Friday, February 26, 2010

Rain

Zoe and I made it out before the storm blew in. We had a wonderful run through the 'hood in the balmy warm wind before the storm. I've discovered that Zoe is not entirely a creature of habit. She likes variety in her runs. She runs best when we explore new routes and places to go, she slows up and acts bored when we run a route too often. And I thought that she was just getting lazy.

Today was just a moderately short/medium run. I'm givin' it a little rest before going long again on Sunday. By then the storm will have blown out an I'll hit the redwood mountain trails of Huddart again.

I'm trying to have a little fun with my local runs. I really don't like running in the 'burbs or the city; I'd be happier in the woods all of the time. But I can't justify driving there every day of the week so until I'm living up there full time (hint, hint at my true desires) I have to do some running around town.

Running with Zoe does help. It's a lot more fun with a partner. We had some fun running in the downtown area too. Here in Coyote's town there's a shi-shi downtown shopping district. It used to be a normal place with vegetable stands, banks, butchers, markets, a pharmacy and a few useful clothing stores. Now it's obnoxious. High end clothiers, fancy restaurants (the kind that serve dinky portions that would never satisfy a hungry coyote) and uber trendy furniture stores. It's nearly totally worthless to me now, I never go there. But in the past few days we've been having a hoot running at least a few blocks on this "strip." We do some yuppie/hipster watching. Lotsa yuppie/hipsters drive in from all around to walk around to see and be seen on these streets. It's great to see their reaction when I come barrelling down the street in my Vibrams, running shorts and giant black dog. I clearly don't fit in with the crowd. Nor would I want to.

Today we encountered a gentleman with two tiny chihuahuas. At sighting Zoe they went ballistic, barking and freaking out at the ends of their leashes. Zoe didn't give a rip. She just gave them a quizzical look and wanted to keep on keepin' on down the street. The Run is way more interesting to the Zoester than a little snack dog. And there's nothing like the spectacle of nutty mini dogs to make a man look, well less manly at the end of a leash. Chihuahua Man got flustered and red faced. A municipal worker who was busy working on an electrical box nearby had a good belly laugh over the whole scene. We headed on home with a smile and got back before the rain came down.

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