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!

#BeatCancer

Since my last post, I haven't been running much. Heck, I hadn't ran at all since then! I skipped out on running for the weekend for some bike riding. I have a bike race around the bend, so I need to keep my riding skills honed in for it. Twelve hours at Haw Ridge demands some attention!

Despite my lack of running over the weekend, I do plan to get a couple of running days in this week so I can stay on track. I'm hoping that by the end of the month I can be at or close to running ten miles. I think I'm on track for that.

That's about all the news I have for now. I do want to remind all you tweeters out there that Paypal is donating $0.05 to Livestrong for every #BeatCancer you tweet. So tweet now and tweet often to make it a big paycheck for cancer research!

Not running in place

So I'm having trouble getting the blog to link to the facebook fan page. It would be nice if I could have it automatically post to facebook via internet magic, but I always get the dreaded, "Something went wrong. We're working to fix it" message. Bullocks!

Yesterday was a bit of a milestone...I ran six miles. Yep, I'm around halfway to a half marathon and six miles is the longest distance I have ever run...without stopping. Chris and I ran at a leisurely pace that consisted of discussion topics ranging from vacations in Colombia to that old Mantracker show that came on one of the Discovery channels. Turns out we have great show ideas we will be pitching in the near future. Chris can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think our time for the entire run was 45ish minutes. It seemed like it went faster. I did feel pretty good after the run as well as during the run. I think I may be getting the hang of it, finally.

I have come to the realization that the shoes I am running with need to be replaced with shoes that I should be running with. My right arch felt like it was going to split in two when we finished. I am expecting to stop by the FootRX or Fleet Feet, whichever one I happen to be in the vicinity of when I remember my shoe problem, to get matched to a proper running shoe. I ran track for a bit in my earlier days of high school and wore a pair of Avia's. From what I recall, they were very comfortable shoes, so maybe that is my shoe match? I'll let the experts decide I guess.

It's getting much colder now which means that I will be tempted to do some training indoors on boring treadmills. I enjoy the outdoors, so I may have to suck it up, throw on the micro-fleece and run outside anyway. Really cold weather hurts my chest, but running inside is lame-o.