C'mon Summertime!

I suffered a traumatic experience last week! My neighbor took his family on spring break vacation and asked me to feed his chickens. No sweat, I've done it on previous occasions. It seems the chicken population has grown since the last time I fed 'em.

On Tuesday, I leisurely walked across the street. Relaxed and enjoying the day, I fed the chickens. Then all of a sudden, a large rooster starts coming after me. WTF?! That son of a bitch attacked me! Clawed the hell out of my legs and pecked deep gouges with its beak. So I kicked the hell out of this thing to cease the attack! He came back at me 3 more times. Geez! I had no idea that I was going into battle when I went to feed 'em and that I would come back bleeding. I opened up the gouges and repeatedly poured rubbing alcohol into the wounds. I followed it up with plenty of neosporin. I really didn't want infections from this filthy bird. My legs oozed watery bloody stuff for the rest of the day. OF ALL the injuries I can sustain, it's a freaking rooster that takes me down??

The next day, I wore thick coveralls, leather gloves, and carried a broom handle. All went well, almost. As I'm walking away, I kept looking back. I was over 50 feet away and I turned around to see this guy hauling ass after me. This was after I fed the f**king INGRATE!! He caught a broom handle. He came back for more, 3 more times. I ended up breaking the broom handle on his ass! He HAD to be sore after the broom handle escapades.

After my neighbor returned home he said, "oh yeah, I forgot to tell you about the violent rooster, he's a real backstabber". No sh*t, you don't say! I'm gonna fire up the grill.

Because I've had a little Plantar Fasciitis deal, I decided to ride my bike, instead of run this past weekend. Other than Mountain Biking and Triathlons, I haven't ridden in any organized bike rides/races in probably 12 years. Once I caught the running bug, I wasn't interested. I decided to ride in the Tour de Houston. They offered distances of 20, 40, and 70 miles. I picked the 40 miler, that seemed perfect for having not been on the bike.


The cycling society is DIFFERENT than the running crowd! The athletes' physiques are surely different. There is a bunch of cycling etiquette, apparently. You only pass on the left, and must announce that you're passing on the left. One lady started bitching me out because I didn't announce it. Maybe if her slow ass was on the right side of the lane (where it belongs), there would be no problem. The second part of the "rule" is that if you're a slower rider, move to the right side of the lane! DUH! And there were 3 big crashes, where the crashed riders couldn't negotiate diagonal grooves in the pavement! Pay attention, y'all!

I WAS paying attention to the route signs, YET still ended up on the 70-mile course! I think the race organizers forgot to post ONE critical sign because I wasn't the only one wondering how we ended up on the 70 mile route. I din't want to ride 70 miles because I had lots of stuff to do on Sunday. So I broke off from the ride and "did my own thing" to get back to Downtown. I prolly ended up with 34-35 miles. A mountain bike would be much better suited for assaulting the urban terrain! Subsidence on the sidewalks in Houston? This was about 1 foot tall, the road bike had to go around it! Here:


On my interesting and now-solo journey to return to Downtown, I saw all sorts of cool stuff. I always envisioned "Reliant Stadium" being more impressive than what I saw:


Neat structure Downtown:


And finally, a DELICIOUS Rudy's breakfast taco with egg, cheese, brisket and salsa:

Excellent Running!

I ran with Susie's group in the forest this morning and took my dogs. All went well, great run!

It's easy for the dogs to hack off other runners by getting in front of them, then stopping. It didn't happen this morning, thankfully. I'm working on this. They really should run by my side, without exception. They're as energetic as can be imagined, so I get their side of the story. I'm working on this, it's a tough one...

I ran prolly 5 miles with a few of the trail runners, then we (me and 2 dogs) hooked it over to the RTW 5k race. We got there with only a moment to spare. My younger brother gave me a couple of dog crates for Christmas (2 of their 3 dogs died recently :(:(:(...) Mackie, the big American Bulldog just LOVES the crate! I set it up yesterday and put her blanket in there. She immediately claimed it and hangs out in there a LOT!

