Ivan Pavlov was a Russian scientist who is best known for his experiments with dogs. He essentially trained his dogs to drool whenever he rang a bell even when there was no food in sight. I have stumbled upon a runner’s modern version of this little experiment. Just before my stress fracture I began using a Garmin 305 in my training. I had been doing alot of hill repeats and speed work, intervals, etc.(which is why I got the stupid stress fracture in the first place) I was doing mostly time based intervals, so I set up the Garmin and it would put out a series of beeps whenever I needed to change from easy to hard or vice versa. As it turns out Supermutt LOVES doing speedwork. He really grooved on going fast. It also turned out to be really effective at teaching him to pace with me.

So now I’ve started a run/walk program now that I’ve been declared healed from my stress fracture. Again, I’m using the Garmin set up with intervals so that I don’t have to do any excessive math or thinking. BEEP….run….BEEP….walk….BEEP….run, you get the idea. As it turns out, Supermutt was surreptitiously conditioned by my Garmin to go really fast whenever the thing beeps. He doesn’t get the alternating hard/easy part, he just learned the part he thought was the most fun….going fast. He hears the beep and he bolts yanking me with him. When I get my feet back under me and hold him back he just looks back at me with big sad eyes and an expression that says “come on man, we’re supposed to be going fast!”

I’m off the injured reserve list. Yes, it’s lame. I went on IR 6 weeks ago and I haven’t posted anything. I could tell you that Supermutt ate my posts or that I was abducted by aliens or any number of other dreadful things. But the truth is, I was too busy wallowing in self pity and depression. I had a first metatarsal stress fracture in my left foot. I was sentenced to THE BOOT which I’m pretty sure was invented in medieval times as some sort of slow death device. They all have names designed to fool you into thinking that they are comfortable and fun to wear; the walkabout, the high tide, the hi-top, the conformer, the tenderfoot, the venture, the breeze, there’s even a camouflage one in case you need to be invisible. The cold truth is that they are neither fun or comfortable.  It has been a very long 6 weeks dragging that boot around. By the end of the day you’re pretty much ready to gnaw your leg off and get fitted with a prosthetic. There are plenty of runners out there with prosthetics. Oscar Pistorius has two of them. I bet they all started off with a boot and actually did gnaw their legs off.  Anyway, my sports doc said the first step is for me to be able to walk a mile in my running shoes with no pain. Once I can do that, I can start to mix in some easy jogging and increase form there.

Supermutt, for his part, has been trying his damnedest to be a good boy during all of this. At first he was really upset and didn’t understand why we weren’t going running. He would spend long periods of time standing in the kitchen staring at his running leash, occasionally glancing over at me to make sure that I saw him staring at his running leash. There have only been a few casualties, a couple shoes, a pen or two, a book. Not bad really considering Supermutts tremendous powers of destruction. He did make a new best friend, a giant Saint Bernard named Moose, that lives down the street. Supermutt and I have managed to gimp down the street so they could play a few times. Supermutt mostly ran around at very high speed until he would get close enough that Moose would reach out a giant paw and swat Supermutt, sending him flying.

Now to work off the extra 5 pounds I picked up while on IR….

I completed my first half marathon on May 10.  My chip time was 2:09:08, but settle in, this race report starts a full week before the race. 

I think Supermutt was conspiring against me.  He wanted to run the race too, and if he couldn’t run it, neither was I buhahhahahaha(read Supermutt with his evil laugh)!  The first “incident” occurred the Monday before the race.  We were out for a routine, easy 3 mile run.  Everything was going great, I had made it to within a week of the race and I was healthy.  Anyway, we were going along down the sidewalk while a large landscaping truck towing a trailer was coming up the opposite side of the road.  Now, I knew that Supermutt had issues with trailers, but he was getting better.  For the longest time we couldn’t even jog by a parked trailer without Supermutt freaking out.  But, as I said, Supermutt was getting better.  He really didn’t show any interest in this trailer coming up the road.  Until the very last minute.  When the trailer was right on top of us.  And cars were coming up behind us.  Supermutt summoned all of his super strength and charged the trailer intent on destroying it into an unrecognizable junkyard heap.  It took my so by surprise that Supermutt had me off balance and fighting just to stay on my feet.  I finally managed to put on the brakes and planted my left foot as hard as I could and managed to save us both from death by trailer.  For the remainder of that run, my shin and ankle got stiffer and sorer as time went on.  I iced everything down that night.  The next morning everything felt okay and I let out a sigh of relief as I had escaped any real injury.

