Go, you chicken fat, go away!

Woke up to some pleasant sprinkles this morning.  It made my run enjoyable.  Still slow though.  Right Joe?  Zanjero.

I wanted to run about 6 miles this morning.  As soon as I started running I realized I had to make a pee pee.  I knew there was a public restroom at Gene Autrey Park.  About a mile and a half in I felt my ankle getting irritated.  I thought perhaps some pebbles had gotten in my sock.  When I got to the restroom I realized my sock was too low and my shoe was rubbing against the back of my ankle.  I knew if I kept running it would get worse, so I called my daughter to come pick me up.

I've always wanted to do the Colorad Ragnar.  Now I never want to do it again.  But I did have a fun time and a great team.  And it was a beautiful course.  The problem was I never got acclimated to the altitude.  I knew it was going to be rough after walking up the first flight of stairs at the motel.

My first leg was 7.4 miles with an 800 foot climb from 9000 feet to 9800 feet.  It was extraoridinarily difficult.  Here are a couple of pictures.

My second leg was at night.  It was 9.1 miles.  There was more downhill than uphill, and it was a little lower in altitude.  So I was able to get it done at a pace a little over a minute faster per mile than my first leg.  No pictures.

My last leg was 3.0 miles.  It was uphill again, so it pretty much sucked.  It wasn't even that steep, but I was spent and it was hot.  I stopped to take this picture.

Colorado is a very pretty place.  Too bad everyone there is a pothead!  Right, Nan?

Recovery run.  Nice to be back in a place where I can breathe, even if it is extremely hot.

I took Ginger with me for my first loop.  She's pretty good about staying with me.  As soon as I hit the Floodway I let go of the leash.  I didn't see anyone else around or I would have grabbed the leash again.  When we got to University Dr. I still let her run free.  She did wander out into the road for which she got scolded.  But there were no cars around.  She was doing so good that when we left the Floodway I still let her run free all the way home.  After a while I decided to go back out and do another loop.  It wasn't the same because I went north this time.  Ended up being pretty close to the same distance.  I saw Gene, one of the zanjeros and talked to him briefly.  Other than the humidity, it was pretty nice out.

It rained last night.  I let Ginger sleep in the laundry room from 2 to 5.  It was a nice sweat run.

It was raining this morning again.  It felt like a tropical rainforest because it was 83º.  I wonder how much of the moisture trapped in my shirt was from the rain and how much was from my sweat.

This is the run I wanted to do a couple of weeks ago (and then some), but I started forming a blister on my ankle and decided to call it quits because Ragnar was right around the corner.  The funny thing is, (by funny I mean queer.  By queer I mean strange.) last time I attempted this run, I had to make a pee pee.  And today I again had to make a pee pee!  So I stopped at Gene Autrey Park.  They have such nice facilities.  Then I headed north again.  As I approached to the turn around point at McDowell Road, I saw a couple of trucks parked near the canal.  Turns out they were City of Mesa trucks.  RWCD is very protective of their canal, so I texted the old inspector and let him know.  Then I headed back down the canal and the COM trucks moved over to McKellips and the canal.  They weren't blocking the access or anything, so that was good.  Then I kept going south and saw a truck near Adobe, which is the road I turn off of to go to my house.  I wondered if it was them again, but I couldn't tell.  As I got closer I could see that the truck was actually inside the gate half way between Adobe and University.  And it had it's driver side door open so I could tell that it was an RWCD truck.  I decided to keep going and see who it was.  Hence the 'and then some.'  It was zanjero, Charlie.  He was eating his lunch.  I hope that was all he was doing because he seemed rather nervous.  Anyway, I ran back home because I had to go clean the leaves out of our green pool before the landlord got there.

My daughters still go to school in our old neighborhood because that is where Emily's special education program is.  Emily rides the short bus to school, but we have to drive Abby and Katelynn.  So, I had my wife drop me off there, too.  I asked my daughters if they were going to be embarrassed when I got out.  "You're getting out??!!??"

:)