Radar Love

I have a new running partner who is always really excited to go run. The downside is that this new running partner often has to stop and poop while we’re running. No, it’s not Beth, it’s our new dog.

Back in September of last year we lost our 11 year old Alaskan Malamute to a combination of illnesses and old age and it’s not an exaggeration to say that our family was devastated. (Pictures and stories about him here and here.) Initially I told Candis I wouldn’t be able to own another dog for at least a year and she heartily agreed, suggesting that it might be even longer. After a month and a half without a dog the house was feeling pretty empty and we started looking at animal shelter websites. Two weeks after that we were visiting animal shelters in person and fell in love with a 9 month old Boxer/Australian Cattle Dog mix. I’d like to introduce you to the newest member of our family and my new running partner, Radar:

Why did we name him Radar? Take a look at those ears!

Other than the pooping he’s been great to run with thus far. It only took him a couple of months (and a lot of cursing) to figure out that I didn’t want him to cross right in front of me while we’re running. He’s also picked up this annoying habit of pooping twice when we run in the mornings which was especially unfortunate the first couple of times since I was only carrying one poop bag. True story, one time he pooped on the lawn in front of a competitor bank and I happily left it there. Do you ever wonder what dogs are thinking when they see us picking up their fecal matter? Do they think we’re saving it for some reason or collecting it? It must seem weird.

I’ll leave you with one final picture of him trying to look like Scooby Doo.

One More Reason Not to Tri

Those of you who are familiar with Half-Fast will be wondering when I have ever really tried at anything but take another look at the headline you boneheads it says tri, not try.

As if I needed another reason not to do triathlons, news outlets are reporting that 40+ triathletes became sick after participating in the Boathouse International Triathlon in May. Officials believe that the cause of the sickness was the 1.5k swim in the Oklahoma River which tests have since revealed contained parasites, bacteria, flotsam and jetsam and more than double the accepted amount of E. coli for “primary body contact recreation in which there is a chance water could be ingested.” A chance water could be ingested? If I were to ever do a triathlon (which is waaaaaay less likely after this story) there is not a ‘chance’ of ingested water, it’s a certainty. I would swallow so much water that I wouldn’t need to hydrate on the bike, in fact I’d probably need a catheter.

Other reports stated that lab analysis of stool samples from several of the sick triathletes indicated “exposure to water that was contaminated with human or animal waste.” That’s disgusting. It’s no wonder those guys got sick, I’m getting ill just thinking about it.

Since the title of this post claims that this is one more reason that I’m not going to be doing triathlons anytime soon, allow me to tell you what the other reasons are. 1 Swimming. 2 Biking. 3 I don’t want to. 4 Vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal cramping and fever. (See: symptoms of drinking parasitic, E. coli-laced river water.) 5 I don’t like catheters. Now you may be thinking that the fourth item belongs above swimming and biking but you’d be wrong. Swimming and biking are much worse. Besides I have a little secret that totally cures vomiting and diarrhea, it’s called Pepto-Bismol. If you don’t have any Pepto-Bismol handy then alternately, you can just not drink and swim in a river that has a history of fecal coliform pollution. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices.

[Story Source: USA Today]

On a more pleasant note, Candis completed her triathlon last Friday without any of the aforementioned symptoms. She finished in pretty much the same time as the last one she did in September even though this one had a slightly longer swim course (read: more time to be exposed to human and animal waste). In an effort to provide you with a positive race report I’m going to say that she totally rocked the bike portion and not much else. I will add that she finished 5th in her age group and would have been 3rd had she been able to run at anything close to her normal pace.

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I’m 10 for 10 on the running streak and will do run #11 after work today. The novelty is starting to wear off, so get ready for some of those whining posts that you’ve all been looking forward to.

Cleaning Really Interferes with My Running

[by Candis, as if you couldn’t tell that from the title]

[image by Ian, as if you couldn’t tell, because this is how I pictured it]

Children and dogs are much dirtier than I was led to believe. I think owners of the previous understate this to those of us considering an acquisition.