The second “incident” occurred on Thursday,  just 2 days before the race.  I was healthy, I made it through all of my training plan. I was home free.  This time I was walking Supermutt and we ran into our nemesis Black Dog.  I saw them coming and so did Supermutt, with his super vision he saw them a mile away.  As black dog and his person got closer and closer, Supermutt got more and more agitated.  I decided to try something my dog trainer friend suggested.  I stepped on Supermutt’s leash and pulled it up tight so that Supermutt was pinned to the ground, with only about 6 to 8 inches of leash available to him.  The idea is that he is pinned helpless to the ground and can’t really react to Black Dog, and no one gets hurt.  I’ve used the technique before with some of Supermutt’s other issues and had success.  There would be no success on this day however.  If I’ve joked about Supermutt’s super strength before, I can now say with authority that Supermutt unequivocally has super strength.  As Black Dog started to pass us, Supermutt just laid there.  “This is great” I thought, “it’s working.”  Even Black Dog’s person was  a little impressed, “Wow, that wasn’t too bad” he said.  Just at that moment, Supermutt launched himself with everything he had to give.  Yes, he only had 6 or 8 inches of leash to work with. Yes, there was a 190 pound person on that leash.  Yes, that same 190 pound person went flying.  I imagine it’s like being launched from a catapult, only you didn’t know you were standing on a catapult.  I landed squarely on my rear end.  Fortunately, I managed to hold on to the leash and my 190 pounds of dead weight on the pavement created too much friction for Supermutt to take me for a drag.  Black dog and his person slinked away into their house and everything was right again.  Supermutt came over to me, still on the ground, and started jumping, thinking I wanted to play.  Again, I managed to escape injury.

Finally it’s race day.  I think it’s the first time I’ve ever been nervous.  My chip time was 2:09:08  I was pretty happy with my time considering it is my first half and there was over 900 feet of ascent on the course (at times, I have to admit it felt like 9 million). The weather was almost perfect, sunny and 60 degrees with just a little breeze.

It went something like this:
Mile 1: flat, held back to 11:37 knowing Mt. Major was looming in my future
Mile 2: the climb starts, still holding back to 11:48 trying to get warmed up

Miles 3 through 6: straight up the side of the mountain, saving grace was the great view of the lake and the disco themed water stop, complete with bubble machine, at “Mile 5 Still Alive”

Miles 7 and 8: drop straight down to the lake with my fastest split of 8:40

Miles 9 through 11: a series of steep ups and downs along the lake, not real sure exactly what happens during this stretch as I seem to have “lost” some time

From mile 11 it was an “easy” cruise down to the finish with some killer road camber and a small blister on each foot, but at this point, I’m too close to the finish to care.

It was kind of funny to look at my splits as my splits all got way faster for a couple miles after each gel I took, regardless of whether I was climbing, going flat, or dropping.

I survived in pretty good shape, my feet were a little tender for few days, but I fetl pretty good, even managed to go grocery shopping without incident the day after the race.

All in all, it was a great time and I had a blast! I’m already planning another one for this fall.  This time I will do some things differently.  I need to figure out how to hang one of my old race bibs on Supermutt.  About a week before the next big race, I’m going to hang the bib onSupermutt and then we’ll go for a fast paced run.  I’m thinking we’ll go downtown and run a few laps around the main street loop.  Maybe at lunch time, when there’ll be lots of people on the streets.  Maybe I’ll even plant a few people on the street to start cheering and ringing cowbells as we go by.  Supermutt will think he ran the race with me, and I’ll make it to race day with a little less risk.

