Running with Fudge

Once a week I usually take my dog, Fudge, on one of my runs. Typically a shorter run (between 10-15k’s) on some trails that are very close to home. I was inspired by that Salomon Running Video ‘Trail Dog’ (https://youtu.be/05sUhlxFBk0), besides, Fudge loves to run and she loves going with me. Where I go there usually isn’t anyone else around so she isn’t on a leash and that has been causing me some issues lately. As the days have been getting shorter I’m running in the dark more often, running in areas where kangaroos are plentiful. As it turns out, kangaroos love dusk; which is when I run, and Fudge loves chasing kangaroos. So she darts off the trail and into scrub and towering pine trees while I continue running along the trail. Most of the time she comes back to me, but more and more regularly she doesn’t and I have to stop and call out to her, interrupting my rhythm. And there have even been a couple times where I have had to backtrack so she can find me. If it wasn’t dark, this probably wouldn’t be a problem but just recently on Saturday I took Fudge for a run during the day. She does what she always does, darts off the trail and when she came back she was unable to stand, as if bitten by something. I’m not sure what happened but it made me stop my run in an exposed area (it was cold) and hope that she got better. After about 5 minutes she was able to stand again and I was able to continue my run, but it interrupted my rhythm. (Fudge seems fine now)

I take her with me as I know she really enjoys it and where I go is deserted. I like having her as a bit of security as she can hear and see things that I can’t, so if anything is abnormal she can let me know. Also, she’s a great training partner. She is much fitter and faster than I am over the distance I take her on, so I challenge myself to keep up with her over the course of the run. She also is starting realise what I'm doing is a regular thing, and anticipates it towards the end of the week. She has this excitement when I mention the word 'run' to her, and in turn that makes me excited. She has an appreciation for the little things that make life great, which is contagious. 

I’m wondering though if the cons are starting to outweigh the pros, and putting her on a leash is out of the question as I need my arms to balance when I’m out on the trails. Do any of you run with your dogs on the trails? What are your experiences? I think I'll stick with her.

The TRN

Vivid 2016

Today marks a historic time for my blog, my first non-running related blog post! However; before I delve into my adventures, I’m going to change up the rules of my blog a little. In my first blog post I said that I was going to write about running every week, it turns out that’s very hard to do so instead I’m just going to try and put up a blog post every week. (I unfortunately had a case of the man-flu last week and after I got home from work I couldn't bring myself to sit in front of a computer and type this entry up). The majority of those will be on running but every now and then I’ll write about something a bit different, such as now!

So what did I get up to you may be asking, well if you’ve been following my Instagram then you would’ve seen that over the past long weekend I was in Sydney to see Vivid. I only found out I was definitely going on Tuesday (the 7^th June) when my dad found out that he was going to Canada for a work trip, so I stole his ticket and went up to Sydney with my mum. All was not smooth sailing though, as we got to the airport 25 mins before the plane was due to leave, 5 minutes too late as you had to check in half an hour before the plane left. We didn’t realise this at the time as we hardly fly domestically and also wasn’t aware you could check in on your phone, if we had known we wouldn’t have missed our 3pm flight. Which was a problem for me as on that Saturday was Curve Ball, an EDM festival, which started at 3pm. The next available flight was at 6pm, so we took it after lots of discussion as we had to buy new tickets, which meant I didn’t get to the festival until about 8:15 missing the majority of it. I did get to see the headline act though, and I have to say ZHU is amazing. He had the crowd in a frenzy and was amazing to be part of, so glad that I was able to see him. It would have probably helped that the venue, Carriageworks, is an empty industrial warehouse, which meant lots of people were packed into a relatively small space. I thought it was much better than doing it outside and I only wish I was there earlier to see more sets, oh well.

Sunday day consisted of mostly shopping to kill the time before Sunday night, so I put it to good use and tried to find out as much info and try on as much trail running gear I could find. The good news is that there is soo many options out there, and I found out a lot of stuff; such as merino wool is probably the best material for a base layer and that 20000 mm of Hydrostatic Head is a good level of waterproofness for a rain jacket. I didn’t find many trail running packs though, so that’ll be a job for me to do next time I’m in Melbourne. 

