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This year we're keeping track of our dogs' activities and thanks to Saturday's race and an easy run with Haven yesterday, the dogs can boast some milestones:
Haven - 202 miles running, 5 hours swimming
Beacon - 150 miles running, 9 hours swimming
The miles include on-leash running and off-leash running and hiking; the swimming is mostly fetching sticks in the river. If we could teach them to ride a bike they'd make great triathletes!
Amanda is a bit worried because Haven is keeping up with her! Amanda is at 208 miles, so I'm teasing her by saying I'll take Haven for a 12-miler this weekend. Although Haven needn't worry because I have yet to see Amanda swim in the river with a stick in her mouth. :)
*** For a race report with photos, visit my Why Run? blog ***
What is more fun than running a race? Running a race with my dogs! This morning I was joined by Haven and Beacon for the 1st annual Healthy Paws Healthy Cause Fun Run, a 4-mile event for dogs and their people. I've done two 5Ks with Haven before, but I've never attempted a race while being hitched to both of my wannabe sled dogs! This should be interesting...
The event was organized by the Cascade Hospital for Animals with proceeds to benefit Mackenzie's Animal Sanctuary. There were no age groups, awards, or even official results - it's just what it says, a "fun run" to get folks out enjoying the morning with their dogs. Over 80 people signed up, not bad for the first ever event. The race director I recognized (via her dog!) as Dr. Happel, the runner that I barely out-kicked at the finish of the 2006 Bailey's Doggie Dash (if you follow the link, she's in the orange shirt in the photos on the bottom row of the page).
Going into this race I wasn't planning to run all out; rather, I wanted to maintain a tempo pace as best I could but primarily just have fun with Haven and Beacon. Since most participants were planning to walk, I lined up near the front; there were about 7 runners ahead of me. Dogs and people were still milling about - in fact, one lady was petting Haven - when the race director shouted out "Five seconds!" And we're off!
The guy at the front broke free quickly and Haven and Beacon decided to chase him - hard! I had no choice but to join their pursuit and within 100 yards of the start we had passed everyone except the leader! It turns out that only eight people were running; the rest were walkers. I pulled alongside the front guy and we sheepishly confided that it felt rather weird to be leading a race. We kept looking back for a while, assuming that some fast runners would blow by us.
We chatted for the first mile where I learned that his dog - weimaraner named Bailey (not the one from Bailey's Doggie Dash) - was five years old, just a year old than my two pups. She loves the water and behaves well on a leash; so well in fact that the guy (funny how I know his dog's name but never learned his!) had the handle of his flexi-lead in his shorts pocket the whole time. If I tried that with my dogs they'd rip my shorts right off me!
With Haven and Beacon leading the way we cruised past the first mile marker in 6:45, a very fast pace for me. The course then ascended a moderate hill and Bailey's owner exlaimed "Uh oh Bailey, daddy's not feeling too good!" and sure enough, he began to fall back as my dogs pulled me upward. Going down the hill my feet were burning - I realized that I hadn't tied my shoelaces tight enough and the soles of my feet were sliding along the bed of my shoe.
Mile two was the beginning of an undulating portion of the course, most of which was run on paved pedestrian paths. With nobody to chase, Haven and Beacon slowed their pace and were no longer pulling me up the hills. Around mile 2.5 Bailey and her owner caught up with us and we ran side-by-side for the next half mile. This time we didn't say anything as we all needed to conserve our oxygen.
Somehow I must've programmed my dogs for a 5K distance (maybe they read my blog?) because soon after we passed the third mile marker (in 21:50, not bad!) they slowed waaaay down. Bailey and her runner kept their momentum going and pulled steadily away from us as I was forced to drag Haven and Beacon forward! Those lazy dogs. :) Finally they realized I wasn't going to stop and they ran beside me the rest of the way.
We passed some pedestrians going the opposite way to relayed to me that the guy ahead of me "was very concerned that I would catch him", but I told them he had nothing to worry about. Not only were my dogs worn out, I was out of energy as well and we struggled most of the last mile. After passing Amanda with her camera, we finally reached the finish line! Sure enough Bailey had won and Haven and Beacon shared second place just one minute behind in 30:29. It was about five minutes until the next runners began showing up. Walkers continued to trickle into the finish for the next hour.
