Go, you chicken fat, go away!

I was in Kingman for my sister's wedding.  My wife wanted to hike up in the Hualapai Mountains.  Every year scout camp was up at the top of the Hualapais at Camp Levi Levi.  It was National Trail Day, but we still had to pay $10 to hike.  We hiked the trail that I used to hike every year to get there.  There's a gate about two miles from the camp.  We would hop on the trail while our leaders drove the dirt road up to camp.  We would race them and usually beat them.  I remember one year after camp was over we were running to the gate and as boys will be boys, we were racing not only the leaders, but the other boys on the trail.  My brother and I had made some distance on everyone so the other boys started to cut the trail in an attempt to catch up.  Then we heard them calling us from up the mountain that there was a mine entrance.  We told them they were lying and they were just saying it to catch up with us.  But sure enough, there was a mine entrance.  It was too dark to explore, so I never did.  I think the other boys did throughout the years.  I remember thinking that if there was ever a nuclear war, that would be the place I would go to hide.  Anyway, I tried to remember where it was while we hiked, but I didn't find it.  Some day I'll go back again and find it.  We ended up hiking about twice as far as my wife wanted to, but it was good.  I saw one of my friends and she was surpised to see me.  I actually don't think she recognized me right away.  I texted her later.  We got back to my sister's after noon and by then my children were starving because they assumed we would bring them some breakfast.  Haha!

I waited until after 8am to go running.  It's warm.  Yesterday I walked my dog at 7:30pm.  I saw a homeless man laying down near the side of the Floodway path.  My dog wanted to go check him out.  He heard us and roused.  He said something about being smelly.  This morning he was still there, so that's like 13 hours later.  I thought maybe he was dead because who just lays in the same spot for 13 hours?  But he was not dead.

I ran the same route as yesterday.  Pretty much every day.  It was about the same time, too.  A little bit faster.  Just as warm.  I saw the hobo again.  I guess he lives there now.  Maybe I'll post a picture of him soon.
 

I ran the regular route again today.  But I ended up walking a little bit because my knee started to hurt.  After a while I ran again, and it was fine.  The homeless guy is still there.  Today he asked me what time it was.  It was 8:50am.  He really likes laying down.

I didn't run yesterday because I took the cub scouts geocaching.  I feel like I'm getting slower every day.

I got out about a half hour earlier than normal.  It wasn't terrible because there was light cloud cover.  The homeless guy has moved over to the other side of the path.  It took me like an hour to stop sweating.

Today is my 23rd wedding anniversary.  I woke up at 6am, went potty, and went back to sleep for an hour.  I finally got out the door by a few minutes past 8am.  It was hot, so I brought a water bottle.  I was surprised that there were so many people out.  About the half mile mark I was approaching this lady that was walking.  I could feel my shorts sliding down some due to the weight of my water bottle. I knew I needed to retie my drawstring, but I couldn't do it while I was that close to her, lest she thinks I'm a creeper.  So I waited another quarter mile 'til I was out of her view and fixed the problem.  I decided to do another mile than my normal runs lately because Monday is the Ragnar Chase the Moon event, and I have to run 6.7 miles under the moon.  I hope I can do it.  I should be able to, but just like last year it's gonna be hot.  I turned around at McKellips Road and headed back.  When I crossed Greenfield I read the Walgreen's sign that says the time and temperature.  It was 8:35am and 95º.  Shortly after crossing Brown Road I was passed by this lady.  I have no idea how long she'd been following me.  She ran ahead and started walking for about 20 seconds.  It wasn't enough for me to catch her.  It's now almost 10am and I finally stopped sweating.

2019 Ragnar Chase the Moon (Ragnar #30)

This really isn't a race.  But it's a Ragnar event and I want to keep track of all the Ragnar events I do which include road relays, trail relays, and other special events such as this one.  The only thing you had to do was run 6.7 miles under the stars and the moon.  Mission accomplished.  I had my doubts since I'm not in great shape and haven't run that far in a while.  Still, it's not really that far.  Right?  Anyway, let's get on with the report.

I ate dinner around 7pm.  I've been trying to eat good today.  I had a hamburger with mayo, ketchup, mustard, avocado, cheese, tomato, and onion.  Lot of onion.  I love onions.  Then I sat on the couch because I wanted to wait 'til 9pm before I left.  My daughter started a movie.  It wa M. Night Shamlamadingdong's The Visit.  Just the type of scary movie you want to watch before going on a run in the dark.  The movie finished right after 9pm and I started my running at 9:27pm.  I brought my headlamp with me, but the full moon provided adequate lighting.  I kept it nice and slow because I had all night to finish.

As I approached Brown Road I could hear this funny noise coming from the Floodway.  I stopped when I got right by it.  I have no idea what it was.  My best guess is it was ducks snoring.  I took a video of it so I could post it on Facebook in case anyone knows what it is.  I'll report back. I continued running without incident.  When I got half a mile from McKellips I could see a bright light up ahead on the RWCD road.  Couldn't be a zanjero.  It was just one light.  Doubtful it's a runner.  Light was too bright.  Must be a cyclist.  Well the closer I got to McKellips, the further away the light went.  It seemed to have gone away all together, but then I would see it again.  I thought it strange, but then Detective McCumber put the pieces together and realized they must've turned around at McKellips and headed back north.  I could see the light shining on various parts of the Canal like a flashlight.  So now I was following it.  Right before I got to half a mile from McDowell, the light got bright again, meaning it was now headed back towards me.  I kept running towards it when finally it got close enough that I could see a pair of legs also running towards me.  But then the light got real bright and it was headed right at me.  I thought, "Surely you can see me.  Why don't you move over?"  They finally moved over and Detective McCumber once again was able to deduce that it was a man on a bicycle riding with his wife who was running, and their family dog.  The dog was not leashed and the man was riding straight towards me in an effort to keep the dog from approaching me.  They told me good evening, and I continued on.  I got to McDowell which is about 2.8 miles, and I took my first drink from my water bottle.  I decided to run up to 3.3 miles and turn around.   I would make up the extra one tenth of a mile by swinging around to the Walgreen's sign and taking a picture of the time and temperature.

