Things accomplished today...had a little "episode" at work, sewed on lots of cub scout patches on little and big shirts, went to the grocery store, cooked dinner, helped with homework, and did day 1 week 2.  Yeah!  I'm going to bed now. 

May tomorrow be an "episode" free day.  :)

Oh yes...according to my significant other, I buy too many treats for the dogs. 

grumpy outing

Poor Haddie.  I decided to take her along this morning because she seems to want to go...and yes, that made dog #5.  Unfortunately we were plagued by technical difficulties and she had to endure my grumpiness.  The waterproof cover for my phone that was to make my runs easy and carefree didn't come close to accomplishing this.  There's a short that made only one earphone work and the one that didn't work was the one that gave me the audible cues to run/walk/run/walk....

I ended up with the 60.00 waterproof cover crammed in my hydration belt/handsfree dog walking device while I held my phone by the edges the entire time.  I passed 6 people, all suitably impressed by my sled team.  Or amazed at my stupidity.  Who knows?

We all survived and Haddie gets to go again tomorrow.  She was better than Tips the poodle.  Right now leashing up a cat would probably be better than Tips the poodle...but...at least....one more day down.

Nice folk at H20 audio are shipping a new amphibx out (GREAT customer service) and I'm heading out again tomorrow morning. 

Shins of fire

You don't think a lot about your shins...or at least I don't.  UNTIL NOW.  Holy cow the pain!  I started over because not only did I stop blogging, I stopped running.  I am now, quite humbly, starting over and just finished Week 1 Day 2.  It's fun.  The dog's think it's fun.  And tomorrow, on my off day, I'm walking with the zombies because I should take a break from running.  I might turn off the zombie chase feature...because I might be too much of a weenie to walk around at 5:00 am listening to hordes of zombies chasing me over my phone.  Then again, I just might post my personal best time of walking....who knows?   Took some meds and off to bed.  I'm pooped and so are dogs.  Walk/running + full day at school + agility class = stinky body sore shins tired.  One could even say....yeah I'm going there...dog tired.

Newest addition to the gear...yup...waterproof holder for phone and water proof ear buds.  HAHA!  I laugh in the face of errant sprinklers.  HAHA!  I laugh in the face at threatening clouds.  Neither rain, nor snow (right....Florida, duh!) nor gloom of night.......

treadmill of doom....

I am a slow learner, evidently.  I believe last week I posted how much I hate treadmills and how I had come to realize that I must run in the morning.  Then the weekend happened and I guess I forgot.  Sooo......the alarm was just too early this morning and the bed too comfy and I slept....zzzzzzzzz....and had to do week 3 day 2 on the treadmill.  Blech blech blech....hate the treadmill.  It's sad for me to be huffing and puffing with the dogs passed out on the floor around the treadmill.  It makes me feel bad, too.  Oh well.  Maybe this time the lesson will stick?

Tomorrow is agility and that should be fun.  Due to migraines and vertigo I haven't been in the last two weeks and we miss it.  I should be nice and sore but it's already getting a bit easier to run at class.  At least that's what I keep telling myself.

Tips is driving us all insane because he is sad to be in the crate.  This Friday we'll turn the boy loose and let him bounce around.  I'm glad the neuter is over and done.

This is a boring blog.  :)  When does excitement occur??

And the four became three...

So Tips got neutered last Friday.  He's on crate arrest for the next two weeks with a HUGE incision on his belly.  How to put this delicately....only "one" was down, so they had to go hunt and found the other "one" up in his abdomen.  He's hanging out in the Great Dane sized wire agility crate and is NOT happy.  It was just the borders and me this morning, and yeah, it was much easier.  Tips just doesn't have the routine down yet.

I'm repeating week 3 of my program because last week was simply odd.  Between sick kids and my vertigo (so much fun!) it was hard to find my rhythm.  This morning went well, though, and 3.5 miles went by quickly.  Something interesting...on mornings when we go out, Possum and Kelda are very cranked when we get home and spend 15-20 minutes running and playing chase through the house.  They only do this on walk/run mornings and NEVER at any other time during the week.  Dan is sacked out by my feet.

I think Kelda could do a marathon.

Post egg blech....

5:15 came at, well, 5:15.  Not too bad and I bounded out of bed ready to hit the road. Actually I woke up and managed to hit snooze on the alarm and had to wait a few minutes before I realized who I was and where I lived and why the theme to Dexter had been playing.  Some people might think that starting your day with the theme song for a sociopath is odd...I find it just the spark I need.

This morning's outing went well...got passed by about 5 cars and a group of 3 runners.  As we passed I heard one say "even the dogs have lights."  Yup...even the dogs have lights cause safety first.  Just doing my best to stay out of the news.  The collars worked quite well and it was nice to be able to see everyone out in front of me.  Except that Tips wasn't always out in front of me...he was beside me, behind me, in front, behind, to the side, behind....  Eventually he settled down and went out front and stayed there...for the most part.

Didn't see the fox this morning but did hear an owl...and dodged some sprinklers.  We water a lot of roads and sidewalks in Florida.  

Possum found a tennis ball coming in this morning and has achieved post walk/run nirvana.  And Tips spent the last 10 minutes racing through the house like a crazy dog.  Nice.

Slacker slacker slacker cadbury egg

Poor dogs....with all of the Easter hullabaloo....I like that word....I couldn't get out with them to do Week 2 Run 2.  I did it on the treadmill and realized that a) I HATE treadmills and b) I must run in the morning.  I love running in the morning.  I hate getting up at 5:00, but once I'm up, it's great.  Now the dogs are sad and look at me with that "you are a slacker and didn't take us out look."  I will make it up to them tonight and take them on a zombie expedition.

Here are dogs with their sad expressions....made even more obvious by my fish eye shots...