The organizers thought of everything, providing water (for both humans and canines), bagels, bananas, donuts, and dog treats for the finishers. Haven and Beacon eagerly helped themselves to some water while I shared a banana with Haven. After eating my peanut-covered donut, the dogs both got some treats and then finally I remembered to drink some water myself. Once we got home Amanda had the three of us pose for the obligatory post-race photo, all sporting our event t-shirt and bandanas. Haven and Beacon are now fast asleep at my feet. :) What a fun race!
A fairly light week as I'm taking today off to rest up for my race tomorrow - a 4-mile run with my dogs! For the first time I'll be racing with both Haven and Beacon instead of just one dog, so we'll see how that goes. On Monday I took both of them out for a 4-mile training run to make sure everything works - my leash system, my dogs, and my feet. We managed an 8:47 pace in hot weather, so I think we'll be OK. I'm not going to be racing all out but I want to at least maintain a tempo pace if the dogs let me.
Tuesday was supposed to be a fartlek session that turned into suffering! Heat stress. I ran 3.3 miles of fartlek alternating between 7:00 and 9:30 paces (estimated) but on the way back I only managed a couple more speedy minutes before being overcome by the heat and having to walk! I actually walked about 15 minutes of the return trip and finished 24 oz of water well before getting home. I even got a headache, a good sign of heat stress. That was a long 6.7 miles!
Wednesday was a run at work and we maintained a 9:15 pace for our 5 miles despite all of us feeling hot and worn out. It's been hot here lately and it hasn't even hit 90 yet! At least the race tomorrow is at 0800 so it should be plenty cool for me and the pups.
Saturday I went for an easy-paced long run for which I had zero plans except to bring the camera and stay out for 1.5 hours or so. The entire time I was never more than 2 miles from home, but I wound up covering 8.5 miles during the run and I snapped several photos along the way.
The morning air was cool and the river was somewhat warm, causing some beautiful steam fog on the surface. One spectacular effect of this was that the gentle morning breeze coupled with the rising warm vapor off the river created some mini tornadoes! This was the second time I've ever seen them; the first time was last summer during a kayak outing on Lake Malone in Kentucky.
Part of my run took me through the fairgrounds, where I got some photos of the horse arena and the dirt track where Amanda and I do our speedwork. In the background of the wide-angle photo you can see the grain silos of King Milling, among which I ran after going through the fairgrounds.
My little expedition also ran past my old elementary school and playground!
Our dogs are now 4 years old! In dog years they're catching up to Amanda and I. :)
Haven's birthday is June 8 and Beacon's is June 9. They're from the same litter, so how are they born a day apart? Their mother, Sheree (owned by friends of ours), gave birth to the litter late evening June 8th, sometime around 9-11pm that night. After our friends waited a few hours to make sure all seven puppies had arrived, they went to bed around 1am. When they woke up and checked on Sheree at 8am, there was an eighth puppy! It was Beacon, the runt of the litter.
Since Amanda has posted the birthday photos, I'll leave you with some of Haven's and Beacon's puppy pics...
Beacon is on the far left with his head down, pointing to the top of the frame; Haven is bottom center, her head straining to face the camera.
Beacon is on the left, Haven is on the right; they're almost four weeks old.
Today was definitely a Fox Mulder day...
Adopt Her Already!
First the not-so-bad. Our foster dog Reese has been wanted by a couple for over a week now but they keep dragging their feet. We met them with Reese at a pet store last week and they liked her, but then wanted to see her interact with their current dog. Makes sense, but couldn't we have done that for the first meeting if that was an issue? So we take Reese to their house, she and their dog get along great, but one of the adopters is out of town and they want to discuss to make sure. OK... Finally they decide to adopt her and we arrange to meet at my office Thursday to sign the papers but she never shows up. Today we're supposed to meet, but she calls to say she's running late and won't be free until after I leave work. Now Amanda has to coordinate meeting her while I go for my run. To top it off they can't pick Reese up until Monday since one of couple is still on travel. If they'd been just a wee bit more proactive early on, Reese could've gone home with them over a week ago! Oh well. The good thing is that Reese is adopted, and we actually really like this couple. They're nice, patient with dogs, Reese and their dog get along great, they have a big fenced-in backyard, and they go camping a lot. Reese will be happy with them so this craziness is worth it.
