TheUltraFreak: I Run This Town (Part 5:Weeks 15-17)

I RUN THIS TOWN (PART 5: WEEKS 15-17)

You may have noticed that I had a long gap between my last post and now. We took the dogs and headed off to live in our RV for a little over a month. During this time I got serious about my distance running again. On five consecutive Saturdays I did marathons. Two in Michigan, and one in Idaho, Utah and Colorado. I’m working at doing a marathon in each state, so this brought my state total to 38 states and my total marathons run to 72. Now that I’m back home, I’m making progress again with running my town.

Week 15: October 6-13, 2017

It feels really strange trying to get back in the swing of things. I sized up the map and decided I need to finish off a particular section then I would have all of the south side of town done.

A few times this week my husband came out with me and several other times I had one of my dogs for company. Since I use a different color highlighter on my map when one of the dogs is with me, it is pretty neat to see how much of the city they have traveled. They seem to enjoy all the new sights and smells. These border collies are high energy. I say that taking them running “burns off their crazy.”

As part of my run one day, I had to go down a dead end street in a condo complex. A couple guys from a lawn care service were stopped eating their lunches by their truck. As I got closer, I saw one of them was urinating on a fence by a house at the end of the street. What is wrong with people?

As if that wasn’t creepy enough, the Halloween displays are starting to show up in yards. Thankfully my dogs aren’t freaking out when they see them. Kirby was pretty happy to find some bones one day.

Weekly stats: 21 miles

Week 16: October 14-20, 2017

The fall leaves are changing fast. The black walnuts are falling and if you’re not careful it’s easy to twist an ankle on them.

My husband joined me one day, it was warm but rainy morning. The Detroit Marathon is going on today and I remembered back to 22 years ago when I ran my first marathon there. Later, we saw a few street signs that seemed humorous to us.

Again I’m joined by my husband and my dog Kirby. We hit the streets in the last big condo complex. There are a ton of little streets. As you start running them they look like a road, then shortly after it looks more like a driveway and it goes to someone’s garage. I may have cut a few roads short in here, but I certainly don’t want to wind up on someone’s private property. On our way out of the complex the last road we go down leads to their clubhouse. It has a small pond next to it. To my surprise, perched on the rail of a small dock is my favorite bird, the Great Blue Heron.

I ran a diverse section today that varied between old condos on a golf course, to modern homes, and then to older homes. It was fun to see the variation of housing in one small section. I had one long dead end street to run. I got to the very end and saw three dogs out in a yard. The owner was in the backyard. I asked her what kind of dogs there were and I guess that was the international signal for the dogs to run out into the street to me. They seemed nice but two of them were quite large, and one looked to be a puppy. They initially looked like pit bulls but as they got closer I saw their faces were all wrinkly. The owner came out to the street to get her brood and she told me they were French Mastiffs (think Turner and Hooch.) These guys were all very friendly but I left there feeling inappropriately sniffed and covered in dog drool.

Another day I found the back entrance to the Dinoasaur Hill Nature Preserve. I’ve always seen it from the Paint Creek Trail. It is technically in the city of Rochester, but since I was so close, I had to stop and check out the cool trails.

Weekly stats: 16.99 miles

Week 17: October 21-27, 2017

I started this week out with the Kansas City Marathon in Missouri, state #39 in my 50 state marathon quest.

I took it really easy this week and didn’t run a lot of miles. But I did enjoy seeing lots of fall leaves changing colors. The mornings are cold, with temps in the mid to high 30’s. I’ve had to break out my winter clothes including hat and gloves. Ironically the subdivision I ran thru this week had streets named after ski resort towns. Steamboat Springs, Winter Park, Powderhorn and Snowmass. I’m serious wondering if I will be running in the snow sooner than I think.