Gear for running with dogs....

They arrived!  Since I'm out so early I decided that I needed to consider some safety issues.  These are Nite Ize light up collars and are so neat!  I'm looking forward to trying them out on the zombie walk tomorrow morning.  I did a lot of research and I'm hoping these will do the trick.  The replacement batteries are pretty reasonable as well.

I got this, too!

It's a Camelbak!  A 52 oz.  Camelbak which, according to label, is good for those 2+ hour runs.  It is also good for those 50 minute+ rambles on early Florida mornings when the humidity is already pretty high and you're companions are 4 dogs.  I tried googling "hydration belt for running with dogs"...but alas...nothing came up.  Nothing x-rated came up, either, so I suppose that's a plus.  I already had a belt that holds one 24 oz. bottle and discovered last summer that it isn't enough water for the dogs...let alone if I wanted a bit of hydration for myself.   Again, much searching of the net revealed the above had pretty good reviews.  And, because I am not in any way approaching 2+ hour runs where I would require the consumption of gels, I can use the gel bottle holders for....wait for it....poop bags!  Wow!  I might have to go on Amazon and point this out to other dog walking/running aficionados.  I might even be able to wedge my portable water bowl in the other gel bottle holder....canine hydration belt nirvana!

On yet another note...speaking of gear....did you know that if you search hands free leashes you come up with some that work for 2 dogs? Some companies get a bit carried away and say you can take up the 3 dogs!  Oddly enough I couldn't find one specifically for walking a pack.  I found a promising candidate, the cardio canine, but just before I clicked buy I realized that it's lacking in hydration!  Oh no!  So I'm back to my old standby.  I put the leash handles through a hydration belt and away we go.  They don't pull so it works.  Now for harnesses -my pack is sporting the incredible haqihanna harnesses.  They're handmade...in Italy.  My dogs are the only family members that use anything handmade in Italy. Thanks to Sandra for loaning me these. 

Only 8.5 hours until we head out with the new collars!

And yes...Week 2 Run 2 completed.

Brains!!!!!!

Running with dogs is now walking (and a wee bit of running) with Zombies!  I downloaded the Zombies, Run! app last week and finally got to take it out for a test walk tonight with los perros.  I didn't go off of my street because there is too much traffic on part of our normal route, so went up and down and up and down for almost two miles, while I figured out how the app works.  Basically you become Runner 5 (replacing the old Runner 5 who was killed by zombies and is now wandering around with her headphones still on...nice touch) and go off on missions.  Periodically you come across a zombie horde and must speed up to avoid them.  On your missions you pick up various items like insulin, bandages, etc., and if the zombies get too close you automatically drop them to escape.  Yeah...I lost, hmmm...2 first aide boxes, some insulin, and a pair of trousers.  I lost my trousers...sigh.

I was just going to walk this because technically this is a rest day and I go out for day 2 of week 2 tomorrow.  I admit...with zombies groaning in the background I ran a bit, but evidently not fast enough to keep from losing my trousers.  After the mission you go back and distribute your stuff to various parts of the base and watch it grow.  Wonder how much it would have grown if I hadn't lost those trousers??

The dogs were good but were a bit bored with the whole staying on one street thing.  It's also still 77 degrees outside so a touch warm.  I think we'll stick to getting up early in the morning.  It did give me a chance to work on Tips the wonder poodle learning his "place."  The border collies have a line up...Dan far left, then Kelda, then Possum, and Tips should be far right, outside of Possum.  He's getting it, but manages to get tangled up from time to time.  A few more runs and he'll be ok.

It took about a week or two to get the border collies lined up and it makes things so much easier.  I don't know if it's because borders pattern pretty easily and like routine, but they seem to be unable to head out unless they're in proper alignment.

Zombies....RUN!!!!!  And don't drop your trousers!!!!!!!!

Zombie Possum.....

A New Start

I own lots of dogs and I'm not sure how that happened.  Yes, I realize that they didn't magically appear and that I was personally responsible for bringing each and every dog into my house.  It's just that I didn't set out to own this many dogs.  I think 1-3 dogs and you're a regular person with some dogs.  More than 3 is a whole new level of dogdom.  You are a dog person.  My husband, son and daughter remind me of this everyday.  They also remind me that these are MY dogs.

Last year I ended 43 years of relative sloth by starting AND completing the Couch Potato to 5K program.  I started AND completed it with 3 of my dogs, my border collies.  My decision to run with dogs was simple.  Number 1, the dogs needed exercise.  Number 2, I was willing to run only in the dark so no one could see me...and I needed body guards.  It was fun!  It took some time but Dan, Kelda and Possum learned the routine and we were a team.  Then I got pneumonia.  Then I broke my toe.  Then I started experiencing early heart beats and it took about 6 weeks to hear my doctor say "you're fine...keep on doing what you're doing."  By that time it had been a few months since we'd hit the pavement and things just got in the way.  More time passed.

Until.....I bought a new app and listened to my old play list and realized it's now or never.  This morning we completed Week 2 Run 1 of the Couch Potato to 10K program.  I started this blog so I'd have a place to write about our adventures.  Trust me...strap 3 border collies (and Tips, the new toy poodle) to your waist, head out at 5:30 a.m. to brave humidity, a fox, owls and other people out for morning exercise, and you can pretty much guarantee adventures.

The name Dogrunner Chronicles is a bit misleading because at present I'm a Dogwalker/runner with a bunch of weight to lose.  I will become a Dogrunner once again.  Because hey, running is fun.  Running with a side order of dogs is awesome!

Random closing thought....when I run my first though is to blend in and be inconspicuous.  Hmmm....really....how inconspicuous can one truly be with 3 border collies and toy poodle?  Am I insane?

And we're off!