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Monday, June 27, 2011

Rhonda And Rory Rattler'!


With all the fire and smoke, the record week of heat, I added two more training factors over the last two weeks.....Diamondback Rattlers'! I have literally run into two of them in the last 10 days! One was out on the road just where I was coming off of a trail on McCann road. That one was easy to dodge, and not particularly big. On Saturday, I was just commencing my run. I usually start south down the powerline trial that starts at the end of my street. You go out south, and just before you come to the the gas line crossing at the half mile mark, you pass an area that is the most overgrown with weeds, bushes, and tumbleweeds. There are two dips on the trail made by trucks that are about 10 feet apart. Ernie, you know where this is! I usually power into and out of the dips. When I powered thru the first one, 5 feet in front of me was a rattler' stretched out across the trail. It was about 4 feet long, and it's head and tail were at the edges of the bush, so there was no where to go around. I stopped in my tracks, and then dove into the brush on the tail side of the trail. I figured it would take off head first into the brush, and I didn't want to go where I thought it would go! Scared the bejesus out of me! My heart rate monitor jumped up and stayed that way for about a mile. What is most distressing is that it is an area with a large amount of rabbit holes, and rattler's love that because they eat the baby bunnies that were born this spring, and they live in their holes to keep cool during the day. So now, every time I go there, I am gonna try and stay dead center in the trail and pray, like my bride says, that it wasn't Rhonda, and that she hasn't just punched out a litter of more dangerous and deadly little tykes.....