Running with Dogs

For those of you who are familiar with my circle of mountain bike pals and their blogs, the title of this blog may look familiar, but I couldn't think of any better post titles. So after reading my post, head on over to a similarly named blog for some mountain bike talk.

There isn't much to write about since my weekend consisted of mountain biking instead of running. I did get out for a run on Monday though. Amanda texted me while I was at work asking if I wanted to go to Sugar Hollow Park. The park is only about five minutes from our house and has lots of nice trails, a dog park and a paved walking path. Amanda has been walking the path recently and is doing really well with her distance. She is having some shoe problems too, so we may have a Foot RX date soon so we can get some shoes for our ailing feets.

So Amanda and I loaded up the dogs and headed out to the park after work. We decided that since Pacino (the older dog of the two) is a little more docile and way less A.D.D than Sofie (the younger one) that I would run with Sofie and she would walk with Pacino. It worked out pretty well and Sofie did an excellent job running with me. Early in our run she had a tendency to run across my path to greet other dogs or people, and once almost sent me face first into the dirt. Once she got in the groove of the run, we had fun.

She was there with me to witness my one minute crushing of my fastest 5k time on the cross country course out there. I've never been able to run it faster than 28:09, but Monday I ran it in 27:01. It's not distance related, but it is a good indicator that I'm getting some nice running legs. So that time puts me at nine minutes per mile, and if I can do that for 13.1 miles I will be below my self-imposed two hour time limit with three minutes to spare. I even felt good enough after the run to run back down to the dog park where Amanda and Pacino were hanging out with about 30 other dogs. I had a feeling that Sofie wouldn't be much for playing or running since we just blasted a 5k, but she had buckets of energy left.

I did find that I got into a good groove earlier in Monday's run than I have in previous runs. I felt like my stride and pace was the most comfortable it had been since I started. Yep, I'm getting the hang of it!