Had to get up at 4 again to log the miles before doing the seminary drive. If I can say anything about the army's schedule, it's this: unreliable. I would like to go into a ranting tirade right now, but I'll stop. I've got other things to rant about.
Tempo run. Warm up mile was a 10:10, then the goal was 5 miles at a 8:50 pace with a cool down mile. Instead, I ran the last 6 miles at a 8:25-8:39 pace. It felt like a great tempo pace. I tried to imagine myself keeping the pace for the Halloween 10K. I think I might be able to pull it off, as long as there aren't too many hills.
At mile 1, there was a big dog out in someone's front yard. He barked at me, and followed me along the yard, but never came out in the street at me. I took the safety off the pepper spray just in case. I changed my route a little to avoid going back there, because I didn't want to ask for trouble.
Then, at mile 5.5, a small Chiuhahua type dog came out in the road after me. I was running on the shoulder of the road across the street from his house. He was out in the road barking after me, and chasing me. His owner was out in the yard yelling at the dog, but the dog was not responding to his owner. So I sprayed the pepper spray in the direction of the dog. I could see the mist particles in my headlight floating over toward the dog as he was running after me. As soon as they got near him, he turned around and ran home. I thought I heard him whimpering, but there were so many other dogs barking in the neighborhood (I guess they were cheering him on), and I couldn't tell one bark from another. I just kept on running...I thought that was better than going back and having a confrontation with the owner.
I do feel bad for the poor dog. But I feel like I did what was in my best interest. I was under a tight time schedule to get my miles in before I had to drive to seminary. I knew I didn't have time to deal with a dog bite. Hope the dog is okay now. I also hope the owner doesn't take his dog out at 5 am without a leash anymore either.
After I got home from the seminary drive, I rubbed the side of my nose with my wrist (it was itching) and there must have been some residual spray on my arm, because my nose was on fire! I had to wash my face off with the closest soap the was around. The soap helped relieve some of the burn, and it was totally gone in 5 minutes, but I learned my lesson. Wash my entire arm after using the spray...not just my hands!
Hopefully I'll get in a couple more miles tonight, but it's started raining, and I'm not sure what it's going to be like at 4 pm.
5am- 61o , 70% humidity, wind at 12mph. Not bad weather.
What a morning :-) These are the days of my life......
After school run in the rain. Had to cut it short because middle school track didn't stay late. But I managed to get in a couple of good miles before I had to quit. My legs felt nice and tired, so I considered it a good training run. 9:10 for mile 1, and 8:30 for mile 2. About the same for the last half mile.
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