Return of the Dog

My dog is a bit out of practice.

With my recent (and unexpected) surge in speed, the idea of running with my dog has sort of fallen by the wayside. While I enjoy getting the pup out and having her get some exercise, I don't want to risk the integrity of my workouts by having a reluctant running partner drag back my speed. All of these feelings went out the window on Thursday.

See, my wife has begun running, and I couldn't be happier or prouder of this fact. She's signed up to do the Marine Corps 10K while I'm running the MCM, so she's currently in training to make sure that she's ready for that distance. I'm trying to be a good coach, but really, she is all she really needs. She gets herself up on time and on more than one occasion has been the reason I got out of bed as well. Last Tuesday, she took our dog with her on the run, so I felt that I needed to do the same in order to balance out our roles as dog parents.

Against my better judgement, I leashed up the pup and headed down the hill on Thursday. The last time I took her out for a run, she made it abundantly clear that she was not interested in doing any more running. When I took her out on that morning, she did not seem to have changed her mind very much. At least, not at first.

Once we had headed down the hill, she opened up her stride a little bit, and she was suddenly into running again. Sure, we were much slower than I had been running, but honestly, I needed to slow down. I've got a 50+ mile week of running this week, and the last thing I need to concern myself with is running quickly. That was the best service that my dog could have provided on this run - slowing me down.

Honestly, she wasn't that bad. And for once, she actually behaved herself, despite the unusual number of runners who were on our path. She just can't quite run at my same pace, and that's totally okay in the middle of an impossibly long week. The important thing with this run was that I finished, and that all the miles were completed consecutively.

So bring on the weekend.

Thursday's Run:
70 Degrees / Clear
5.05 Miles
39 Minutes, 56 Seconds