Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Running Partners

I have been trying to get back out and do a few miles again. I have two running partners; one of whom is showing great promise. The big black dog is Kuma, our 2 year old rottweiller/ lab mix. Kuma is a big girl, weighing ~105 lb (pre-holidays).

The picture of the two of them is about two months old and the puppy has changed substantially. The little guy is named Jackson. He is now between 5 and 6 months old. Last week, he weighed 45 lb. My wife had been looking for a "lap" dog and picked Jackson up at the pound. He was a cute, tiny puppy. They told her he was a shepherd/lab mix. As his coat has filled in, we have been guessing shepherd/golden retriever mix. The vet said, "Yeah, maybe 1/3 shepherd, 1/3 golden, and 1/3 great dane - look at those feet and legs". The vet estimated 90-100 lb. when fully grown. Some lap dog.

In any case, I have been taking the dogs out for short runs. We did 5 miles both yesterday and today. Kuma pulls a bit to start with and then settles in to a heavy gallop. She is not light on her feet. Jackson just glided along. I never heard him breathe or pant and he was ready for more at the end. As he is pretty young yet, I don't want to do too many miles with Jackson, but he seems much better suited for long runs than Kuma. The problem will be she is a very jealous girl.
So, I am trying to get in some running over the holiday. With any luck, I won't have to walk the majority of the single loop I will be doing at the Western Washington Fat Ass run.

Monday, December 04, 2006

Long time no post

It has been a very long time since I updated this blog. I have been running very little, biking very little; just drifting a bit in my physical activities. I struggled through a slow White River 50 run at the end of July. My August log has 34 miles of running and 223 miles of biking - with 150 of that in the Hot August Days ride. September had 61 miles total of running and 44 biking with the biking being done in a spinning class. For the month of October, I had a total of 46 miles of running, including the Baker Lake 50k. Four spinning classes yielded a total of 45 miles of biking. November saw similar totals with 57 miles of running and 42 miles of spinning.

Needless to say, my fitness and endurance levels are very low. I am signed up for Chuckanut in March and will need to start increasing the miles if I hope to run respectably there. On the plus side, I did get to run some with my daughter and a friend at the Seattle half marathon. Kelsey is also looking forward to running one loop at the Western Washington Fat Ass run on January 6th. This will be her first experience with a longer trail run and I am looking forward to it as much as she is. Hopefully, I can pick up my running enough to consider myself a runner once again. - KRK