How far can your dog go ?

How do you know a dog has reached his limit on long runs? There isn’t a lot written on how far dogs can run. With the exception of the malamutes and Siberian Huskies doing the Iditarod the amount of published research on running with dogs is lacking. I am specifically referring to how far Golden Retrievers can run. I run about 25 to 30 miles a week currently with more than half of that mileage going into the long run. But that number is going to go up. The longest run Koda has ever been on is 16 miles. He was panting pretty hard at the end and was tired most of the day but he rebounded quite well for the next day. Much like me!

I’m quite leery about taking him further especially as the summer progresses. What limited literature I have found in running magazines say to given them frequent water breaks when the weather gets hot. The problem is he doesn’t drink. It’s not that I’m torturing him and not offering water I use to take one of those collapsible dog dishes and his own flask of water. I’d fill it up mid run and stand around and wait and wait and wait some more. Minutes would pass and he wouldn’t drink so I gave up.

If I stop now it is so he can swim. Koda loves the water. Depending on the depth he’ll either lie down frog-like or go for a swim. After a minute he’ll take about two sips (laps) or water and that is it. But I guess immersing himself in water brings down his core temperature because he is panting less when he gets out.

Even when I get home from a long run, he doesn’t head for the water dish until 5 or 10 minutes after we are back. I’m guessing he has to let his core cool down before he drinks. And when we get home he much prefers the cold tile floor to the cold outdoors every time.

He’s not complaining and he’s not faltering but I’m starting to feel guilty. It’s either he knows pace better then I do but he tops out at 7:55 minutes/mile with no exceptions on long runs. Whenever I feel like I’m dragging him m Garmin says I’m going faster than 7:55 so I slow down.

Off the leash he’s better. He’ll probably do 10% more mileage than me because he’ll run ahead and run back. And then run a tangent and run back. He is much happier that way.

So I’ll keep running with him on my long runs until one of us gives in. I think it might be me..

Supported?

Nowhere does it tell you how to get your family to support you. Running is your thing and your family knows it. Every Christmas, Birthday, and Fathers Day gift is centered around running. Your bookshelf is littered with running books. This is your passion. So getting support to do your first ultra should be automatic right? Guess again!

What do you do when you decide to do your first ultra and you ask your wife and she says 'No'. I mean this is it. You've planned it all out in your head and researched the web: how to schedule the training, the routes to train on, the build up, the taper. It is set in your mind. The story is written all you need to do is play it out.

'Honey I really want to run a longer race this fall.'

"How long?", she asks.

'Fifty miles'.

"How far is that in kilometres?" (We're metric here in Canada)

"About 75 !" (Yeah, it's actually 80 but 75 sounded less daunting)

"No way"

Crash! That was the sound of my dream going down in flames. She then went on to steam roll the big cinders of my ego into an ash heap. She rolled with, 'I've seen what you look like after a marathon' or 'what about your health'. 'I'm sure our insurance doesn't cover this? And if you die where does that leave me and the kids.' My wife should have been a risk assessment analyst.

I had no rebuttle. First I didn't expect a heart warming 'yeah, I'm behind you all the way'. (Remember, I'm the guy who gets up at 5 am on weekends if I want to run long.) Second, I have never looked into the mirror immediately following any of my marathons but I imagine I wasn't fresh looking but I'm sure even the fittest of runners don't look fresh after 26.2 miles, nor should they. And finally, no I don't know if insurance covers a self induced limit pushing endurance run but people do this. I want to do this.

At this point I wait. My wife's immediate reaction to any idea that is not her's is to reject first ask questions later. So far it has been three days since the fire, the scars still haven't healed. But since that time she has mentioned my dream to my mother on our last visit and on one other occasion. So it's not a dead issue. Like a Phoenix this dream will be resurrected from the ashes. I've got three months before the race.

Running and Life's lesson

Every run is like a life’s lesson. Some go by with little thought or consequences, while others have a more profound effect. Today’s run was more like the latter.

