A Day of Firsts

Today was my first cold-weather run (40 degrees, wind chill 30, 20-30 mph wind). First time I got to wear my snazzy new base layer. And the first time I got to run with my new puppy (who's officially been dubbed Kona by an overwhelming majority vote - even from non-tri friends and family who don't know what it means. The consensus is that it suits him perfectly. We agree - we found ourselves calling him Kona without trying to.).

On a gear note - base layer was great and that part of me felt just right. I could tell right away plain old sweats weren't the right choice because the wind cut right through them, but for now they're all I've got. I found a local tailor who's going to be my new best friend (I wear a lot of high heels because pants are always too long for someone of my height and he only charges 8 bucks to hem pants) so now I'm hoping to find a pair of running pants with a reasonable hem (i.e. without fancy stuff like zippers) and have them taken up, because it's only going to get colder.

Kona did surprisingly well considering he barely knows me as a handler and has certainly never run with someone before. Weaved in front of me when I wasn't being careful to make him heel and got his paws stepped on more than once, but the norm was for him to run nicely beside me. I was pleasantly surprised to find a fast walk/slow trot for him is the speed I've been training at and he paced me as steady as any treadmill. I forgot to time it, but I think we were in the 13-14 min/mile range; probably on the faster side since it was a bit challenging after a while.

We did a total of 2.5 miles, running a half mile twice, alternated with walking the rest. Not quite as much as I'd like to have run now that I'm up to 2.5 indoors, but not too bad with raging headwinds and occasionally tripping over Kona's feet. I did feel like I could have run longer stretches, probably even gone a whole mile at least once, but when I started to struggle with the headwind and feel my energy draining I was worried about hurting him and/or me by tripping over something (his feet, the garbage blowing around, curbs, gravel from construction).

All in all, a great start to what I hope will be a long and happy relationship.



[I must offer my apologies to Nytro for the obvious 'lipstick' in this picture. I'm not loving it, but I love him so I've gotta accept it.]