everything a Supermutt could ever hope for.  The temps are regularly above 60 now, and have even touched 80. The snow banks have all melted and I thought that this would make running with Supermutt a little easier.  No more frantic pulling every ten or twenty feet so he can mark the snowbanks along our routes.  This proved to be false.  The warmer temps and the disappearance of the snowbanks has brought on an emergence of all kinds of fun, new stuff.  First, is all the bushes along our routes that had been in hiding all winter.  Lot’s of bushes.  Then there’s all kinds of new ground that absolutely must be sniffed at all costs.  It’s as if dead grass has some type of power over Supermutt, like catnip with a cat.  You wouldn’t believe all the stuff that people left buried all winter long under the snow; bikes, shoes, clothing, garbage, barbie dolls, laundry baskets, gnomes, the list is endless.  All of it, every last item, must be inspected by Supermutt.  And of course, with no snowbanks, telephone poles and trees are suddenly very accessible and oh so temptingly close.  The dog population along our running routes is approximately 7, 289, 301.  That is up from roughly 3 during our early February runs.  Dogs on chains, dogs on leashes, dogs with kids, dogs behind fences, dogs on dog runs, loose dogs, charging dogs, barking dogs, big dogs, little dogs, mean dogs, friendly dogs, everywhere dogs.  Supermutt generally has 1 of 2 reactions when we see one of these 7, 289, 301 dogs.  He either desperately wants to play or desperately wants to run them off to protect me.  While both are sweet in their own way, it’s exhausting after 6 miles in a sunny 80 degree day.  There’s the little dead tuft of grass on one of our routes.  Again with the dead grass, but this little tuft is extra special.  It’s completely uninteresting to me.  In fact, I forget that it’s even there from one run to the next.  The 7, 289, 301 dogs on our route however, they find it very, very interesting.  Every time we pass it, Supermutt crosses over in front of me and pulls me over to that little dead tuft of grass with all the force of a space shuttle launch, human runner attached at the other end of the leash be damned.  I’m not the only one who’s encountered problems with said tuft of grass.  I saw a full sized adult man dragged over to that tuft of grass by a little 12 pound dog.  At least I was dragged over by a Supermutt with super strength!

 Supermutt has been pretty well behaved on our runs lately.  The snowbanks are starting to shrink, so his constant urge to get to a snowbank and do a leg lift is even starting to diminish.  We have been seeing alot of dogs lately too, and even that has gone well.  Supermutt has shown a passing interest in all the other dogs, but that’s about it.  Even the fence running, barking dogs haven’t gotten much of a reaction out of Supermutt. Goodboy!! But then everything changed.  It was bound to happen sooner or later, and really, I’m surprised it took this long.  We were headed out on a midweek 5 mile run on a gorgeous 55 degree sunny day.  I felt too tired for a 5 mile run but it was so nice out I had to go.  We left the house and started up the street at a slow easy pace.  About 5 minutes out, Supermutt started to pull more and more anxiously.  He stuck his head way up high and started looking around.  I thought at first that he was just excited, and wanted to go faster, faster!  But then we rounded the corner.  We came face to face with our neighborhood nemesis, in all his curly, black furred magnificence.  It was Black Dog.  See, Black Dog has been a problem for me and Supermutt for some time now.  Black dog always starts pulling his own human, who can barely slow Black Dog down, and follows with an eruption of barking, the likes of which are hard to imagine if you haven’t witnessed it for yourself.  Supermutt, being my super sidekick, takes Black Dog’s performance as a cue to come to my rescue and defend me against the black furry menace.  Supermutt, in my defense, proceeds to put on an equally menacing and equally loud display of his own.  It takes a superhuman effort to reign him in and snap him out of the “trance” that he’s gotten himself into but I manage to do it.  I worried that the effort might have taken a mile or two out of me.  Finally, we made it fully around the corner.  We couldn’t see Black Dog anymore, so Supermutt was satisfied that all was safe in his neighborhood again, and we continued on to have a terrific run, all 5 miles.  How boring things would be if we never encountered blind corners!

