running with dogs

Total Distance So Far: 10.8 mi

This morning I ran in the OR Humane Society's 20th annual Doggy Dash which went in a little circle route along Portland's Waterfront Park. It was supposed to be a 2 mile run/walk, but my Garmin told me it was more like 1.61 mi, which makes sense to me as I was able to run it in 15:37 minutes, and I am NOT capable of running a 7:45 minute mile for 2 miles right now. I'm just not.

My Garmin told me I did the 1.61 miles at an average pace of 9:41 minute miles. Not bad for me actually! I committed the sin of getting excited and starting off at the start line too fast... and spent the rest of the run trying to get my heart rate and breathing down to a comfortable, maintainable level. It's hard to contain my excitement when stepping off with a horde of other people (and dogs).

I also decided to try running with my new Novara Breeze hydration pack for the first time. I was pretty sure I wasn't going to NEED the water for a "2 mile" run (the bladder holds 1.5L), but I was pretty sure I'd need to bring water for runs later this summer when we're out running for an hour or more, and I wanted to see how the hydration pack felt to run with (plus I wanted to carry my wallet, cell phone, and camera with me this morning, and my hydration pack has a small pocket JUST big enough for those items). At first I didn't have the straps tight enough, and the flopping of the pack with the swishing of the water was really hard to run with, and I was distracted with holding the pack in place. After the initial excitement of running with loads of other people went away, I tightened up the straps and that at least eliminated the flopping to a point that I could ignore the inertia of the swishing water. The pack has this cool drinking tube that connects to your shoulder strap with a magnet. To drink, you put the end of the tube in your mouth and bite on it. It's pretty innovative.

Anyway, after the run, I got out my camera to take pictures of the event and the dogs. The runners were let loose about 15 minutes before the walkers were allowed to start so I was done by the time the walkers were going. I thought I'd share a bunch of the pictures here. Sorry this is a little off subject, but I can't resist. I love dogs.

This is a picture of the walkers approaching en masse along the esplanade.


If you look closely here, you can see there are like a dozen corgies in this group!


Here are some finish line pics...


Notice this husky owner has to wear gardening gloves to handle the leash of her pulling dog without getting blisters. Some dogs are like that...


Some dogs were wearing interesting outfits...




I think this was the youngest dog at the event... an 8 week old beagle! Too cute.


Some dogs didn't even walk the event!!


Lots of beautiful dogs there tho! All sizes too. This owner had a dog at both ends of the size spectrum.


Some more doggy pics...








A good morning all in all!