Go, you chicken fat, go away!

I didn't run yesterday.  I got dressed to, but I got busy.  Yesterday was a very busy day.  And since I was still wearing my running clothes all day yesterday, all night last night, and this morning, it was no problem to get out today.  I headed out to do my normal two loops, but when I got to the Floodway I noticed that they had finally finished mowing down the final bit of creosote trees along the west bank of the Floodway.  Sounds like somone else also had a very busy yesterday. 

We used to see only one coyote.  But when they mowed down all the trees, four of them moved in together and hung around the remaining bushes.  Now I wonder where they will go.  Hopefully not in my backyard with my chickens.  So instead of turning around at Brown, I decided to cross Brown and run up to Greenfield just to see if there were bushes over there for the coyotes.  Looks like they got those, too.  I took a picture of the Floodway and then took a picture of the beautiful sunrise.

After turning back around at Greenfield I ran my normal route.  I felt ok.  I even saw my wife out running and I teased her for starting to run when she saw me.  She said she was doing quarter mile intervals and she just reached the quarter mile mark.

It started raining yesterday around 3pm and hasn't stopped since.  Sometimes it's just a light drizzle.  Sometimes it's a downpour with lightning and thunder.  This morning I waited until 9am when it seemed like there was a break in the action.  It was still a light drizzle, but it felt good.  The Floodway looked to have a foot of water sitting in the bottom of it.  There were ducks everywhere.  I saw a few people walking their dogs.  I got to where Jeff usually is and saw his stuff, but he was gone.  He usually doesn't have that much stuff.  Mostly the clothes on his back and some water bottles.  But there was a bag of stuff there today.  About 0.4 miles before being done it started to rain just a little bit harder.  But it didn't get very bad, and my pace was a lot faster than yesterday.

I could hear it raining every time I woke up last night.  But it stopped momentarily while I was running this morning.  My back was a little sore before the run, but it didn't bother me at all while running.  In fact, I felt stronger than I have in a while and my pace was even quicker than yesterday.
 

Yesterday while I was walking Herbie, my knee started to hurt.  I was hoping it was just the cold weather.  Maybe it is.

We had 6 runners from the Ragnar team show up this morning.  There was only one that didn't come that was invited.  That was Maggie.  Vickie, Mike, Bryan, Glen, and I showed up in one vehicle, and Alyssa got there 5 seconds before us in hers.  She was real worried because the furthest she's run is 4 miles since our last Ragnar two years ago. 

Vickie took off before everyone else.  Alyssa needed a headlamp, and luckily Mike always brings extra.  Mike took off, and after helping Alyssa adjust the strap of the headlamp, I took off.  Then Bryan and Glen left together followed shortly by Alyssa.  I ran out of the parking lot and about 40 feet up the road when all of the sudden my knee started to hurt real bad.  I immdediately stopped to try and stretch some more.  Glen and Bryan passed me, and Glen asked if I was all right.  After stretching briefly, I started to run again, but this time much slower. 

I was going to switch my batteries out in my headlamp this morning, but when I opened it up, I realized I needed triple A batteries and I only have double A's.  So, I ran with a dim light again.  But that worked out to my advantage when I caught up to Vickie at 1.6 miles and grabbed her behind.  She jumped pretty good.  Hee hee hee.

I could see Alyssa's light behind me as she was working her way up the hill.  After I passed Vickie, I couldn't see her anymore.  At 0.3 miles from the top I saw Mike coming back down.  That meant he was 0.6 miles ahead of me.  I got to the top and headed back down.  That's when I felt the wind blowing and it was kinda cold.  Luckily it was just at the top.  I passed my wife at the 4 mile mark, pretty close to the same place Mike passed by me.  Then I saw Bryan coming up behind me.  He passed me up and then I saw Alyssa.  About 10 seconds later I looked back and thought I saw Glen.  I kept expecing Glen to pass me, but he never did.  I looked back a couple of more times and his light was about 20 yards behind me, so I started to wonder if he was ok.  Now it was starting to get more light out, so I looked back again and realized it was Alyssa.  Ha!

Glen did finally pass me with one mile to go.  At about a half mile to go I stepped on a shredded piece of tire, and the reinforcing wires stuck to my shoe.  I tried kicking it off, but it wouldn't release.  So I stopped and pulled it out and threw it to the side of the road.  I decided to wait for Alyssa to catch up to me and we ran the last half mile in together.  She did pretty good on the downhill.

I texted Vickie to see what she wanted us to do.  She said that she was at 6.25 miles so we could do whatever.  I was going to say let's go get her, but everyone was talking, so I decided to wait for a break in the action, which there never was.  Vickie also texted me a selfie of herself and a shovel that she found.  She ended up carrying the shovel with her for the last two miles.

After a while I was getting worried because if she was at 6.25, that means she should only have 1.15 miles to go and she was averaging a 14 min. pace coming down.  Well, it turns out she actually went 4 miles and then turned around.  So she ran 8 miles, the longest she's every run.  She showed me up today.

It was a fun run.  I'm glad the construction pylons were gone this week.  I wish my kne wasn't hurting, but my pace wasn't too bad.  Next week we're going up to Utah for Thanksgiving.  We'll see how that affects my running schedule.  And I'm totally bummed that the BOSA donut challenge is next Saturday, and we'll be out of town!!!