Running With Dogs

It’s been a nice weekend. I went to work yesterday morning and didn’t have any dramas. Aslan, the clinic cat, took a dislike to my forearm and clawed me - temperamental big Persian, he does it to everyone. He was half dead when he was brought in, spent 3 weeks in hospital, and that’s how he thanks us.

We had afternoon tea with Robyn and Sean to plan food for the Kokoda Challenge, which is now only 3 weeks away. Sounds good - lots of snacks and treats with sugar and caffeine

I spent this morning listing stuff on ebay because they had no listing fees. I don’t like their way of doing business, but there’s no doubt that they have most traffic of any other auction site. So, I thought I’d take advantage of them.

I was saddened to read in the Sunday Mail today about the death of a young vet nurse I worked with about 3 years ago. Dani was a gorgeous bright bubbly girl, with a great attitude. She loved her horses, but on Saturday morning her thoroughbred kicked her in the chest and killed her. She wasn’t yet 21. She was taken too young .

I went for a run this afternoon with Guinness, and met Robyn for part of it. Her knee is still sore so she headed home early. Guinness and I kept going, I wanted to do at least 16k with him again, to consolidate last week’s effort. He’s doing really well. He broke a record today - his first poo was only 78m into our run. Anyway, I must have been daydreaming because at one stage I turned right instead of left, and got a bit lost. By the time we got home, it was dark, and we’d done 22km. No idea how long it took, I think about 2 1/2 hours, but the big dog was still cruisy. I’m pretty pleased with him, he’s still only 15 months old. He can have some extra dinner tonight. I won’t get lost again, and will keep him at or under that distance for the next few months.

For some reason my hands are cramping tonight. Legs are fine, but the hands hurt. Off to find something salty to eat, then bed for another sleep in!

I didn’t go to running club last night, I got home quite late from the seminar (which, incidentally, was very good indeed) and the dogs had been crated for a few hours. I didn’t want to crate them again to go to club, then come home, have dinner and put them back in when we went to bed. So, I skipped it. Hubby said he’d stay home too and have some family time, but as the kidlets had me tearing my hair out for the better part of the day, I suggested he take them to club and have some family time with them there, and I could have a glass of red and enjoy the silence.

I set my alarm for 6am this morning with every intention of taking Guinness out for our 10k loop, we’ve had some gorgeous clear blue skied days lately and I thought it would be really pleasant for a run. But, when push came to shove, I turned the alarm off and went back to sleep. I’ve had a few things on my mind of late, which have been a bit stressful and i haven’t been sleeping well. You know, the waking at 3am with the mind ticking over and being unable to get back to sleep. Things are settling down well though, and for the first time in ages, I slept deeply, so thought I’d make the most of it. I feel really good today, totally refreshed and recharged, so I think it was the right thing to do. I should be able to fit in a run on the weekend sometime, and will probably do a bit more than my 10k.

Off to get ready for gymnastics, and to photograph today’s breakfast especially for Andrew

There was a thread on a forum I read about photographing different instances during your day, and putting it in a forum post. Things such as breakfast, where you run, your work space… sounds like a nice idea, but I’m not sure my day would be at all interesting. Except maybe to Hubby, who I’m sure wonders what I do with myself all day . I may try it.

Guinness and I did our 10k loop yesterday morning, before the kidlets were up. It was chilly so Hubby lent me his long sleeved running shirt. That helped a little. It was funny - on Tuesday when I was out with the kidlets, Guinness did a poo and I bagged it and picked it up. I usually carry them in the front part of my bumbag (after the disaster I had while holding it in my hand with Ecky Thump), but when I got home, it wasn’t there. Bizarre. Anyway, when I went out yesterday, it was lying on the grass in it’s dew covered bag. I must’ve missed my bumbag. I picked it up anyway. We did 1 hour and a few seconds which included a multitude of pee stops and three poo stops.

I remember reading in an old running magazine at the podiatrists about a Border Collie who trained with his owner for a marathon, and the dog easily did the 42k. I don’t doubt Guinness could build up to that, but that would mean I’d have to do it too, so I’m less convinced that it’s a good idea.

