65 posts tagged “running with dogs”
Michigan weather is simply amazing. Yesterday saw a heat wave reaching 40 degrees that melted much of the several inches of snow on the ground, but 40+ mph winds this morning will plummet the thermometer below 20 degrees later today. The weatherman called it a "flash freeze", which I guess means that we had a "flash thaw" over the weekend?
Recently we picked up Jan, our 54th foster dog, and she's been such a great dog that Amanda keeps saying stuff like "if we ever want 3 dogs, Jan should be the 3rd one". :)
To me she's not a "Jan" - she's too sweet and spunky for that calm-sounding name, so I've been calling her JJ. Not "J.J." but "JJ" because there's no initials - that second "J" doesn't stand for anything.
Taking advantage of the balmy weather yesterday, I loaded the entire pack - Haven, Beacon, JJ - into the car and all 14 of our feet embarked on a hike in warm, wet snow along the Flat River. JJ has been good enough that I let her run off leash; she's only the 3rd or 4th foster dog to earn such freedom! She wasn't perfect and tended to ignore my whistles occasionally, but she kept us in sight. Of course to her, "us" can mean just Haven and Beacon so sometimes the three of them were a few hundred yards away chasing some intriguing scent!
Eventually we slipped and slid our way up and over the steep hill that leads to "Beacon's Landing" - his favorite fetching spot on the river, a small sandy delta where a foot-wide stream drains into the 200-foot wide river. Immediately downstream of Beacon's Landing is "Haven's Cove", a backwater area of eddy flow caused by the delta. Lots of flotsam and other debris collects here and Haven loves to explore it at low water levels in hopes of finding a stinky fish carcass to eather eat or roll in.
In the winter Haven's Cove freezes over due to the still water and during this hike the ice was 2 inches thick, extending 15 feet into the river and running 60 feet along the shore. Standing at Beacon's Landing and waiting for JJ to catch up to us, Beacon began insisting that I throw him something to retrieve. I was scanning the ground for a stick when I heard a splash...
Looking up I saw JJ had fallen through the ice! She was at the far end of the ice shelf on Haven's Cove - she had walked too close to the edge and a 2-foot hemicircle of ice had broken away. JJ was in that hemicircle trying to climb back on to the ice with no success. Her front paws were hanging on with her rear in the water; occassionally a hind paw would appear on the ice edge but the river was about 3 feet deep there, so she had nothing to push off of.
At first I tried to coax JJ to exit the hemicircle and swim upstream around the ice shelf - there's almost zero current in Haven's Cove - but JJ apparently doesn't have enough labrador retriever in her genes to give her such instincts. She wasn't panicked but she was intent on climbing out, which she couldn't do without help.
Haven seemed to realize this - as soon as we saw JJ in the water, Haven went running out onto the ice right up to JJ, putting her nose right next to JJ's. How kind! If only Haven had thought to grab JJ's collar and haul her out, but Haven apparently was only intending to provide moral support. :)
JJ was about 12 feet from shore, a shoreline that's steep and covered in woody shrubs so I wasn't going to reach her from dry land. I also didn't want to wade through a waist-deep, ice-cold river along the entire 60-foot ice shelf to get there. I decided to press my luck by walking out onto the ice shelf.
It was pretty solid, but obviously thinning out toward it's edge. Beacon joined me when I set foot onto the ice, and Haven got excited and ran over to Beacon... and slid right past him! Yes Haven, ice is slippery. The two of them must've figured I had things under control as they ran back to Beacon's Landing.
I managed to get about 6 feet away from JJ before my weight pushed the outer edge of the ice just below the surface and water began to flow onto the ice. Rats, I couldn't get any closer! How was I going to help JJ out of the water? I pulled the leash out of my pocket - I could make a "lasso" and toss it over her head, giving enough of a pull that her back paws could push her out.
As I was preparing to toss the leash, Haven and Beacon came running out onto the ice to see what I was up to, coming all the way out right next to me. I weigh almost 200 lbs and the ice barely supported me, but add in 140 pounds of pooch and guess what? The ice breaks!
