  I think one of them must've stopped for a tinkle.  But we couldn't catch them.  When we reached the Bulldog Trailhead, I told Glen we had 2.9 miles to go.  He asked how our pace was.  I said, probably a little slower than usual, but not bad.  He then started to pick up the pace.  I could see that he was about to catch the couple.  But it was hard to tell because it was still dark and they had no lights.  Glen ended up finishing about 3 to 4 minutes ahead of me and said he wasn't able to catch the guy, but he got the girl.  He ran pretty well for not having run that much in a while.