Trained by a Bitch

Yesterday I went out running twice in one day. I got up early because it was moving day for K~, he starts his new job in Virginia today. (I can’t wait to know the details of my transition to VA. Incessantly checking my email 45 times an hour is getting old. I just want some plan to be able to plan/execute…wait back to the story…) So after shooing him out the door at 7:30AM, I changed and got the dog ready for a run. We did our warm up 5-minute walk and then started our first run. About 3 or four minutes into it she decided to stop running. She NEVER does that, but I could tell by the look in her eyes that she wasn’t feeling like running. I promised myself I would never push her, and I would always listen to her subtle cues when we were running. So I stopped and we walked home. I let her off the leash when we are in sight of the house and prompted her with “Run HOME!”, off she went running hard toward the door with me hot on her tail (no pun intended) spurring her on with taunts of “I am going to beat you!” (this would never happen in a million years, she has twice as many legs as I do and weighs over a hundred pounds less). And with her tail wagging and her eyes alight she was begging me for more. She didn’t want to run our normal long slow run. She wanted fast and quick, she wanted to dominate and be happy about it. I am a sucker for the puppy dog eyes, so she won and we did sprints. We didn’t do tons of sprints but enough so that I knew I exerted myself in a new way when I went out alone for my long slow run last night, and today, well today my muscles aren’t really sore, but a little tired.

I actually liked sprinting, it didn’t feel like work, it felt like a girl outside playing with her dog. I think it actually made my evening run more enjoyable, I wasn’t tethered to a leash and I kept my own pace, no potty, poop or sniffing breaks..well none that weren’t my idea.

My speeds weren’t horrible either:
Mile 1: 12:36 (this is with a 5 minute warm up walk) –am guessing without the walk this was in the upper 10’s, that is what it looks like on my graph anyway)
Mile 2: 11:36
Mile 3: 12:16
Not sure about the last .6 miles I’d imagine that time was much slower, because a large portion of it would be the cool down walk.

I decided that I am going to start using my Nike+ GPS app for keeping track of my runs, the Ease into 10K app was off by A LOT, my 3.6 mile run according EI10K was 4.1 miles. I verified the distance with a third source and it matched my Nike+ GPS app, so I guess that is the way to go. I may also start subtracting the warm up and cool down walks so I can get a better indication of my speed.

See my nifty graph from Nike…I am easily amused and the app was cheap, someday I will be in the market for a real GPS but until then I am going with what I have.



There will be 4 runs this week to make up for my 2 runs last week. With K~ gone I should have no real excuses as to why I can’t get my training done. Just the fake excuses I can come up with on a whim. Like, I almost didn’t want to run today because I was going to go to Travel Country (travelcountry.com for those more brave at online shopping than I) and pick up a second pair of VFF’s (classics are on sale), but seeing I couldn’t get the deal in-store I decided it wasn’t worth spending my money on something I couldn’t be sure fit the way I wanted them too. What can I say I am still not a fan of online clothing and footwear shopping, I want to know the fit and the wear ability of something before I pay shipping…any maybe return shipping on it.