I found some hills to run + spurious correlation=f(Four Loko + Joose + birth control + condom)

I found some hills to run on.  In Davis, there are none.   Literally, there are NO hills.  But fortunately drive 20 miles or so to the west and just past Winters, CA there lies a gem of a road: Pleasants Valley Road (yes, the appended "s" is meant to be there).  This little meandering road connects Vacaville, CA to S.R. 121, the road to Lake Berryessa and Napa Valley.  While the road is narrow and not pedestrian friendly, the traffic flow is relatively low and drivers seemed mindful.   ...though judging by the detritus I saw on the side of the road, I'd avoid this road at certain "unseemly" hours.  More on that later.

To the run.  Estimated distance is a bit over 14 miles.  Avg pace was slow: 7:50 but if you stare at the route elevation profile, you'll soon see the first half was a bit *slower* than the second.  The volcanic looking object in the elevation profile is my path up and down Cantelow Road, one of the greatest little (it's short) climbs I've ever run (not counting trail run climbs). I think it counts as a real hill!  The overall route had 1200 feet of elevation
gain/loss (is was out and back hence the symmetry in the elevation profile). 

The day was sort of cold and wet but after the initial slow going, I really got into this run.  As you might imagine, I particularly enjoyed the return down Cantelow road.  Apart from Cantelow, which is an atypical stretch of road, Pleasants Valley Road is fairly similar to what I'll be running on in two weeks in Napa.  Silvarado Trail (the main road for NVM) is meandering and rolling.  I'm hoping my running legs have memory so those hills won't feel so hard.   Overall...pretty happy with the run.  I meant to run 20 but that intention was predicated on running in Davis.  I think I accomplished the necessary goal in 14 given the hills.

So, a pretty good day.  Beautiful little run and if you've never driven Pleasants Valley Road and you live in this area, then you should.  Cantelow is awesome.  Today was particularly interesting.  While the sky was concrete-colored and mostly dreary, there actually was some snow on the coast range bordering Solano and Napa Counties!  I don't recall ever seeing snow on the front range and at low elevation so that was nice.

But then there is the detritus ... which every place has.  You know...the litter that scumbags throw out their cars into the drainage ditches and whatnot.   Pisses me off.  But today's detritus was both disconcerting and weirdly intriguing.   Here is why it was disconcerting.  As usual on rural roads, I see lots of discarded beer cans, liquor bottles, etc. Which of course occurs because people drink while they are driving and then discard the empties out the car window.

But today's detritus got me thinking about correlation, spurious or otherwise.  Let me explain.  Around mile 3, I see a discarded can of ... yep you got it ... FOUR LOKO ... and then about .5 miles later, a discarded can of ... uh huh ... JOOSE ... and then 1 mile later a discarded birth control pill dispenser (apparently empty)  and then ... .5 miles later ... a ... hmmm.... condom (soiled).  And so to think of things other than the hill I was climbing, I started wondering about the story that would connect these four events together.  But of course, Occam's Razor says "the simplest explanation is probably the best" (or something like that) and so the best explanation is that the detritus I observed is a series of independent events.  But then again, how independent is FOUR LOKO and JOOSE???? As for the other events, I'll leave that to you.

But to the day.  All good.  Because my run was out and back, I got to see this wonderfully sweet horse across the road from where I parked my car. This little pony just tracked me the whole time.  I went over and petted him/her and then took off.  She/he started running after me and then when I returned, he/she seemed to know who I was.  Petted him/her again and saw a sweet little (or big) horse.  All good. 

So I found my hills.  I got two weeks til my marathon. I"m not prepared but what the hell?  It's
a good day and a good day doesn't have to be a Friday.

Out,
B