I fell through the ice and verified that the water was indeed waist deep. Yow, was it cold! Haven fell in right next to me but Beacon was on the safe side of the crack, still standing up on the ice. JJ was now in front of me in the water so I picked her up and placed her on the ice and she ran for shore. Then I turned and helped Haven climb back onto the shelf - she's a pretty good swimmer and comfortable in the river, but she wasn't too thrilled to be dog-paddling in icy water!
As I helped Haven I heard a splash behind me... Beacon! The silly boy had jumped into the river and was swimming back to me with a large chunk of ice in his mouth! He saw pieces of ice from my fall-through floating in the river and he leapt in to retrieve them. However, he couldn't climb out so I then had to help him back onto the ice shelf but he never let go of his prize.
Naturally if I fall through the ice with three dogs, I'm the last one out! They're back on shore at Beacon's Landing, shaking off some of the chilly water while I'm forced to make that trek that I opted against earlier - a long wade in chilling, waist-deep water to circumnavigate the ice shelf at Haven's Cove.
Back near shore I stepped on the ice edge trying to break off a chunk, but lo and behold nearly the entire shelf cracked free! A huge 10x50 foot island of ice floated out into the river, but rather than heading downstream is simply spun. The backwater eddys were evident as the upstream end of the ice floe rotated out into the river and downstream, while the downstream end actually moved upstream. It did this twice before I left, so who knows if it ever drifted downstream or just kept spinning there! Pretty cool stuff for a nature and science geek.
By the time I stepped on to dry land my feet were almost numb, but otherwise I felt pretty good. The dogs were noticeably cold from their bouncy behavior, but they weren't shivering or stressed out; in fact they were already exploring the woods while awaiting my return. Once I arrived, however, Beacon began trying to lead us back to the car - he was ready to go home. He was right, of course - we'd been out for half an hour and had a 15 minute hike back to the parking area so no need to hang around in wet clothes (or fur) when there's snow on the ground, even in a Michigan heat wave.
I wish I'd thought to get some photos of the ice shelf, but perhaps it was all the best that I had the camera and my cell phone stashed away in double ziploc bags. They both survived the dunking - luckily I took such precautions despite no intention of getting wet. Running in the woods with three dogs? Anything can happen! What a blast.
...is what Vox and I have in common! *
Haven and I ran our fourth Bailey's Doggie Dash 5K a couple weekends ago, finishing with our slowest time ever. Don't worry, we had a lot of fun - the slowness was expected since I've done barely any running lately. The hamstring is feeling much better - and caused no problems at the Doggie Dash - so I've been limiting my running frequency to "just enough to keep me sane" levels.
The race report is over on my other blog. Long ago I wrote about wanting to combine my article-type posts onto one blog rather than a few, which I've done there on Blogger but I've been rather lazy about getting the archives updated. I'm continuing to use Vox as my "personal" blog (not that my other one is "professional" by any means) for fun stories, opinions, family stuff, etc.
The photo above is one of my favorites from this year's Doggie Dash but which I didn't include on the other blog. It seems to have a more calm, reflective tone to it compared to the other shots of Haven and I during the race. Of course if you like great photos of dogs and fall colors, check out Amanda's Flickr album of the Doggie Dash.
* Seriously, is it just me or has Vox been occasionally going retro - as in dial-up speed - in the past few weeks?
What are 10 things you've done that other people probably haven't?
Submitted by Janette.
1. Run with my dog in 8" of snow without snowshoes and carry some road trash home. (OK, that was a shameless plug for my latest Why Run? article. Forgive me.)
2. Worked my first ever job after college as an internship in Munich, Germany.
3. Completed the solo cross country phase of flight training yet never got a pilot's license (the solo cross country is about two steps away from getting a license).
4. Drove for one solid minute on a freeway in pitch darkness (no streetlights, no moon, no traffic) with my headlights turned off. Nobody said these 10 things had to be smart.
5. Memorized the entire poem The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe.
6. In 2nd grade I associated every letter and number with a personality. "A" is confident, "W" is kind, "4" is friendly, "E" and "6" are mean, "R" is aggressive, "7" is social, etc...
7. Never been drunk, never smoked, and never religious.
8. Never paid for cable/satellite TV (had cable for free one year in college because it was never turned off from the previous tenant; otherwise I've never had more than bunny ears TV).
