Last Place Runner

I came home last night in a rush to change and tackle my 18-minute run. I had put chili in the slow cooker at lunch so I wouldn’t have that to deal with after work. I was nervous (which is a recurring theme in my running journey) about running in the dark for the first time and also nervous about how dumb my hair looks when I’m wearing my headlamp.

I rushed in and asked my husband if he had eaten yet. He hadn’t, but also, he reported, our dog had refused his dinner. I looked at our good old dog lying lifeless on the rug. I offered him a cookie, which is really just a word he knows to get excited about. Nothing. I held a treat under his nose. He just looked at me. So I picked up his leash, which always gets a reaction out of him. Going out the front door is better than cookies as far as he’s concerned. He got up and I noticed his neck was ENORMOUS.

Long, long, long, expensive story short, we wolfed down some chili and went to the emergency vet clinic. And I didn’t do my scheduled run.

Today was to be my rest day, which is good because I would rather postpone a run than miss it entirely. I worked from home today because the emergency vet wanted us to take the dog to his regular vet first thing this morning. I was awake all night long, and so was the poor pitiful dog. It was raining, too, which meant my longest run yet would have to be a treadmill run.

I worked for a while until the dog seemed comfortable and my workload was manageable. And then I sucked it up and did my run.

I tried to watch something on Netflix to help pass the time on the dreadful treadmill, but running and breathing makes a lot of racket.

Tomorrow night is my group run and we’ll do 18 minutes together. Then I think it’s right on to 20 minutes Thursday. My first 5K is just about a month away. I’m still pretty surprised I’ve come this far. It actually makes the rest of the training seem less scary.

The dog is on pain medication and antibiotics. He got a shot of morphine at the emergency clinic last night, and he happily ate breakfast this morning. That’s when I knew we’d probably be all right. We had breakfast for dinner tonight and he was able to give me the pitiful face while I ate my eggs.