10% intro, 90% squirrel

This blog was originally supposed to be an internal club type blog.  I've been chasing after Dr. Ben to add it to our Point Grey TFC website for sometime now.  Instead, he simply went outside the club and made it a bit more public then I wanted.  In reality this probably won't make much of a difference.  I might have to be a bit more "PG" and some of the jokes and pointless things I like to joke about would and will only make sense to Point Grey TFCer's.  That said, check out our website.  You'll have to Google search Point Grey TFC to find us.  I actually have no idea what our website address is and I'm too lazy to look it up, but I can tell you its a Runnerspace page and its not that hard to find.  Dr. Ben does a pretty good job looking after it.  Not too sure how much time he'll have in the future to keep it up to date as he has to perform open heart surgery in September, brain surgery in October and will perform his first prostate exam in November (see, these are the inside jokes we like to make).

Fat Squirrel - The Joy of Cooking has squirrel recipes

On to better things.  I don't like to run with music or any of that non-sense and I put in a lot of solo miles, so the only thing left to do is observe the world around me.  One thing that I always notice are squirrels, and lots of squirrels.  I actually kind of like squirrels.  Essentially, they are fluffy rats but much more entertaining.  Squirrels are always a little jumpy.  Have you ever seen a squirrel walk around?  Nope.  They always bounce around and seem to be scared of everything including blades of grass and falling leaves.  They are suspicious little creatures.  It’s weird too, because they’re often on their own, like me on so many of my runs!  You don't see squirrels in large groups or in "family units."  Raccoons work as a team to take down the garbage can and when trapping my mom in the garage (really funny story).  Eagles live together and look after their eaglets.  Even skunks hang out in groups to create twice the stink (once I even got held hostage by a few skunks on a 5am morning run).   The only time you see squirrels together is when they chase after each other.  And this is where my real question lies.  What is this chasing all about?  I think its squirrel foreplay, pre freaky activity.  And obviously squirrels do get it on at some point.  They must mate, but at the same time I feel like I’ve never seen a juvenile or baby squirrel.  They are all look like “adults” being roughly the same size, some being a little fatter then others.   All of this led me to googling squirrels.  Turns out there are several different types and sub species or something like that and they all have slightly different nesting and foraging habits.  But here is the craziest part.  Squirrels can live up to 12.5 years!!.  That means I’ve probably been running past some of the same squirrels for my entire running career.  In fact I’ve probably ran by multiple generations of the same squirrel lineage.

So that is what I do when I run.  I think about stupid stuff like squirrels and whether or not two squirrels chasing each other is squirrel foreplay.  What else are you supposed to think about for 90 minute runs every day?