9. Passed a car on the road while riding my bike more than once (going down a hill around a curve that limited cars to 30 mph but my bicycle was able to maintain more speed in the turn).
10. "Crossed the streams"... my two brothers, two cousins and myself, after watching Ghostbusters, all five of us took a leak in the backyard at the same time and managed to cross the streams to fight the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. My aunt witnessed this and just about died with laughter!
I didn't have to wait long to resume running! On January 2nd the PT cleared me to resume running, although he stressed taking it easy. I had hoped to run that day but he worked my leg over so much during training - squats, lunges onto an unstable pad, curls, and lots of stretching - that I was too sore to risk running on the 2nd.
So I ran on the 3rd! It was cold and icy so I wore my screw shoes and departed from the Critter Cottage for a slow, 2.8 mile run. The shoes worked great... my legs, not so much. Happily my hamstring felt fine, but the rest of my body wasn't used to running after a month+ layoff. I've only gained five pounds but I felt heavy. Still, it also felt natural and it seemed like I could've run more than twice that distance if I wanted to push things.
After a few days off to ensure a good recovery for my legs, I ran again on the 7th. I woke up to see the thermometer reading 55 degrees and it was still dark out! I went for a leisurely 2-miler in the misting rain and so far, so good for the hamstring.
Not wanting to miss the warm weather I went for another run the next day. The forecast called for falling temps throughout the night so I laced it up after dark that evening just before the cold weather moved in. It was 55 degrees again, and I figured my leg would prefer warm temps and besides, I'd given it 36 hours of rest.
Haven begged hard enough that I took her with me. We got all decked out in our night lights and set out to conquer the neighborhood. We returned triumphantly after 3 miles of running, having enjoyed the steady rain and peaceful darkness. I did panic a little bit when my hamstring felt tight at 2.5 miles but it relaxed again within a couple minutes and it hasn't shown signs of problems. However to be cautious I haven't run since then, and I'll be going to PT today for a check up.
Hopefully sometime this weekend I can add to my 2008 mileage. Speaking of which, if you're looking for a running log spreadsheet to track your miles this year, look no further.
I can hardly believe that I didn't run at all in December - the first time I've missed an entire month since I started running January 1st, 2004. It's frustrating but hopefully this layoff will fix my hamstring and prevent a recurrence. If you find long lists of statistics to be boring, you can read my brief 2007 running summary. While these stats are posted on Why Run? I've also included them here - the breakdown of my running for 2007, by the numbers:
1018.5 total miles
207 runs
156 hours
4.92 miles average per run
13 races
7 5K road
2 5M trail
1 5K trail with Haven
1 4M road with Haven and Beacon
1 10K road
1 26.2M trail marathon
788.9 miles on the roads
229.6 miles on the trails
193.2 pounds average weight
56 bpm typical resting heart rate
181.7 miles running with Haven
85.3 miles running with Beacon
53.0 of the above miles running with Haven and Beacon together
4.3 miles running with foster dogs
218.4 miles running with dogs
51 runs with Haven
24 runs with Beacon
14 of the above runs were with Haven and Beacon together
2 runs with foster dogs, Raven and Reese
63 total runs with at least one dog
30% of all runs were with a dog
Congratulations if you've scrolled down this far and actually enjoyed reading the stats. The dogs will appreciate your effort since I'm now going to share their own personal numbers, which also include hikes and other walks that I didn't include in my running tally. Note that "swimming" means time spent playing fetch in water or accompanying Amanda and I while we waded in the river.
Haven
327.7 miles total
107.7 miles on leash
220.0 miles off leash
92 outings
65 hours total
9.9 hours swimming
Beacon
226.2 miles total
65.6 miles on leash
160.7 miles off leash
74 outings
52 hours total
15.8 hours swimming
Foster Dogs
7 of our 17 foster dogs went running - Amber, Raven, Honey, Reese, Betty, Annie, Teddy
51.3 miles total
18.8 miles on leash
32.5 miles off leash
16 outings
14 hours total
no significant swimming
If you're wondering why Haven racked up 100 more miles than Beacon, there are two main reasons:
1) Beacon likes running, Haven LOVES running. However, Beacon makes up for it with almost 6 more hours of swimming because while Haven likes fetch, Beacon LOVES fetch.
