Day 95: A Dog, A Car and still a PR! August 30, 2007

Thursday. 3.1 miles in 30:15. Wow, that’s another PR for me!

I intentionally left my iPod on my desk in the study, and was cataloging all the sounds I heard as I ran. Just outside my garage I heard the distant sounds of construction. A block after that, pigeons. I think they were pigeons. What do I know? A half mile later it was crickets. Then mile 2 was all traffic sounds. Trucks, cars, a busy gas station.

Things started to quiet down in the third mile as I got back into my neighborhood – until another unchained angry dog came barking and charging at me. This brought me to a stop – I was totally surprised. I tried to edge away and the dog wouldn’t leave. When I turned to the side to walk away it lunged forward, so I faced it and yelled at it to get lost, and thank God it did. As I jogged away I thought, “That’s going to add 15 seconds or so to my time. Oh well.” A block later a woman almost hit me in her car while she was driving, putting on make up, making a phone call, drinking her coffee. I glanced at my watch during the last couple blocks of my run and saw that I was at 29 minutes… this confused me. So I ran as fast as I could and wound up running this 5K in just over 30 minutes. If that dog hadn’t of been there I should have made my goal of running the 5K in under 30. That, or I would have been hit by that distracted driver. I’ll take my current time and the ability to run.