Everyday the routine seems the same. The alarm clock on my watch is set for 5:00 a.m., although my dog’s internal clock must be set for 4:59 because every morning at one minute to five, I get the signal that they need attention. I let the two of them out, feed them, and get my running gear together. I rinse out my water bottle three times and fill it to the brim. I then grab my Forerunner 101 changing out the re-chargeable batteries every second day whether they need it or not. I bring both dogs inside and take Ruth our Miniature Schnauzer upstairs to go back to sleep. She’s always more than compliant to nestle down and sleep some more. Back downstairs, I grab my Seattle Mariners baseball cap and my wrap around dog leash and head out with my faithful running companion Koda, our 2 ½ year old Golden Retriever. I walk to the end of the driveway and wait a couple of minutes for my GPS unit to grab a signal. Every run starts out the same; it’s something I take for granted.

The Forerunner 101 will die after 3 runs, Ruth will always go back to sleep and Koda will always be willing to run with me. It’s a given.

Very rarely do I run into people on my runs. I usually see the Fire Chief reading his morning paper on his front porch and on occasion I see this guy walking his dogs in the park as I make my way through. I always get a kick out of his dogs because one is an overweight Jack Russell terrier and the other an energetic retriever cross. His dogs are usually off leash but they’re friendly so no harm done. The gentleman is always very friendly with a wave and the token dog biscuit for Koda. Koda has got to the point where he recognizes him and looks for the cookie.

Today, as I ran down the trail I came to the narrow entrance of the school field where I met up with the rotund Jack Russell, alone.

'Where's your other dog?' I innocently asked, fully expecting the dog to come bounding out of the nearby woods.

'He died the other day,' the man replied painfully. In a cathartic purge he told me of his dog's brief struggle with cancer and his painful decision to put him down. I was floored, I don't even know this man but here we were sharing a very emotional moment on a pathway in the middle of my morning run.

His final words to me, snuck up on me like a snake bite. It stings at first and then courses through your veins unleashing its full effect. 'It's like losing a child you know', he said with an ominous tone.

All I could muster was a ‘Take care’ and a wave goodbye as I contemplated his words.

I wanted to stop and pause for a moment when I realized that’s not the message. The message is to savor the moment and appreciate what you have. Koda is going to run with me for many years to come. Enjoy his company now while he’s still young and vibrant and create the memories of the glorious runs together. So I ran with my dog and I’ll do it again tomorrow. Will I take him for granted? Not a chance.

Father's Day Run

Life is good . . . No . . Life is great! My son, Ethan has been begging me to go for a run. He wants to get "strong" like me. Father's Day seemed like an obvious choice for a father-son outing. If it weren't for the rain it would have been perfect.

My plan was to take him for as far as he wanted to then run back and then I'd go out afterward for my long run. So as usual I get my shorts and shoes on. I fill up my water bottle and go check on my son.

He's got on jeans, a cotton long sleeve and his winter coat. (I see great potential for passing down some running gear knowledge through the ages). Well without completely re-dressing him I put him in some nylon pants and we head for the door. His shoes have no laces and no tread. In fact, I though we threw these things out two pairs ago. Alas he's a chip off the old block.

Okay we're ready to go when from the back of the hallway we hear. "Wait for me! I'm coming too." Four year old Owen also has a winter coat and rubber frog boots on. Great! We're almost there.

Ready guys? Why's Koda crying? Okay,grab the leash. Almost good to go. What now? Ruth! Get back inside Miniature Schnauzers weren't meant to run. At least not today.

We're off. My four year old bails out at the half a block. Those boots weren't made for running. We run back drop him off and were off again. We round the corner and head down hill toward the park.

"How much farther to the park, Dad? " He says looking up at me. His hair matting down from the unrelenting drizzle and his glasses completely fogged up.

"We're almost there. Are you tired?"

"Let's walk okay?"

"Sure, you ready to turnaround?"

He made it a lot farther then I thought he would and didn't complain too much. It's probably my most memorable Father's Day to date. You know the whole episode lasted less then your average sitcom but I really enjoyed it probably because I got to share my passion (running) with another one of my passions (my boys). I think I'll ask him to go for another run soon. If he says no that okay too. Deep down inside I hope he'll grow to love running like I do (but he is only six). I've never pushed any of my kids to pursue my passions past or present I want them to discover their own. Maybe we'll do it again real soon but if we don't I've got the memory of Father's Day 2007.

Pole Fitness

I’m no expert I’m not even well informed but pole fitness is one of the latest crazes to catch on to the mainstream. I guess you could say it got its roots from seedy bars and exotic dancers but that where it launched from and it never looked back.