Bad Business
Today at home Amanda gets a call from Fidelity where the guy says he has to talk to me about my retirement account due to the takeover. (Background: my company used Fidelity for their 401K but we've since been bought by another company that uses a different financial service.) This guy leaves his name and a direct line phone number. So I call him back from work and get a generic voicemail box saying "an appropriate associate will return your call"... I get suspicious and contact HR at work, who contacted Fidelity and was able to confirm that Fidelity's sales group was using a register of names acquired during the takeover to cold-call people at my company to pitch personal retirement accounts. How incredibly unethical! On top of that, it would seem to me to be bad business. Here's a prime example: I had been planning to leave the amount accrued from my former company in Fidelity's 401K rather than rolling it over, but now they have just cost themselves my account. Prepare to roll it over, Fidelity!
Play Ball! Not.
Thursday night was my softball team's fourth game of the season, except that it never happened. We all showed up, the other team showed up, the umpires showed up... and so did a little league team that claimed to have the field during our game time! I called GRAASA, our softball league, but the number was disconnected! The little league got the city parks and recreation director on the phone, who confirmed that the little league gets the field. Our game got canceled. What the heck? It turns out that GRAASA had reserved the field and the little league was supposed to play on Saturday; however, the little league umpires had a conflict that day so at the last minute the city gave them our field but never told GRAASA. What annoys me is that this same thing happened to another GRAASA game last week but GRAASA never did anything to prevent it from happening again. Isn't once enough to learn a lesson? Maybe not for these folks, as they have yet to demonstrate any thoroughness in their operation of the league. Our schedule was postponed by a week to start the season because they couldn't find enough fields. Then the first field was played on was a kids' field with un-attached bases and a storm drain in centerfield - dangerous! Turns out GRAASA never even looked at the field before reserving it. We're currently operating under league schedule revision 5 or 6 (I've lost count) because they don't proofread their schedules before sending them out. They didn't even proofread their rulebook, which explains the disconnected phone number - their phone works, but they wrote the wrong number in the rulebook! If that all wasn't enough, some of their umpires were unaware of some non-standard GRAASA-specific rules. To their credit they are 100% volunteer, but that's no excuse for not being thorough and complete. Today at work I had to write them a "nice" letter to explain my teams' lack of satisfaction.
So yeah, today was a tough day of dealing with people that can't be counted on.
Happily we still had two good reasons to celebrate the day - Haven and Beacon's birthday!
Since my 35-mile bike ride I've gone running every day! Monday was an easy recovery run with the guys at work. My quads were a bit sore at the end of that run so Tuesday I was planning to take a day off; however, by the time I got home from work I was feeling pretty good so I talked Amanda into running at the dirt track at the fairgrounds. She ran 3 miles! I forget the exact time but she maintained a 14-ish minute pace by running a no-walking 12-minute first mile, then walking four of the final eight laps while maintaining a 12-minute pace on the running laps.
Today I went for a solo run at work during lunch - I couldn't join the regulars due to a schedule conflict. It was a great run, covering six miles instead of the usual five and giving me plenty of time to ponder and draft my latest Why Run? article about running's role in dealing with tragedy. Going the extra mile (literally!) turned out to be quite significant - my yearly total is now 600.8 miles.
I swear my life has a soundtrack... there's always a song in my head for everything I do. In fact, every morning I wake up with a seemingly random song broadcasting on my brainwaves! Early on in today's bike ride I thought to myself "How nice that there's no traffic on these country roads" and in an instant John Denver's song was playing in my head the rest of the way.
This is why I never feel compelled to iPod-ize my workouts - don't get me wrong, I love jamming to tunes on the run once in a while - but even without an iPod there's usually a song in my head anyway. It reminds me of Andy Dufresne in Shawshank Redemption when he tells Red about enduring solitary by remembering the music he had played over the loudspeakers to get him thrown in there: "That's the beauty of music. They can't take that away from you."
After a speed workout on Friday and a moderate 6-miler on Saturday, I was going to take it easy today with a 1-2 hour bike ride. As part of enforcing my plan I pressurized my tires to just 60 psi instead of the usual 75 psi I use for flying along pavement - that way if I tried to go fast, I'd get frustrated by the mushy tires sapping energy. I also brought the camera along to remind me to stop and shoot the roses.
Or lambs, as it turned out! I was cruising along one of those melodious country roads when I spotted these woolen kids grazing. The wet brakes on my bike squealed to a halt and every single lamb pricked its ears in my direction - how cute! Unfortunately by the time I got my camera out of its double-ziploc bag waterproofing they'd all resumed breakfast, but it was still a cool scene.
