If You Were a Porn Star

Not related (in a direct way) to the title of this... my dog is taking over my blogs!!! Yes, I have noticed this. I also noticed that I blog a lot more when I am exercising regularly. I do my best thinking when I am running; what else is there to do. If you can zone out for five or ten minutes at a time, and then "come to" and realize that you just covered a mile or some fraction thereof... that is great! You weren't feeling any pain.

So my dog is running with me all the time now, and he's interupting my deep thoughts. My attention is almost constantly on him, trying to keep him to my left, but to the right of mailboxes. He's doing good realizing he can't go to the left of a mailbox... but he meanders all over the place, and likes to run in the middle of the street.

I'm tired of writing about Amos. This week as I've expanded our distance a little, we hit asphalt! Woo hoo, asphalt rocks... the next best thing to the trail. Concrete is hard, and hard on the body, and I've had to run on it "a lot" the last few years. Now I have found a route that's about five miles, and two of that is asphalt (and if I repeated some blocks, it could be longer). I'll take it!

When I found the section with asphalt the other night, I thought, "Eureka! We're on asphalt!" and that reminded me of a time I was out with a friend and we met up with another friend and she asked, "What was the name of the first street you can remember living on?" I said, "Eureka!" (which is really not right... but that's beside the point.) She said, "If you were a porn star, that's what your name would be!" Ha ha, that's funny. The first street I really remember living on, though, is Pearson. Hmmmm...

So, if you were a porn star, what would your name be?

Training Tactics

Training... that may be a bit of a misnomer. I'd like to think I'm training for something, but I'm not sure what yet. If nothing else, long life and good health!

I ran with Amos on the trail today. It's supposed to be our week in increase to 4.5 miles... but the past few days have been way too cold to get out. Today it was in the 20's, so we took a stab at it.

Before I go any further, in response to my last post, let me say that anything in the single digits is too cold for a dog to run in. Another reason for not taking any chances the last few days, where single digits were the highs. It appears I did do some damage to Amos last week when I posed the question "how cold is too cold". A few days ago he was licking both his front paws rather diligently, which caused me take a closer look. It appeared there was gum stuck in his fur. As I looked closer, it dawned on me... skin! It was dead skin. So, lesson learned!

Today Amos' issue was ice... ice cubes formed under his pads, stuck to the fur. The poor guy, he probably thinks I'm trying to kill him! He must be a glutton for punishment, cuz he still loves going running with me. I'll have to figure out the ice chunk issue next.

We ran on the trail, and it started rather nice. I run on one of the least used sections of the trail in the city limits, and at the beginning it was snow packed. Actually, a vehicle had been on it for the first mile, and formed and nice little section to run on. After that, however, it turned to four or so inches of loose snow. Dang, that was like running on sand... difficult! I really wanted to turn around, but I refused. The sun was setting, and it was a quite beautiful sunset... with the baren trees and white snow. I didn't want to stop.

I started thinking about some of the things I do to make me finish a work out... my training tactics. Quite often I run during the hour after work, before I have to pick up Ray (this was pre-Amos). I would start my run at 5:00 or so, knowing daycare closed at 6:00. This would give me 55 minutes. I would time myself on the out portion for 28 minutes, knowing my back would naturally be slightly slower, and I would have a huge hill to climb on the back as well. So at the turn around I'd have this adreneline rush, knowing I had to go faster on the way back, or I'd be late. I've never been late!

Tonight Amos was definitely in the negative split frame of mind; he seemed a little freaked. I don't know if it was the ice cubes under his paws, or the fact we were running in the near dark, out in the middle of no where, unable to see the best place to run in the four inch snow. At the turn around he had the same rush I usually do!

How Cold Is Too Cold?

Whether you're in Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, or Colorado, you're probably thinking, "It's too cold right now!" I woke up this morning and looked at my phone for weather information, and it was 6 degrees. I've piddled around a little while, and looked again (the sun is shining!)... and it's now seven degrees. Woo hoo!

Anyone who works out in this type of weather knows that if you gear up right, you're fine. Really, it's true! Yesterday when I went for a quick run, I bore the usual litany of admonitions from my mom. "Oh my god, honey, you can't run in this. I just can't believe you do this. You are going to freeze out there. It's just way too cold for you to be out there." And it went on until I was out the door... not to take away from the good feeling you get when someone loves and cares about you! :) (One of my first blogs was on falling and hitting my head *hard*. http://comojanine.blogspot.com/2008/12/ice-ice-baby.html So with snow and ice, caution is needed!)

Anyway, what really prompted me to write this is that Amos is now running with me most of the time. He's up to four miles! So yesterday, as I was getting all my gear on, he took the cue and started to get excited. It was 14 degrees when we struck out. Usually, when it's this cold, I put sandwich baggies on my feet, over my wool socks. Then I wear my usual running shoes. (Baggies hold the sweat in, which isn't good, but the trade off of warm toes is worth it.) Yesterday I opted not to do that, thinking I'll know a little better how Amos' feet feel. Within three minutes, I warmed up, and was very comfortable. Within 10 minutes, however, I couldn't feel my toes. I worried about Amos, and wondered, "How cold is too cold to take your dog running?"

I cut the run short, thinking tomorrow we'll go longer. Now here it is, seven flipping degrees! I hate to run without Amos; he goes beserk by the end of the day if we don't go out, especially if Raymond isn't around to play with him (which is pretty much a constant when Ray is home). A border collie at heart, he loves to run. If anyone reading this knows about running with dogs in cold weather, or has information, comment or slip me a quick email. Google didn't turn up much, just a runner in Florida who thought as long as it wasn't below freezing, it would be OK. Hahahahaha...


Are you ready, YET???