I take my hat off to the people who do it because it is really tough. I’ve tried it. If I were to compare it to other sports I’ve tried I would say it’s somewhere between rock climbing for its upper body and core strength and dance for its endurance and pure poetic moves.

My wife caught the bug over a year ago. I’ve bought a pole for her home studio and she gets on there about 3 or 4 times a week. She’ll work out for an hour or so practicing these freaky acrobatic moves that are gravity defying to say the very least. When put together it is poetry. It’s not really dance because it would almost being understating the ability of the pole fitness person. All pole people can dance but not all dancers can pole.

I’ve often thought about building up my core strength using my wife’s pole because I’ve seen the progress in her core. Then I actually get on for a move or two and then decide I’d rather go for a five miler in the trails. So I do. I’m extremely proud of you honey but for me the pole will have to wait another day!

The Morning After

How long do you take off after an all out effort? A week? Two? I took two days ran a four miler and then the next day ran another four. Then I felt tired the morning after the second run so I took the next day off.

For the next 4 days I was a basket case. I couldn’t get enough sleep. Although analyzing the situation I’m not sure if it was fatigue from running or the consecutive nights with a structure fire in the middle of the night.

Being an on-call firefighter has its merits but sleep is not on of them. We don’t get called out too often in the night but this past weekend was all too regular. One night was a kitchen fire around midnight and the next night was actually the next morning but still counts a couch fire. This on top of a few false alarms. And don’t even get me started on being mistakenly paged out.

It wouldn’t be so bad if I wasn’t in the midst of building a fence for my dogs in the back yard. Post holing and putting up fences I was using muscles I hadn’t in awhile. In fact the last two weekends I’ve been consumed by it. By Sunday I was so dead dog tired I actually took a nap in the middle of the day.

I was constantly doing something morning, noon and into the night literally.

I wish I could have monitored my recovery a bit better but I did notice that I was fairly dehydrated. I must have drunk 2 liters of water on Sunday before I had to pee some back out. That’s never a good sign.

Today is Tuesday, I ran for the first time since Thursday. It felt really good so I think I’m back on track. My wife and I agreed that we would try and keep this weekend open and no renovating. We’ll see!

Race Report

Race Report

It’s been over a week since my race. Pre-race jitters aside I made it to the start line unscathed. I hooked up with an old friend of mine who said he hadn’t been able to run in the last two weeks due to a knee flair up. I paced with him the first half mile so we could chat a bit. Then I wished him a good race and off I went.

The Spring Ahead Half Marathon is a two loop course with the first loop 1.1 km longer than the second. This way they can integrate a 10K race on the same course.

I settled in to a fairly decent 7:35 minute pace which I kept for the duration. The loop has an out and back blip near the middle of the loop where slower runners can watch the lead runners’ race past you in the opposite direction. I’m not sure if I should have been inspired by their speed or demoralized. I chose to be inspired.

Because I had run the first little bit with my injured friend most of the field was ahead of us from the start. This was a tactic I later came to appreciate as I picked off runners one by one. By about the 10 mile mark I had past as many runners as I could see. Without any motivating runners ahead I started to slow a bit until I heard the fast approaching 10K runners.

The 10K race had started about an hour after the half start. The speed demons came up fast on me. I didn’t want to let too many of them pass so I picked up my pace as much as I could. When the first two runners passed me I recognized the leader as an old running partner. I quickly gave him the inspirational ‘Way to go!’ and ‘Time to kick!’. It was after all about a mile from the finish. With that Mike took off like a bolt and out ran the guy aping him by about a minute. Wow!

My race now became ‘don’t let anymore 10K guys pass you’. This may sound good but doing the math I was averaging 7:30ish and they were closer to 6:45 or less. But I only had a mile to go. Runner 3 passed then number 4. Okay let’s get serious. Number 5 came up with a familiar ‘Hey!.

It was my friend Brent. The first thing he said to me was “I’ve got nothing left”. Yeah right. I tried keeping up with him because now it was less than half a mile left but my legs couldn’t go with him. I literally had nothing left in the tank.

I finished the half marathon in 1:40:09 which was beat my last year’s time by 5 minutes. My PR at this distance is 1:37 but that was from 1991, so does that still count? I think I did awesome and am pretty satisfied with my performance.

My next effort I still looking for I saw a race in Kelowna a 50K called Scorched Sole. How cool is that? Well here’s hoping to make it happen.