Urban Orienteering.

When I started out my run I saw one of those "horse crossing" signs and just at the base of it a pile of horse poop. There was also a pile of turds about 20 feet beyond it, and several others beyond that. This was on a public sidewalk, by the way, a SIDEWALK in Coralles, New Mexico which looovvvveeesss to trumpet how much they love their "village way of life"and it's a very expensive place in the middle of a city where most of the people there are not villagers but very upper middle-class and a whole bunch of them have bumper stickers that say, "I own horses and I vote" and I don't even know what that MEANS.

I did a 20.75 mile training run today as part of the build-up to the 50K I'm doing in 3 weeks. It occured to me for about the millionth time that I'm a very weird world, where I've gotten up at 5 am to start on my 1000-calorie breakfast, and then strapped 80 ounces of Accelerade, a phone, an inhaler, spare TP, 8 gels, and a power bar to my body to head out for a 20-mile run around the city.

Now, according to the tagging in the bike path tunnel I ran through on my long run today, South Side's in the hood, yo. I'm not sure what that means, except...if the kids at my school are any indication, I can probably run them all down, even at my blistering 13-minute marathon pace
Yo.

At mile 8, construction. Construction means construction workers...which means porta potties. Yay!

But anyway. I saw some members of team Espana out on the path today. They are also in the hood, being that they're training around here. I don't know anything else about that, as I'm not a TDF groupie like Nancy and Pirate. I did notice that they don't wear helmets; instead, they wear tiny little caps with tiny little bills. Yep, that'll protect your skull when that skater darts out in front of you on the Bosque path...good luck with that.

The early part of the bike path runs up alongside Paseo del Norte and right on the other side is the General Mills plant. THis means you get to smell, for about a half mile, whatever it is they're baking that day in the plant. Today, it was coco-puffs. Mmmmmm.

I went down the North Diversion channel path. The north diversion channel is a large concrete ditch, probably about 20 feet deep and maybe 30 feet wide or more, v-shaped, that is one of the many attempts to control flash-flooding. It's usually got some water in it and a few shopping carts. I headed down until I was just south of I-40 and then turned west, keeping parallel to I-40 as my path wound around yards with razor wire WITH RAZOR WIRE around them. I'm talking about back yards with RAZOR WIRE and just how badly are you trying to keep people out of your above-ground pool at that point?

Also in that part of the city I share the bike path, not with bikers, but with people carrying shopping bags. They smile and nod and don't speak a word of English and I don't speak a word of Spanish and we all get along.

I'm not trying to qualify for Boston. I'm hoping to qualify for octogenarian. I'm just trying to reach the finish line, completely continent and in my right mind. I want to be one of those old ladies that totters across the finish line, listed alone in the 70+ group and everyone cheers wildly for her and says, "I want to be an old lady like that some day."

My almost-21-mile run was about a 13:30 pace today. I eventually connected up with the bike path that runs along the Rio Grande, and then headed back toward the car and Baboo. All in all, not a bad way to spend a Sunday. Next week I'll top off with about a 25 mile run and then start tapering for the run I'm doing President's Day weekend.

For now, I'll finish off this jar of Tostitos queso and NO, I don't want to know what's in it or how bad it is for me. All that is on the label if I want to know. WHich is why the label has been removed. Thanks for asking.

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