I started PT and according to my therapist I’m a “kinetic mess.”  I thought I was just going to speed up the recovery from my hamstring tendinitis. Wrong!  Apparently, nobody just “gets” hamstring tendinitis.  After a thorough investigation, we discovered that my left leg is a full 3/8 inch shorter than my right.  After all these years, my body has compensated by turning my shorter left leg into a useless stump of a peg leg.  Besides being shorter, it has less muscle mass, much less range of motion, and I don’t use it for anything.  I don’t push off or propel myself with it, it’s just there as something to land on.  I started paying more attention to my peg leg and quickly realized that not only do I not use it, but it was very awkward to use it!  The plan is to first get rid of the pain and get the leg to feel more like my own, and second to strengthen it and make it equal to the right leg.  I also now have a heel lift to help make up the difference.  I was a little worried about forcing my mechanics to change via the heel lift, but so far all is good.  The knee’s have never felt better, and the hamstring pain is almost gone, but my left leg still fatigues very easily.  I am also hoping that I may become a faster runner in the end because I will have twice as many legs to propel me.

Yesterday I went out for a long run of 6 miles.  It had rained most of the night and everything was still wet and lots of puddles in the road.  Supermutt has issues with cars driving through puddles.  Just the sound of a car driving through a puddle makes him go berserk, barking, pulling, and generally acting like an idiot.  So, because of the wet roads, the 6 mile long run (the first 3 miles all uphill), and the still tender hamstrings, I left Supermutt at home.  I don’t think I’ve ever felt so guilty.  It didn’t help that Supermutt knew exactly what I was going out the door to do, and he made it perfectly clear that he wanted in on it.  But I left him home.  I fully expected the house to be in shambles, maybe even on fire when I got home, but nothing of the sort.  Supermutt was snoozing quietly.  This made me feel even worse.  Despite the fact that I had a great run, I don’t know if I can ever leave home again.

Supermutt and I headed out for our long run of 5 miles yesterday.  The weather was about as perfect as it gets for mid February in New Hampshire.  Bright, sunny, 40 degrees, and no wind.  Even better, it was the second warm, sunny day in a row so almost all slush had been eliminated.  I also had new running shoes.  I was starting to have some problems with sore achilles, and a little hamstring tendinitis.  So I switched to a new shoe.  I really like them so far.  My feet and knees feel great, and I’m going to start some PT for my hamstring later this week to help speed that along.  As if all this wasn’t enough, Supermutt had his best run yet.  He was calm and collected, perfectly happy trotting along side me.  No pulling, no trying to track mystery scent trails, no constant attempts at the old snowbank leg lift.  It was almost spooky.  Everything all came together for one near perfect zen run.  I say near perfect because I was sooo damn tired.  Everything was so well aligned however, that I almost didn’t notice how tired I was.

It all came to a screeching halt today.  I decided to forgo my usual day of rest after my long run because we’re supposed to get yet another nasty storm tomorrow, and today, it was sunny and 45 degrees.  Unfortunately, Supermutt and I were not feeling the Zen today.  We ran into just about every single dog that lives on the route we chose to run.  Supermutt pulled every time we ran into one of those dogs, so the pulling was nearly constant.  I was even more tired than the day before, but the new shoes still felt great with a grand total of 7 1/2 miles on them now.  It was supposed to be a 3 mile run.  When I got back to the house I checked my watch.  Wow, a sub 10 minute mile run … wait, a sub 10 that can’t be right.  I was so tired I took a right and headed home instead of going straight to add on that last mile and I didn’t even realize it.  Zen is so fleeting!

We got another storm last night, an inch or two of snow followed by rain, freezing rain, and sleet.  Today however, was a balmy (for February anyways) 42 degrees, so Supermutt and I headed out for a 4 mile run.  A 4 mile slush run.  Big ol’ emphasis on slush.  I’m not quite sure how such a small amount of snow turned into such copious amounts of slush.  There was so much slush there was absolutely no way to avoid it. Slush in the road, slush on the shoulder, slush on the sidewalks, slush, slush, and more slush!  There was nothing else to do except to embrace the slush and just start slogging through it.  Once we accepted it, it wasn’t too bad.  We were however subjected to a bunch of jerks on the road driving by who made no effort at all to slow down or go around us, but did make every effort to speed up, buzz by as close as possible while hitting the deepest piles of slush nearest to us, thus ensuring that not only were our paws and shoes filled with slush, but that we were covered with slush from head to toe.  As it turned out, my middle finger received quite a workout today as well.  It also turns out, by the way, that slush is very, very cold.

