Day 49: Skaters and Sprinklers

Date: May 8th 2011, 11:00pm
Distance: 7.8 miles
Weather: Dark and Warm

Holly spent the day in Salt Lake while I had Daddy duty, so I didn't get to leave for my run until she got back (at about 11pm). When I left it was strangely warm outside... almost muggy.

I made my way up University Parkway to Orem, again. I'm starting to get very familiar with this sidewalk. I've probably run this way 20 times. But I was caught off guard when passing under the overpass and running up the hill, I saw a low dark figure moving at me very quickly. There were no streetlights so I could barely see it, but I thought it was a dog heading toward me a full speed. I did a double-take and it whizzed past me, going faster then any dog I've ever seen. Only then did I realize that it was a guy, laying down on his longboard, doing the "luge," down the hill at top speed, in the middle of the night, in the dark. Had I been running on the other side of the sidewalk, I would have been street pizza. As I continued to run, I passed 4 more longboarders  who were coming down the hill, although these guys were standing up. I was pretty lucky none of them hit me. It's amazing how fast you can get going on a long board.

When I got to the top of the hill, I saw that sprinklers were going off and were watering the sidewalk. I wasn't feeling too warm (wearing just a t-shirt) so the sprinkler guy's miscalculation became my curse. By the way, these were those big sprinklers that rotate around and could get you soaked if you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was that guy.

Funny enough, I saw more sprinklers as I got on 800 S Orem and more as I started moving back towards Provo. At one point, as I ran by the intramural field, I got sprayed by one set of sprinklers and they turned off just as I got past them. Then, the next set (located right in front of me) turned on just in time to spray me as I went by. Why do all these sprinklers spray all over the sidewalk and not just the grass anyways? I'm pretty sure that the 180 degree sprinkler heads cost the same as the 360. C'mon people.

It's all good... I just need to rant about something. And the fact that the "something" is sprinklers shows that this run really wasn't that bad at all.