What do you do a day after a 65 mile bike ride with a couple of thousand feet of climbing? Get some more climbing in, but this time on foot... You know, to mix things up a little!
Because, I am really dreading running these days and the training plan allowed for trails, I picked out my favorite trails that just happen to be 10 minutes from the house to make the activity "running" more appealing to me.
And I took the doggy, because she has way too much energy and needed a good run to calm her down some... Besides, I feel more comfortable having a canine companion with me on these trails.
We got on the trails via the parking lot close to the Mountain Lake, then hit Sulphur, Fire Tower, Kanuga, North Lake, Pipsissewa and then Brissy Ridge to get to the top parking lot. I thought for a moment to go down on Sulphur again, but I was fading and the dog was fading, so we took the short cut and ran down the road instead of trails. The total was a little over six miles. Then we ran to the Mountain Lake one more time before getting in the car, so Karma could cool off some more.
At times, I was really worried that she is overheating, but then again, she dragged me along behind her a lot of the times as well.
I let her take a dip in every stream and lake that we came across, to make sure that I don't have a dog with heat stroke on my hands in the end.
Once again, I was wearing the leash belt, which makes such a difference running with her. She just pulls like crazy sometimes, especially in the beginning, and having her pull on my arms, just made running with her miserable for me. Now that she is pulling me on my waist, it is so much more comfortable... and easier... for me. ;-)
The downside with the leash belt: you better clip the leash out of the belt fast before Ms Karma launches into the water, just to make sure that you are not going to follow her into it.
And while her dragging me comes in pretty handy on the uphills, they turn into quite a quad pounding experience on the downhill... And I certainly feel that more today than the 65 miles from Saturday.
Our last water stop back at Mountain Lake. Good run... Still don't like runnning right now though.
haha i can just picture myself being drug into water behind a dog because i didn't unclip in time.
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