Soapbox

I've had a few random thoughts kicking around my head that I have to get out.

First off, you may remember my feelings on the repair job done by the county road crews. That post was only a year ago and as per my prognostication the chip seal is not holding up. I rode up to Veyo this morning thru Gunlock, from now on I am going to refer to that ride as the Veyo-Roubaix. If you don't get the joke, go here to be enlightened.
This is part of the same track used by the St. George Iron Man, a world class event. I would think the county would be ashamed to show the world how good they are at ignoring road conditions. The Iron Man allegedly brings in millions of dollars to the local economy but they can't seem to spring for 30 miles of new tarmac.
Thumbs down to you Washington County Road Dept.
Feel free to send Wendell Gubler a piece of your mind, he already has had some from me. He is the man in charge of saying "we don't have any money."  Wendell.Gubler@washco.utah.gov  


Secondly, runners. This may offend a few of you but I don't care. Sometimes a little tough love is the only way. 
This time of year it seems as if 1/4 of the population in preparing for the St. George Marathon. They train by running down the course from Veyo to St.G via highway 18 or down Snow Canyon. 
Running to me looks like agony. Plodding, slow, jarring, joint destroying agony. Maybe that is why most of the folks I see are so zoned out of their minds that they can't seem to behave like we have rules in our society.  In Snow Canyon on Thursday I passed approx 35-40 people, It was dark and 50% of these fools were not using lights or reflectors of any kind. 
They was no rhyme or reason to where they were running either. Some were running against traffic (which is the recommended method) some were running with traffic but the majority were right in the middle of the road running 4 abreast. 30% of them were startled when I got to within 25ft of them, again so zoned out that they failed to see my bar lights baring down on them.


Now for my biggest complaint, litter. 





The runners are of course training for a long event and they don't want to carry all the necessities i.e. water, fuel, supplements etc. So they leave little stashes along the road way so they can pick it up as they need it. In theory I understand this and agree with the idea. However in the application of this plan they fail to do the necessary clean up after the fact. There are hundreds of used water bottles right now along the side of highway 18. Every runner that I confront about the problem says the same thing, "we always pick up our trash after the run." LIARS! If you all picked up your trash then there would be no trash.


Thanks for listening and please keep America beautiful.  




One more thing, congratulations for finishing a tough event ladies.