Go, you chicken fat, go away!

I thought that since it was Christmas break, I would be able to get out and run at the same time, and could go straight to work without having to worry about getting kids ready.  But instead, I slept in.  It's now 10:30am and I will start working after I'm done blogging.

It's nice and cloudy today.  The weather is so nice.  Not too cold.  I decided to only do two loops since I got out late.  Maybe I'll do more tomorrow.  Merry Christmas everyone!

I woke up to the sound of rain.  It was 5:30am-ish.  I waited for it to die down some.  I left to go running at 9:13am.  It was nice out.  I decided to run up to McDowell.  That would be about 5.6 miles.  I crossed Brown Road and saw a coyote in the Floodway.

I watched it for a bit, and it ran around me.  I have that video on my story on Facebook.  This is the top of the Floodway, or rather, where the Floodway starts.  I could see water discharging through a pipe into the Floodway, so I went to the other side to investigate.  It hadn't been raining hard enough for that much water to be coming out.  I could see an irrigation standpipe about 20 feet away.  Sure enough, water was being pumped into the standpipe from a nearby well and then just discharging into the Floodway.  Weird.

I then crossed Greenfield and headed toward McKellips.  A man named Tory Adair (thank you, Strava) stopped me and told me there was a coyote watching us.  I saw it, but didn't take a picture because of how far away it was.  I crossed McKellips and ran by the orange grove.  I was looking in the grove in hopes of seeing more coyotes.  Sure enough, I spotted two together.  I took a picture and kept running.  I caught up to a guy walking his dog.  I asked him if he had seen the two coyotes in the grove.  He said he saw one that crossed the Canal, but did not see the other two. 

I kept running and then I saw a barricade half a mile before McDowell.  I guess I won't be going to McDowell today.  I stopped and took a picture to send to my friend Greg who works at RWCD.  He teased me about trespassing.  I turned around and watched for the coyotes again.  I spotted two on the other side of the Canal.  I stopped and watched for a bit, and I saw the third.  So the two I saw had joined the other one the other guy saw.

I was still texting my friend and showing him the pictures I had taken.  When I crossed McKellips again I saw a woman running toward me with an old Ragnar McDowell Trail shirt.  She waved and said, "Merry Christmas!"  I was in the middle of telling her that I have that same shirt when I recognized it was Amy Spencer from the ward.  I didn't tell her about the coyotes, though.  Then I started looking for the other coyote again.  I spotted it and took this picture.

So, I was able to get pictures of all 5 of them.  It was a nice morning for a run and I took my sweet time.  I saw my Strava friend Matt Bell and said good morning to him.  That was right after I had crossed Greenfield and that's when it started to rain.  It was a just a sprinkle actually, but a hard sprinkle.  I couldn't see any other coyotes after that.  I couldn't see much of anything after that.  But I made it home on instinct alone.  5 coyotes.  I think that's a world record.

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas.  I for one, woke  up to check my stocking, dumped out its contents on the kitchen counter, did not see the jar of mustard that must've rolled right under the line of my arm until it fell off the counter and straight on to my toe.  Holy buckets of Santa joy!  So I took two days off from running.  This morning was nice, except my right shin hurt.  I don't know if it was because of the time off or if I was compensating with my stride somehow.  I tried to run normal. 

The fence was open that said GATE CLOSED the other day.  But I saw some RWCD trucks up there, and didn't want to bother them.  I stopped and tried to stretch out my shin.  But I don't really know how to stretch out a shin.  I just pulled my foot up into my butt cheek and put some tension on it.  It felt better on the way back.  No coyotes today.  Just some friendly dogs.  Not that friendly.

Yesterday Mike, Maggie, Glen, Vickie, and I all said we would be running this morning.  This morning Mike texted to say he couldn't make it.  A little after that Maggie texted to say she couldn't make it.  So Vickie and I hopped in our van to go pick up Glen.  We got to Usery and it was cloudy and dark.  But the city lights were lighting up the clouds.  It looked really cool and had me mesmerized the entire time.  Glen got a slight headstart on me and was off like a gazelle.  I caught Vickie right after the stop sign.  I was running slower than last week, no doubt because I ran almost 5 miles yesterday.  Maybe also because the road was wet and slick.  I never saw any cyclists while I was running, but I saw some later. 

I got a new reflective vest for Christmas.  My old one was like a construction worker's vest, and the zipper broke a couple of months ago.  I would still wear it and somehow it would stay on.  The new one is actually just straps that clip together in the front.  I think my belly is too round because it kept riding up and would fall off my right shoulder all the time.  Oh well.

Since I missed a few days this week, and I wanted to run at least 20 miles, I knew I needed to run an extra 0.1 miles after getting to the top.  Glen ran all the way down to the Usery Park entrance, which means he runs another 0.9 miles from the top.  I didn't see him when I turned around, but he must not have been too far behind me.  He caught me at about the 4.9 mile mark.  He ended up finishing just over a half mile ahead of me.  He likes to come back to the stop sign and wait for me, then run back to the parking lot with me.  I finished up and texted Vickie to see if she wanted to finish.  She did, so I walked to the stop sign.  Then I just kept walking until I met up with her.  We ran the last 0.4 miles together.  So I got 20.4 miles this week :)

Here's a picture I tried to take of the clouds using Night View from my camera.