Aside from all the slush, there were also thousands of snowblowers in action.  If I had to guess, one out of every three driveways we passed had a snowblower valiantly battling the slush.  Supermutt, I learned, does not like snowblowers.  I only rescued Superutt from the shelter less than a year ago, so I don’t know if he’s ever even seen one before.  Despite all the snow we’ve gotten this winter, I guess we’ve never gotten close to a snowblower in action.  Supermutt, with his super senses, was very good at spotting the snowblowers well in advance.  It would start with a little stronger, steady pull forward on the leash.  Then a low long growl intended to scare the snowblower into turning tail and running away.  When that would fail, Supermutt would let out a couple of his most intimidating barks.  The whole time we’re getting closer and closer.  Finally, we would reach the driveway with the sinister snowblower having failed to turn tail and run.  Supermutt, with all his super powers would then proceed to melt into my legs like a shy two year old melts into their mother’s legs upon meeting a stranger at the grocery store.  For all his huffing and puffing, Supermutt found his kryptonite, the killer snowblower.

I found this stuff that you’re supposed to spray on your dogs paws in the winter.  It’s supposed to help prevent ice and snow from freezing between the dog’s toes as well as protect the dog’s paws from road salt.  Sounds great.  I can actually do something to help Supermutt have a more comfortable run.  As I said, sounds great…in theory.  In reality, Supermutt thought the stuff actually tasted good.   I thought the hard part would be getting Supermutt to stay in one place long enough to actually spray the stuff on the bottom of his hands and feet.  That really wasn’t a problem, he wasn’t real keen on it, but it really wasn’t a problem.  As soon as I had the stuff sprayed on though, he started licking it off. Every time he took a step, he would get distracted and start licking it off the floor.  Then he would realize it was on his paws, so he would start licking them again, until he took a step.  Ooh..yummy! What’s this on the floor.  You get the idea, round and round he went.  Meanwhile, I’m frantically reading the bottle.  Is this stuff safe for him to eat?  The bottle says it’s OK if pets ingest small quantities, put people should call their doctor immediately if a person has ingested it!  Not sure what to make of that.  So I decide let’s get out the door quick and get going, and Supermutt will forget all about those yummy paws.  Wrong again.  I was just starting to get warmed up when Supermutt decided it would be a good time to taste his paws again, stopping dead, and tripping me in the process.  I went flying into him, causing him to look up at me with big, brown, puppy eyes.  “Hey, what did you do that for?” he seemed to be asking.  I found myself apologizing to Supermutt.

After all this seemed to settle down, I realized my shins were super-duper, extra tight.  This got me to wondering “why are my shins so tight today?”  Was it:

A)Supermutt took off like a rocket and I foolishly tried to keep up

B)I had to shovel the 4 inch “dusting” of snow off my driveway (which seems to be growing with every snowfall) yesterday

C)I was unknowingly trying to hold Supermutt back from pulling me through the slush, I just didn’t realize it because my left arm is now huge from doing it every time we run

D)All of the above

I’ve given the new 2 foot leash a try for a couple of runs now.  Mixed results.  It does keep Supermutt planted at my left side, but it does so at the expense of one very tired and sore left arm by the end of the run.  I think Supermutt is starting to get it though.  The only real big problem now is when he does get excited about something and manages to bolt out in front of me, the leash is only 2 feet long, the dog is probably 4 feet long, and I’m 6′ 3″.  The math doesn’t work out.  On a more positive note, I tried out some new socks for winter running, Seirus Hyperlite Stormsocks.  I couldn’t bear to spend the money for a pair of dedicated winter running shoes, so gave these a try.  They are far and away the most expensive socks I’ve ever bought, but it turns out they were worth every penny.  They’re kind of crazy looking, like little elf boots, as they don’t really have much shape.  You get a nice pre-run warm up trying to put them on.  Once they’re on though, they are truly magic. Warm, toasty, dry feet, right through the snow, slush, and frigid puddles.  I am in love with my new magic elf boots!

• A Restless Supermutt

  
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  February 2010

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