Saturday, June 23, 2012

Pooch to 5K

My sisters are amazing.  I have always been the "athletic" one of us girls, which by that I mean I'm the only one who did a sport that wasn't music-related.  Both of them have never really enjoyed exercise, especially Amy.  Ashley would at least do crunches and stuff, but Amy hated running and the sort.

Amy just finished her first 5K!!   And Ashley is training for her first 5K run as well!  Both of them have 2 kids also, which makes the fact that they even started training in the first place even more amazing.  They both asked for my input on training plans, which I shared with them.  One was called the "Couch to 5K."  I wasn't trying to offend them, but it is a great starter program for any first timer. I am so proud of them for doing this.

I have been wanting to get back into training (not just random runs, but actual training for a while).  When I adopted Lyna, I was hoping for a running partner.  But with all her anxiety issues, the medicine we put her on made her less energetic and our walks became very short.  And I couldn't leave her alone in the house to go running on my own either.  Now I've decided that the medicine is not working like I had hoped, so she's been off it for a while and her energy is returning.  That fact combined with my inspiring sisters turned runners have led me to decide that Lyna & I WILL be training partners.  We are going to do the "Pooch to 5K" training program.  In 12 weeks, Lyna will be able to run a 5K.

Since I have been running since I was 12(wow!), running comes back to me pretty naturally to me even if I haven't ran in a while.  However, Lyna spent the first 3 years of her life in a cage birthing puppies.  We did a test run just to see how she would handle it a couple days ago, and we only ended up jog-walking 1 mile.  I figured she would make me feel out of shape, but honestly...she's kinda slow, haha.  I'm hoping that dogs get faster just like humans, but we'll see.

This is what I picture Lyna's reflection of our run today (60 second run-90 second walk:  8 times for a total of 20 minutes) sounding like:
"I was so excited to wear my pink harness.  It started off just like a normal walk, sniffing the ground, marking my territory, training my human, getting scared by those cats (no wonder they call them scaredy cats!).  Then out of the blue, she started going fast.  Here I had been trying to drag her around for months but she taught me otherwise, and now she finally wants to listen to me and get going.  But then she kept going fast.  Finally she walked, but she wanted to do it again and again and again.  She kept telling me how we were going to do a 5K.  I hope K is for cookie, because I don't think I can do 5 of anything.  By the end, I was pooped.  I found my favorite patch of grass close to home and lay down for a nap.  She carried me to the sidewalk and made me walk the rest of the way home.  When we got inside, I wouldn't leave the doorway until she gave me a cookie.  Then I went back to my nap that got interrupted.  It was ruff ruff ruff."

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