Sunday, June 8, 2014

Sunday Runday

We have a school close by our house which allows dogs on the grounds when there are no classes or kids - which we LOVE. Walt loves it too because he can run free (they do have a sign saying dogs should be on a leash at all times, but I would say the only dogs that are on leashes are ones that aren't friendly; 95% of them are off leash). On the weekends we go up there a lot - and even on weekdays Ryan tries to take Walt up there after he gets off of work.

The school has a dirt track on one end of the property. This morning Ryan thought that while we were up there letting Walt romp around a bit that we could see if he would run with us. Now, in case you missed it, Walt has done a race before - the Santa Mile (with Santa's Little Helpers... aka dogs), but it was only a 1-mile race and it was back in December. During the race, the dogs had to be on leashes (of course), but this morning we thought we would try it without a leash, seeing if he would just stay along with us.

It was pretty successful! He did a full mile in just under 10 minutes. He stayed with us for the majority of the time (sometimes he would see a stick in the grass, run over to it, try to bite at it, and then have to sprint to catch back up with us). I was even able to grab a little video (sorry that it is pretty wiggly, but it is hard to run and video a running dog at the same time :)).



Not an 'official' track, but it works for us :)

Under 10 minutes for his first mile in months!
PS Ryan gives Walt drinks from the drinking fountain in his hand.

We dropped Walt off at the house after we finished playing around the school and decided to do the rest of our run at the San Luis Rey River Trail. I did my bike ride on it earlier in the week and saw some of the destruction that the fires we had a few weeks ago caused. I told Ryan about it and he wanted to check it out, so we drove over to a nearby park and ran from there.

The fire ran down the river bed along the bike trail.

Charred trees and rocks. Thankfully it appears as though the
bike trail worked as a barrier to keep the fire from the homes. 

I would assume an ember blew across the bike path and caught
the swing-set on fire (probably started with the plastic tarp top).  

Except for the home that I took a picture of that had the swing-set burnt in the backyard and windows boarded up, it seemed like the other homes and yards were saved. Our firefighters (along with the rest of CalFire that were down here fighting the insane fires {we had 9 fires start within a 9 hour period}) are unbelievable! HOW SCARY WOULD IT HAVE BEEN IF YOU DIDN'T EVACUATE AND SAW THE FLAMES THAT CLOSE TO YOUR HOME?!



We ended up running a total of 3 miles today, which isn't too shabby. Ryan even mentioned this morning that next week he wants to do a "long run" - whooo hooo!! He has three half marathons coming up (one in November [The Avengers Half Marathon at Disneyland], one in December [The San Diego Holiday Half] and one in January [The Star Wars Half at Disneyland]), so we will have to start ramping up his mileage soon.

Were you able to get any miles in for Sunday Runday?

2 comments:

The Silent Assassin said...

I was gonna ask since I saw you at the shakeout and then I didn't see you with the rest of the blends the rest of the weekend... you live in SD? You guys were close to the fires? Hope you guys weren't affected...

Carlee McDot said...

The fires started on Wednesday, and we left Thursday to head up to Santa Cruz for my first full marathon. We brought 'extra' stuff with us just in case something happened to our house. The closest fire came within about 7 miles from our house, but thankfully the firefighters were absolutely wonderful with saving structures, homes, and lives!