Today I’m off to a seminar by an American vet, who is advocating changing the dog vaccination protocol; she believes that dogs don’t need to be vaccinated yearly and in fact it’s detrimental to them. It should be interesting but I do believe if the annual vaccination goes out the window, it’ll have far reaching effects on veterinary services. If practice income drops because there are fewer vaccinations yet overheads remain the same, guess what will happen to the cost of desexing, or the price of treating a dog’s cough? Methinks pet insurance might be a good idea.

Running club tonight - it’s apparently a mile predictor where you don’t wear a watch, and you try and predict your time to run a mile, and whoever is closest to their predicted time, wins. I guess a prerequisite would be to know how far a mile is. Google is your friend.

Off to photograph my breakfast

I “negotiated” with the kidlets to come out on their bikes while I had a run this morning. I figure that a little later in the morning is warmer, and my negotiation was along the lines of, “you come for a 10k with me and I’ll let you play on my computer”. Worked a treat, we were going to do my 12k loop but I thought it might be a bit much, they haven’t been out on their bikes with me for a little while. Mean mother, making the kids ride for 10k!! As it turns out, we barely did anything, Master 6 (yep, he turned 6 last Thursday) was upset because he was slowest, and his bike was heavy, yada yada yada. So we came home, and I was a bit disappointed. I really thought that dangling miniclip games in front of their noses would have worked. At least Guinness got to stretch his legs a bit.

We had a really good day today. For some unknown reason, the kidlets aren’t baulking about doing their schoolwork at all at the moment and we get a ton of stuff finished. At this rate, they can have the school holidays off . I’d love to know what the reason is, so I can keep it going.

I’ll be taking Guinness out tomorrow morning for a 10k loop. Don’t have to “fight” with Hubby for the mornings because he’s still a bit sore from Mt Mee. 50k will do that to ya, ya know?

We’ve found out that the Ekka holiday in our area is a Monday, so we’re going to have a weekend away. Looks like we’ve got a house for the weekend at Coolum, near a dog beach and near a lovely foreshore boardwalk - can you say “nice spot for a run” I’m so looking forward to it!!

I’ve never done cold well. Everyone says, “You were born in Scotland, you should be used to it”. I’ve become very well acclimatised over the last 32 years, and I now freeze my buns off just like everyone else. I woke at am with my mind ticking over, and I thought about getting up and going for a run when it got to 6.30am, but snuggled under the blankets instead. I will, however, get the kidlets out on their bikes tomorrow to come out with me.

Speaking of cold, just reading Andrew’s blog post on the Melbourne Half Marathon, and if I read it correctly, someone started running it naked, until the police caught up with them. Can’t get my head around that one, not so much the nudity, I mean, whatever floats your boat, but running around Melbourne naked in winter!

When we watch television at night, we usually have a couple of dogs snuggle up to keep warm. Sinner tends to be a bit aloof, but the other three are quite snuggly. They do, however, take up a fair bit of space and we often need to push and shove them out of the way to fit ourselves in. I had to take a photo of them the other night - this is only partially a set up. Guiness was cuddling Sherbet, so we quickly sneaked Tiger into Sherbet’s arms and took the shot. Too cute!

Nah, just kidding. I got home from a quiet day at work yesterday (my last appointment was to euthanase a kelpie ) and Hubby took the kidlets and their three dogs for a walk, while I took the big black boy for a run.  It was the first time in ages I didn’t have any time constraints, apart from the fact that the in-laws were coming for dinner. I figured I could have a decent step out and still get back before they arrived.

We did 16km in about an hour and a half, and he wasn’t even panting. I might get him out for a half marathon in the next few weeks. I found a couple of nice looking bike paths that might be fun for the kidlets, and explored the new route I’d worked out on gmaps-pedometer. Guinness is so thin at the moment, his pelvic bones are sticking out. A couple of months ago at work I had to examine a boxer that had been referred after a complaint to the RSPCA. They thought the dog was too thin and forced the owner to get it checked out by a vet. I was taken aback - this dog was fatter than Guinness. I’m just waiting for someone to report me for starving my dog. On the way back we were attacked by a loose dog, it never got close enough for me to dong it with ecky thump and was proving a real nuisance. A nice gentleman stopped his car and yelled at it while I hot tailed it out of there.

More in laws for dinner tonight, and I might take the kidlets to the Animal Wellness Expo this morning while Hubby is at Mt Mee. It’s a glorious day and Samford is very pretty.

Is anyone else seeing my Lake Manchester post badly formatted? When I look at it, there’s text on the photo, and I’ve “fixed” it three times and it’s still there!!

The kidlets grabbed their bikes yesterday afternoon and we took Guinness out for a 7 1/2 k run around our estate. It was a bit late to go much further, darkness was coming and also, with peak hour traffic, I didn’t want to head near the freeway. Guinness is becoming very well behaved when we run, and I’m feeling pretty relaxed with him, I don’t need to be constantly alert in case he bumps me or I fall over him. I’m quite pleasantly surprised at the lack of pain after Sunday’s long run, my hammys felt a bit tight after last night’s run but that’s about all.

I hate it when a song gets stuck in your head, and just plays over and over. That’s what’s been happening with a tune the kidlets found on youtube.

I must admit it’s kind of fun when we’re out walking the four dogs and we all take a part and sing along. I always choose Dumbledore’s part because I don’t have to remember too much.

I have so many little niggly jobs I need to do, I want to make a list so I don’t forget them. It’s annoying how such small chores can take up so much time.

I haven’t been blogging much of late, life has been pretty uninteresting. For example, today I tidied up the kidlets’ rooms and also the front study, did the washing up and did some laundry. Now who wants to hear about that? Even better, who wants to help with that?

However, there has been some nice stuff. Last Saturday night the kidlets had a sleepover at Grandmas, and Hubby and I got up really early on Sunday to head over to Lake Manchester for the trail runs. It was a really cold morning at the start, much colder than here closer to the coast. There was a 4k, 8k, 21k and 33.3k option. Given that I was so particular about the 0.3k, guess which one we decided to tackle? Yeah, the long one.

The run had some narrow trials but was mostly along forestry gravel roads, and there were some darned big hills. There were 10 creek crossings along the route, and we managed to cross all but one unscathed. There was just no way to cross that one other than walk through, and the water was icy! It was so pretty!

The view from the top was lovely.

If you can see the left hand

side of Lake Manchester, that’s where we started. It was a long way back to the start!

Checkpoints had drinks, jelly babies, jelly beans, fruit and cake, which were very much appreciated. As were the friendly smiles of the folk manning the checkpoint

Here I am looking like I know what I’m doing!

It took us 5 hours and 15 minutes to do the 33.3km. We walked the uphills, and ran the flats and downhills I actually felt quite cruisy up until the last 2km or so. Then I started to walk some of the flats too . I pulled up really comfortably yesterday, and I was expecting to feel sorer today, but nothing - calves are fine, quads are fine, shins are fine. I think we’ll end up with one more long run before the Kokoda Challenge, and I’m thinking I’ll manage the 94k or 96k in July, can’t remember which. What’s 2k between friends? LOL. What’s really neat is that the Lake Manchester trails appear to be open to dogs on a lead. We’ll check it out and might take the gruesome twosome out there for a run sometime.

We spent the rest of the day walking the dogs, watching Gladiators, having an early dinner and a very early bed. I was planning on taking the Kidlets to the Spectrum Fun Run next weekend while Hubby goes to Mt Mee for the 50k run, but after a run like that one, I just can’t see running for 2k around an industrial estate as being worth the bother. I think I’m spoilt!!

It’s been a while, but Guinness got out for a run today. I set the alarm for 6am and got up eventually at around 6.20. I eventually left home around 7am, after having a quick bite to eat. I can’t go for a run without something to eat, the hunger pains make me miserable.

It was a bit cool when I went out but it wasn’t long before the sun started warming things up. It looked like it was going to be a really nice day. A bit hard to get started; it’s a long time since I went for a run in the morning. There was a stretch of footpath along by the aquatic centre road which had some long dry stalks of grass along the edge.  Spiders had spun their webs between the stems of the grass, and with the dew on them, they looked like gossamer goblets. So pretty. Further along my usual route there was a cyclone fence that had fallen down a bit, and the same spiders had created gorgeous gossamer hanging baskets. Nature is so clever. I ended up doing my 10k loop in 1.00 and some seconds, including 3 pee stops, 2 poo stops and 2 short detours to put poo bags in a bin. No leg pain.

I took the children to Moora Park on the foreshore for the afternoon, with one of the home ed groups. Great park, nice day, good company. Lisa, who has not long recovered from having a melanoma removed from her leg, is now running 7km three times a week. She’s aiming to do the Bridge to Brisbane run, and do the 10km over the bridge. I’m in two minds. I’d enjoy running over the bridge - the view would be fantastic - but the logistics (the mass of humanity, leaving my car on the southside, running to the northside then waiting several hours for a bus back to the car) just doesn’t appeal. I don’t have to decide right now, I’ll give it some thought. We were at the park talking about where to find a good hill for some hill repeats, and we noticed an old driveway from the top of the road down to the park. Probably 150m long, and moderately steep. So, we’re going to try and catch up at least once a fortnight and take turns - one will do some hill runs while the other keeps an eye on the children as they play, and then we swap. Roseanne will be in on that too, I’m sure.

It’s hard to fit two adults, two children, a kelpie, a cattle dog and two whippets on the couch to watch Spicks and Specks. I think we need a bigger couch.

Yay the Maroons!

I still haven’t been doing a whole lot of running. Still quite demotivated, I just sleep in and hang out with the kids and walk the dogs a bit. I went to running club on Thursday night, and did a few laps with Glen, and a few laps with Anja, still a bit paranoid about doing anything too fast, I’ve still got no leg pain.

I really need a goal to get me up and out there. I may have found one. The Noosa half marathon is on 24th August, Noosa isn’t too far to go for a morning, and I know I can do the distance, so I’m going to go and put that on the calendar. August will be here before we know it. Better start running, eh?

We all went up to Gympie today for the Race The Rattler event.  A 3.30am rise to get underway by 5am was really difficult!!

The Mary Vallery Rattler is a historic steam train and every year, there’s a race between runners and the train. Runners can do the 18 or so km alone, or as part of a relay team of 4. Hubby and I were in a team with Anja and Roland. The logistics took a bit of juggling - Anja, Roland, the kidlets and I caught the steam train with all the other runners from Gympie Station to Dagan Station, where the race was to start, then we caught buses to our respective changeovers. Hubby drove the kidlets and the car to the changeover between runner 3 (moi) and Hubby (him) and waited with the children. It was cold and drizzly so I sat in the bus until Anja ran up with the timing chip, and off I went. Most of the run was on bitumen country roads with a little on gravel, but it was quite undulating. Very pretty, with cattle and alpacas, and magpies singing. My third leg had a stinkin’ big hill at the end so I was glad to finish my leg. Hubby took off and the kidlets and I tried to get back to the finish line at the station to cheer him, but the road closures and detours meant we missed him.

It was such a nice event, extremely well organised in a very pretty place.  This year a runner beat the train, which apparently isn’t a usual occurrence. It was easy to manage the kidlets today, I think it’s definitely a doer for next year. The kidlets are currently absolutely shattered, having been on the go for 16 hours straight, I think when they go to bed they’ll sleep until midday tomorrow!

We got the fright of our lives though - I was just waiting to get on the bus to the changeover, when a lady called on my mobile. She’d found our four dogs wandering around her front yard!! Nothing we could do about it from Gympie, it turns out she’s a friend of Laurelle’s (dogsitter) so she took them back to her. All’s well that ends well, and although it sounds awful, I’d rather know for a fact that my dog was dead than not know where he was, if he was suffering, how he was being treated. I don’t like even thinking about that.

We saw a jabiru when we were walking the dogs this afternoon, just down the road in the lake near home. He was stunning! I’ve never seen one in the wild before.