So if you recall that I've had running-with-dogs issues since the disappearance of the old Border Collie, I now have the solution. I ran both dogs in the forest, and kept the big dog in the crate, in the back of my truck while Tessie (Border Collie) ran the 5k race with me. It worked well.

Lotsa running this morning, 8 miles.

BTW, bad news! The lady at the Exxon station, where most of the trail running group parks, told me they were gonna start towing our cars! Geez. Like we're hurting anyone. Hey, don't shoot the messenger, I'm just say'in...

Hey man, ENOUGH with the freaking fireworks, EH??!!

Geez, it happens twice a year. While I'm not trying to be a 'stick-in-the-mud' and agree that it's a person's prerogative to shoot off fireworks as allowed by our society and laws. But DAMNIT!! Shoot 'em off on the day you're celebrating, NOT for 1 week prior and another week after the day of celebration. ENOUGH ALREADY!

There's a guy nearby who loves firing his shotguns, and 4th of July and New Year's sound like a war zone in my neighborhood. Scares the HELL out of my dogs. But now my dogs have been hiding deep in my storage building or following me around for about 2 weeks. They get to sleep inside the house, which they often do on cold nights. Heaven forbid should I actually want to spend the night out or go on vacation during these periods. Nope, I've gotta be RIGHT HERE to shelter my pets. Freaking IDIOTS (fireworks folks, not dogs)! Here's what happens every night, including last night:



On New Year's Eve 2002/2003, my beloved Border Collie, Brembo, escaped my yard and ran about a mile away in a crazed escape from the fireworks. My running buddy, Sonya, likely remembers the somber run we shared for the New Year's Day Cobweb Chaser Run at McAllister Park. Before the run, I walked her over to my truck and pointed out the dead, stiff corpse of my dog. Because of the rocky terrain, it took me 5-6 hours of crying/digging/busting rocks to dig a suitable hole in which to bury her. RIP Brembo:



I went over to a friend's house the other day and they were SUPER BUMMED! Their dog was freaked out by fireworks, escaped, got run-over and killed.....geez...

WG Jones Forest is Open! Good running...

After Hurricane Ike, the WG Jones Forest was closed. There's a local group who runs there and it's convenient for me to run my dogs there. The runners kept going in after the closure, until the next incident occurred, the crash of the news helicopter.

This time the Forestry Service had white signs made with big red letters that said, "CLOSED". And they posted them all around the place. Umm, that tells me that they seriously didn't want anybody in there! Finally the signs were gone on Friday and I took my dogs in there for a 4 mile run before the Run The Woodlands 5k. The RTW race started at 8 am, so I had to be efficient.

Old pics, but valid:



The little Border Collie was on fire! She had boundless energy, running WAY ahead! I'd call her and she would turn around and run FULL SPEED back to me. So she prolly ran 5+ miles. We got home and I had a plan to sneak her back out and take her to the 5k to further whittle away her super high energy level. I fed the cat and the big dog, then whispered for her to jump in the truck....she KNEW exactly what we were doing and jumped up there without alerting the big dog. We escaped, unnoticed.

At the race, she just took off! I had to keep calling her back. Then about half way through the race, she began to hang with me, finally burned off some of the energy! WE ran a nice 22:04! Not my quickest, but not at all bad. Good times!

Looks like San Antonio Rock & Roll Marathon is on!

The weather should be really cooperative, albeit maybe a tad cold at the start. But that beats the typical SA Marathon weather pattern of turning hot and humid the day before the event.

I just talked with my good friend, Joel. Many who read this here blog know Joel. He's SUPER FAST, having run a half-marathon in 1:04!! That's 1 hour, plus 4 minutes!! Geez, I don't think I can ride my bike that fast! Granted it was few years back, but stout nonetheless. He's been training a bit for the marathon and is looking to run between 2:35 and 2:45....geez! Here, I'm pacing him as he's about to win the Helotes Half:

San Antonio, 2001:


DAMN DOG!! Despite my efforts to thwart further escapes from our yard, Tessie the Border Collie just isn't going along. It appears that I have another task to accomplish today, stringing an 800 volt wire along the perimeter of the yard, down low on the fence: