6-miler

by Maria Torres


Week 1 of training is completed! By the way, Stacy is a week ahead of me in the training schedule because there's a weekend in August she'll be in California & won't be able to do her long run. I'll let her post on completing her 7 miles this week, but I just wanted to say Congrats!!

I ended up doing the 6.5 mile run on Friday instead of Saturday, mostly because I was delirious from staying up all night on Thursday. David and I went to the midnight showing of The Dark Knight & didn't get back to Telluride until about 5 a.m. I decided to go ahead and run on Friday b/c everyone knows that lack of sleep makes for a great run ;) It actually went really well, all things considered...until I got home and got stung by a wasp! I never even saw the little sucker, but it was definitely a wasp b/c today we found the nest less than a foot away from where I was stung. One even got Bodhi's leg last week! I've had a big knot on my shoulder for three days now. I wasn't aware that wasps would still sting you even if you're doing absolutely nothing to agitate them. The nerve! I'll have to keep this in mind until the exterminator gets rid of the nest on Wednesday...too bad it's located right next to the only entrance/exit to my condo.

A dog-walking device called the "Gentle Leader" has made running with Sooie SO much better these past few runs. Sooie is an extremely strong dog - she's all muscle. My arms are sore after every walk with her, and if she wants to go somewhere, it's impossible for me to stop her. I've been dragged behind her and have fallen down more times than once while walking her. So, when I was at a pet store several weeks ago, I finally caved in and picked up a choke collar for Sooie. I bought the Gentle Leader too, hoping that once Sooie quit pulling so much, I wouldn't need the choke collar. I had been told that some dogs will pull regardless of the choke collar tightening around their necks, and I was sad to find out Sooie was one of those dogs. I took her out just a few times with the choke collar and it REALLY bothered me to feel how tight it was around her neck and to hear her breathing...yet she still pulled just as hard. I decided to try the Gentle Leader, which is kind of like the harness you put on a horse. It doesn't hurt them at all, which is the biggest plus for me. It pulls the dog's head to the side if it's trying to run off to the side, and it pulls the head down if it runs in front of you. It seems like Sooie has caught on pretty quickly and now runs so close to me that sometimes I almost trip on her! She has also quit trying to dart off chasing chipmunks, which has really improved the quality of our runs :)

Above is a picture of the marathon notebook I made & a few of me after the 6 mile run.