This morning (is 1:30am morning?) my floors were bombarded with messes from both ends of our personal acquisitions. You should know that I’m a germ freak. Our home is not however freakily clean. (Odd eh?) Ian did not marry me for my cleaning skills- or he’d be gone already. He must actually like me. See, years of barely cleaning has paid off. I now know how much I really mean to my husband. Try it if you like, it’s risky though.

Even us ‘barely-cleaners’ must draw the line somewhere and I draw it at poop and throw up. As such, I spent a working man’s day and 3 boxes of baking soda disinfecting 2,000 square feet of floor.

My back is KILLING me (and to preempt the sarcastic, it’s not just because I’m not used to such extended periods of cleaning). I attempted a few lame runners’ yoga poses to fix my pain and trod off to our hamster wheel. It was the most painful easy run of my life. My arches hurt, my ankles hurt, my hip-flexors hurt, my back screamed and my shoulders locked. Usually I only come up with one reason I should stop running and have to talk myself through it- five is much harder to reason with.

This simply won’t do. It’s not even a running related injury, it’s an “I need a maid” injury. There you go honey, the perfect gift for me this year. I just can’t clean anymore.

San Diego? More like Sandy-Lame-O!

Sorry. San Diego’s great, but I just had to title this post with the quote from Madagascar that my two boys have been saying ALL DAY LONG. It was cute, even funny the first couple hundred times. Editor’s note: I think this reference to Madagascar gives me the perfect opportunity to use the “if you have any poo fling it now” tag for the second time which is quite an accomplishment for a running blog that has been in existence for less than a month. Thanks to those of you who left well wishes on my previous entry instructing me to enjoy my vacation. I am.

I found my motivation to run on vacation on Saturday morning. I had a long run of 10 miles Friday morning before we left for the airport so Saturday was my rest day. I was sitting out on the patio admiring the ocean view enjoying a bowl of Reese's Peanut Putter Cup cereal (usually I’m a fruit and oatmeal kind of guy for breakfast, but I’m on vacation so screw that) when I was rudely interrupted. First by my wife laughing at the back of my cereal box which had a list of 18 things to do before you turn 18, eight of which I still have not accomplished. Secondly by what was probably close to 200 runners running up the street outside that separates the house from the ocean. Here I am eating my high-calorie, low-energy, breakfast sitting on my butt and that was my wake up call, my figurative two by four to the cranium. So I managed to get in a 4 mile easy run on Sunday morning.

I also discovered from my June ’06 Runners World magazine that the San Diego Track Club meets on Thursdays at the runners bathroom in Mission Bay. I may head over there and see if I can run with them, so if you’re a member of the SDTC and you are reading this blog (long shot I know), leave me a comment and let me know when and where you run.

Personal Note to our house and dog sitter: I'm sorry I left the alarm clock set to go off at 6 in the morning at a DEFCON 5 alert level. I swear I do this to her every time we go somewhere. If you’re looking for a big screen TV or a nice treadmill she’ll probably give you the pair for $14 just out of spite.

Running With A Son Of A ...

I went running with my dog today. That’s him in the picture on the left, he’s cute right? Yeah, only because you haven’t tried to run with him. He gets to come with me every now and then when I’m running one of my easy runs and when I’m not doing my run on the treadmill, because that was just a disaster when we tried that.

Why is he difficult to run with? First of all we have to stop and pee on every hydrant, fence, shrub, lamppost, bush, and park bench during the first half mile of the run. Yeah I said ‘park bench’, but you ought to be more concerned that I said ‘we’. It’s really difficult to settle in to your pace when you keep taking these breaks every hundred yards, and don’t even get me started on how big a disruption it is when he has stops to take a deucer. Have you ever tried to run while holding a foul smelling bag of dog feces as far from you as possible? Yeah, if you’re laughing you’d better be outside of throwing distance.