Finally I stopped to check the time and to my surprise 1.5 hours had gone by! I was feeling so good that it seemed like I'd been on the road for just half an hour. I had told Amanda that I'd be gone 1-2 hours and now I'm looking at 3 hours if I turned around right then. I called her up and we made some plans - I would continue on for a 3-hour-ish ride into town and she'd come pick me up and we'd go out to lunch.
Back on my bike, five minutes later Amanda calls me back. "Aren't you getting rained on?" Sorry honey, it's just cloudy. Turns out she was in Meijer and the metal roof was echoing a downpour throughout the store. Well guess what? Two minutes after hanging up, the sky opened up and I got soaked. Amanda cursed me! ;)
My only directional plan had been to ride south for a while, then return home. With no pre-defined ending point now, I simply wandered south and west for a while until I realized that I had no clue where I was! To make matters worse, there were signs of alien activity... Crop circles! Actually it looks like the work of a willy willy spawned by yesterday's violent storm front that downed several tree limbs. See the cloud bank at the top of that photo? A minute after snapping the shot I got rained on again, just as I got the camera back into its protective baggie.
Now I had to find my way to town so whenever I hit an intersection I rode either north or west, depending on how ridable the road looked. I hopped onto a nice westbound road but a mile later it turned south with no intersections for a few more miles. Ack! Finally I got on a westerly course and found myself staring at quite a hill. Luckily it wasn't too bad at my slow pace; in fact, this was typical of about a dozen large hills that I climbed - and descended - during the ride. According to MapMyRide my route involved almost 2000 feet of climbing - not bad for Michigan!
Going down those hills was fun and fast, but the raindrops really sting at high speed! Yeah, those raindrops - the last hour of my ride was in a steady rain. I was completely soaked, but it was 67 degrees and I felt great - perfect riding conditions if you ask me! I finally came to a road name that I recognized and called Amanda to look up my location on Google Maps. She told me that it was six miles to a familiar intersection, and from there I was "really close" to the airport. She emphasized that it wasn't far at all, so I figured I'd meet her at the airport viewing area and assumed it was 8-9 miles away.
10 miles later I was wondering what the heck Amanda had told me! Turns out that Amanda had thought I was at the familiar intersection, which was six miles from the airport. So instead of 8-9 miles I actually needed 12 miles to reach the rendezvous point. Less than a mile from the finish the road was blocked by geese! Two families with adolescent goslings (about half the size of their parents; the fuzz was shedding from their necks) were thinking about making a crossing. They ran back to the shoulder as I used the oncoming lane to get around them. I slowed down to watch them when suddenly one of the parents hissed loudly and started running at me! I accelerated and got outta there! :)
At long last I met up with Amanda and changed into some dry clothes before getting refueled at Pizza Hut. My planned 1-2 hour ride became a 3-hour affair (including phone call and photo stops) where I covered 35 miles! All told I averaged about 13 mph if I subtract out the stopping. Surprisingly I still feel great! Apparently last week's 50-miler with my dad has recalibrated my cycling endurance. Nevertheless, I'll go easy on my legs when I run tomorrow.
The song "The Heat is On" comes to mind with the hot, muggy weather we've been having. As I got ready for my speed workout today I watched cumulus clouds building strength due to rising columns of hot afternoon air. My run was not going to be easy or pleasant! I leashed up Haven and jogged a warm-up mile to the track at the local fairgrounds where we met Amanda. At the track Haven was set free and promptly sprinted 100 meters at Olympic speed in pursuit of a squirrel! Silly girl.
I was hoping to run six 1/4 mile laps but only turned in four due to the heat and some lingering soreness from last night's softball game. (I was involved with a couple diving plays in the outfield - caught one; the other glanced off my glove - that resulted in "grass burn" on my left calf and right knee.) I paced Amanda for her first 100m sprint then continued around the track for my first lap, a surprisingly comfortable 92 seconds. Then I ran my hardest for the second lap and clocked 69 seconds! Woo hoo, my first 1/4 mile under 70 seconds since high school. Boy was I hurtin' after that one.
Another medium paced lap at 98 seconds, then my last one I managed to run in 77 seconds. Amanda and Haven were just as hot and tired as me by this point so we went home. I ran with Haven through downtown and we stopped at the riverwalk to watch some ducklings that Amanda photographed. Finally we made it home, where Haven and I headed to the basement to recover in the cool subterranean air.