2) Beacon's pads become sore rather easily and there are several occasions where Haven is taken for a run in place of Beacon because his paws are still recovering. We think the cause is a combination of Beacon's naturally thin pads and his somewhat stiff-legged gait; in comparison Haven is a very smooth and easy runner.
Yes, I love running with dogs!
Trail runner Paul Charteris wrote a meme-type blog entry (discovered via Scott Dunlap) to recap 2007. I'll play along; however since I'm simply a "runner" and not a die-hard "trail runner" I'm going to be liberal in my interpretation of the term "trails".
1. Most memorable moment on the trails…
When Haven and Beacon encountered a fawn! They chased it to a standoff; Beacon got head-butted and ran away while Haven tried to make friends with Bambi.
2. Best new trail I discovered in 2007…
Sleeping Bear Dunes bluff - perhaps the highest torture:distance ratio of any trail!
3. My best performance of the year was…
...thanks to Haven pulling me at the Doggie Dash. However, "fastest" does not equal "best" since I allowed Haven to do too much work in the second mile, causing her to fade badly in the last mile while I still had some energy. Not only was that unfair to her, it also cost us a shot at a sub-20 time. My best strategic performance was at the Harvest Hustle when I launched my "kick" with a half mile to go, risking total blowup to set a 5K PR.
4. I do not know how I previously survived without…
A canicross-style leash setup that includes a bungee cord:
5. The person I would most like to meet on a trail in 2008...
The meeting would last but a split second as Matt Carpenter zooms past my plodding, gasping self.
6. The race I am most excited/scared about in 2008 is…
The Wild West 100K. Excited because it would be my longest race ever and it takes place in my hometown. Scared because I need to recover from my hamstring injury before I can even start building up a base.
I'd like to tag any runners who feel like answering these six quick questions whether you prefer trails or roads.
I haven't written much lately for a couple reasons: 1) Amanda and I have been busy starting up our new business, and 2) I haven't been running.
The latter is significant because much of my blog is about my running and without that, what do I write about? OK there are plenty of other topics, but also important is that not running can be depressing. It frustrates me to no end that I haven't been able to run - I missed all the good 50-degree weather in early November and now with snow and ice on the ground I can't even ride my bike. I've used the stationary bike at home a few times but that's even worse than a treadmill. I did get in a great long ride in mid November - 35 miles in 2.5 hours, and it was fun the whole way. Since I don't have clips on my pedals it's hard for me to engage my hamstrings, which is good for my injured right one.
I don't think I ever recovered from the Harvest Hustle and Doggie Dash, running 5K PRs on back-to-back weekends. Or rather, I didn't allow myself to recover. I was feeling so strong after those races that my next couple workouts were faster than usual and after the second one my hamstring tightened up afterwards. I took a couple days off and then ran a couple more 5-milers, the last one on Halloween, but it was still feeling tight, so I figured I'd be conservative and rest it for an entire week.
After the week off I ran a couple short runs under 3 miles with a day rest in between, and my hamstring felt no better than before! Ugh. So I took TWELVE days off with no running, although I did get some cycling in. I ran on Thanksgiving day for 3 miles with Haven and my hamstring felt great! No problems. I took the next day off just to be sure, then ran 3 miles with Beacon and as soon as I got home and stopped running, my hamstring was more sore than it's ever been and I was even limping for the rest of the day! What the heck?
Partly I can "blame" Beacon. We ran at what felt like a 9:00 pace but when I mapped it out afterwards I was alarmed to learn that he had pulled me to a 7:30 pace! Still, it felt easy and I was paying close attention to my legs and never felt a twinge of anything until after the run. Now I'm in the middle of another forced layoff and just hoping that my hamstring will actually heal.
Hopefully it is healing. I haven't felt any tightness in about a week and I'm actually considering running on it - very slowly and very briefly - sometime soon. Yet there's some trepidation because the last two times that my leg felt healed it turned out not to be, so maybe I should wait another whole week just to be certain?