All that walking around works up a thirst and for the first time I was able to get a beer a ‘The Lord Nelson’. ‘The Lord Nelson’ is an iconic pub (debated to be the oldest in Australia)and something of a ritual for my dad and his friend Andrew. Andrew and his wife Julie have been long time friends of my parents; live in Sydney and whom we stayed with while my mum and I were there (thanks for that!) Every time we visit Sydney they’ve been kind enough to allow us to stay with them, and every time I’m there with dad, he and Andrew go to ‘The Lord Nelson’ and I often tag along. So it was with great excitement that for the first time I was able to grab a beer there, which was brewed onsite. It was unreal, so my advice, get yourself down to ‘The Rocks’ and get a beer, you can thank me later ;)

Night finally arrived and I got to see some lights, and they were amazing. I spent my time centred around Circular Quay and I was impressed, my favourite was Customs House where they had a little movie play out onto it. Though the Oprah House and the Museum of Contemporary Art were also excellent. On the Monday we left for home, very glad that we did make the trip up.

Vivid runs for about month each year, all across Sydney so I definitely recommend trying to be in Sydney at that time of the year to go see it.

The TRN

Race Report: Traralgon Half Marathon

Thanks to White Line Images for the photo 

I ran my first ‘road’ half marathon in 4 years yesterday as part of the Traralgon Marathon festival, and it was probably the best race of the year so far, and was completely differently to how my half marathon went back when I was 15. Because that race wasn’t very good, I was still very young and I can’t remember much of it, I don’t consider that as my first half marathon; but I can remember that I walked a lot of it. As for this race, everything went to plan. I showed up to the start line 1.5 hours before the start which meant I was able to go for a nice 3km warm up jog, which was necessary as it rained, a lot.  

Just a bit wet.

At the minimum 20mm of rain, but at least it wasn’t cold! By the time I got to the start line I was feeling great, but still a bit daunted as I had no idea how I would feel during the race as my road experience is very small. My coach had told me previously to start the race slow, which I ended up doing thanks to a friend of mine; Brad. 

My running buddy for the first part of the race, Brad.
Thanks for the help!
Photo thanks to Mel Trease

He set a 4.30 pace and I stuck with him until about the 7km point and due to me feeling good, I decided to leave him (which we had agreed upon before the race, if either of us was slowing down then we could leave the other behind). I think this really helped me for the rest of the run as it kept me fresh for the later parts. The 7km point was also the point where we left the road and got onto the rail trail, and was why I put ‘road’ in quotation marks. I ran on the trail for about 7kms total and it was a hard slog. The rain and runners chewed it up into this muddy mess, which was soft underfoot (obviously) and the reason why I probably didn’t run as fast as I could have. By the half way point I was feeling great; running it in 47 mins, legs weren’t sore, wasn’t feeling tired, so naturally I decided to speed up. It turns out that was a bad idea, ran strong for about 2 kms, then hit a bit of a wall.

Finally found a gel that tastes good and is easy to digest,
I think I'll stick with this brand. Good effort Vfuel!

I had an energy gel at the 14km mark, which boosted my energy and was able to bring it home in the last 3kms, ending up with a time of 1:31:42. I loved the fact that I was able to negative split my second half by over 2 mins. I think going into my next half marathon I’ll start out a little bit faster, I don’t think it would hinder me too much by being a bit more tired at the halfway point, also if I am feeling good at the halfway point, I still wouldn’t speed up. I’d maintain the current pace, I’d much rather come home a lot faster in the last 5km. Overall though, very happy with my run!

Ended up finishing 23rd out 275 people.

 Also I’d like to make a mention to the huge support from my local running group. There were so many Sale and District runners running in it and it was great to have words of encouragement as I was running along, along with the high fives. Everyone should be very happy with themselves.

Some of SAD, well done to all!

The TRN