I watched my phone as I was getting close to the turn around point.  I was not quite to Junior (the RWCD pump at the 1/2 lateral.)  I turned around and took another swig, texted my wife to let her know I was heading back.  She texted me back to be careful.  Pfft!  Yeah right!  I jogged back, and it was pretty uneventful.  I saw a couple of owls sitting on top of electric poles.  I was just counting down the half miles which is easy to do with the canal gates.  Now I was running towards the moon.  It was nice even though I was tired and it was hot.  As I got to Greenfield I could see a pair of headlights coming down the west RWCD road.  A zanjero?  Who else would it be?  A tresspasser?  I went down and took my picture of the sign.  It was 87º, but it was 91º  when I passed it the first time.  I could tell that it was a zanjero, and I did a 180 and went back to the Canal road.  I looked in the truck, and I'm pretty sure it was Rick.  I waved at him, but I didn't stop to talk, because I wasn't 100% sure it was him and I didn't want to freak him out.  Now I was a mile away from home and I knew that I should be right on with my predicted miles.  I ran passed the snoring ducks again.  I got to the stop sign which I know is a tenth of a mile from my house and Strava showed 6.6 miles.  I decided to do one loop around the cul-de-sac just to make sure.  I don't trust Strava when it only shows you to the tenth while you're running.  I ended up with 6.76 miles.  Now I'm home and everyone's asleep.  They couldn't even wait up for me.

My left foot feels like it has gout.  I don't know what gout feels like, but I imagine it feels like my foot right now.  Anyway, I was running north on the Floodway path when I saw some people on the path ahead.  The first was a guy walking his dog.  He pulled his dog over to the side when I ran by.  Right after that were two boys.  Turns out they were two boys that just moved out of our ward.  I used to home teach them when that was a thing.  Their dad became elder's quorum president when high priests groups became not a thing.  They just moved into the new community on the corner of Brown and Greenfield.  I turned back south on the RWCD road and saw them again as they were coming back.  I briefly stopped and asked them how their new house was.  I was wearing one of my many Ragnar shirts and I told them that I had run a Ragnar with their aunt and uncle like 10 years ago.

This morning real early my wife took Maggie and her kids to the airport.  Then she went and hiked at Papago Park.  When she got home I asked her to drive me over by our old house so I could go on a run.  She thought it was a weird place to drop me off.  She asked if I was meeting someone there.  I said nope.  But she knew I was up to something.  I had charted a course out and wanted to run it today.  Most of the run is in an area known as Dreamland Villa.  It's a 55+ community.  I was running in loops and I counted 4 motorized wheelchairs.  I don't know if some of them were repeats because of the loops.  One old man saw me and yelled, "You're making us look bad."  Anyway, after a while when I was done running my loops I called my wife and asked her to come pick me up.  She was very confused. 

The course I ran may or may not have spelled the word POOP.
 

I actually got up before 6am today.  I was out the door and running by 6:32am.  It was warm, but not bad.  I was running slow, as normal.  I was heading north on the Floodway path and I saw a girl running pretty quickly on the RWCD Canal road with her dog.  When she got to Brown Road she turned around and started walking.  I was catching up to her and wondering if she would start running again, because I knew I wouldn't be able to stay up with her.  Then I recognized her.  She's one of my daughter's friends from the ward.  Her mother was up until recently the Relief Society President.  She seemed like she didn't want to make eye contact with me, but I said hi to her anyway.  She told me good morning.  All the way down at the other end of the road I could see two more people which I quickly deduced were her little brother, who was one of my cub scouts, and her aforementioned mother.  I love that word.  Aforementioned.  Can't use it enough to make me sound cool.  Anyway, the former RSP reached Adobe and turned around.  I was closing in on my scout when he decided to turn around presumedly to run with his mom.  I yelled, "Keep up the good work!"  Then his mom said, "Momma boot camp.  He's not liking it."  I gave her a high five for that.

Two days ago was my friend Greg New's birthday.  I texted him to see if he wanted to have lunch.  He was too busy so I said what about breakfast tomorrow, which would have been yesterday.  Well, he never texted me back, so I didn't end up running.  I also took a nap yesterday, so I had no problem getting up early this morning.  I ran my RWCD/Floodway 3 loops which is north on the Floodway path for approximatley a half mile, south on the RWCD path for a mile and a half, and back north on the Floodway path for a mile.  Heading north for the first half mile I saw this old Hispanic man that I've been seeing lately that walks with a walker.  It worries me that the walker will one day get stuck on a piece of gravel and he'll fall down.  Then as I was running from the Floodway to the Canal, I saw Gordon.  I don't know what his owner's name is yet.  As I headed south I saw a lady run/walking.  I couldn't quite catch her before she reached Adobe and went west.  I continued south another half mile when I randomly bumped into my wife on her walk.  I stole a couple of kisses, and because this is a family friendly blog, I may or may not have squeezed her tush.  Then I ran another half mile south to Main and turned back north on the Floodway path.  I counted 7 lizards during this half mile.  I didn't see any.  I just heard them scurrying in the bushes next to the path.  In the final half mile on the path I saw the hobo again.  I see him every time I run or walk my dog and pass by that way.  He asked me again what time it was.  I told him 7:30, but it was actually 7:29.  Then I got home and tried to cool down some so I could help my neighbor move.