I know that healing takes time, but what's so odd to me is that my initial injury never felt anywhere close to serious. Just a little stiffness in the hamstring; in fact I've had that before after some speed workouts. It's never hurt to the point that I couldn't run without pain but I wanted to catch it early before injuries started cascading. This has never felt like an injury that would've required more than a couple days to heal, yet here I am.
The good thing is that Amanda and I have been busy with 2 Feet 4 Paws so most days it's easy to forget that I'm not running that day, but I can feel the effects. It's harder to wake up when I'm "not a runner" and food doesn't taste as good when I haven't been exercising. Time heals all wounds and eventually it will heal this one, but boy is it tough having to wait!
In this case, the 'K' multiplies miles, not meters. As of Halloween I now have 1007 miles underfoot via 203 sorties. My dogs are right up there, too - Haven has 308 miles and Beacon has 210. Don't feel sorry for Beacon's lack of miles; he's "water" logged over 15 hours of swimming compared to 10 for Haven.
Sadly, I haven't run since Halloween. A week ago my right hamstring was sore after a run - I can't think of anything sudden that caused it so it was probably due to racing two straight PR 5Ks on consecutive weekends. Not that I'm complaining. :)
I did a few light training runs but after each one the hamstring felt tight - not sore, luckily - but I figured that if it's not 100% then I'm not going to mess around with it by trying to run during the healing process. It's feeling pretty good right now so I think I'm doing the right thing.
October 13th I ran in the Harvest Hustle 5K, a race in downtown Lowell that goes right past my house! I didn't have any kind of serious plan and apparently that worked - read the race report about my 20:56 PR!
But I wasn't about to call it a season. The very next Saturday, October 20, my dog Haven and I raced in Bailey's Doggie Dash 5K. Haven was every bit as excited as I was; see (and hear) for yourself:
Silly girl! I trained Haven to run in a harness hitched to my belt to help pull me along, and did she ever - we finished 3rd overall in a time of 20:17!! Interesting tidbit about this race was that I met a guy who was inspired to adopt a dog as his running partner after reading about Haven and Beacon on this blog! That made for a doubly satisfying day.
Even though I haven't posted much lately, I'm still out there running. Ten days ago my yearly odometer passed 900 miles. I'm only doing about 20+ miles per week but doing it by running 5-6 times each week. The frequency is kinda fun as long as I don't go too far on my long run - it allows me to do more speedwork and still recover from it.
The highlight has been that I'm running with my dogs by tying their leash to a belt around my waist - it's so much easier to run this way! I have better leverage against their pulling, plus their efforts help speed me along. Last week I hitched myself to both Haven and Beacon and we ran a 3.5 out-and-back at a 6:30 pace! I can't even run a 5K that fast, but they did most of the work. We bought them harnesses so that they're not pulling me from around their neck but rather around their shoulders so it's more comfortable for them. I'll have to post some photos of their snazzy threads sometime.
I've also been writing for Itchmo. So far so good, but it hasn't been very long yet. I'd hoped to see more comments on some of my articles but hopefully that will come with more time. You can see all six of the articles I've written if you're curious about pets, especially dogs and horses.
Baseball has been pretty exciting! It's quite a bummer that the Tigers collapsed a bit after the All-Star break and missed the playoffs, but they had their flaws for all of their talent. Detroit isn't a deep team which mean injuries can take a toll, and that's what happened this season. They've already made it clear that Carlos Guillen will play 1B next year - that only makes sense if they can find an above-average shortstop for 2008. Not much else is out there, so it makes me wonder if Alex Rodriguez is on the Tigers' radar for 2008? After all, he was a better shortstop than Derek Jeter when he joined the Yankees.
Speaking of baseball predictions, newmanmlb wrote about his sleeper picks back before Opening Day. He choose the Rangers and Rockies to make the World Series, while I commented that I liked the Orioles and Diamondbacks. We really bombed those American League choices, but we look pretty good with our National League picks! (FYI, right now the Rockies are playing their one-game playoff against the Padres.) However, I'm rooting for the Indians although the Red Sox appear to be the favorites - they have no apparent weaknesses while every other playoff team has at least one.
