With my runs all over the place recently it was time to return to the good old down's link. The big change was the new running buddy I was taking along with me, our 18 month old cocker spaniel Archie. This was the first time I or anyone else taken him out running, so we had a little practice in the fields before starting properly and he seemed to have the idea.
Fortunately all the hard work had been done long before as the dog will happily heal off the lead and return when whistled. As such when we started running I felt confident he'd do what he was told and it started well. We had a couple of moments when he stopped and gave me a confused look and I had to call him along, but after a quarter mile he got the idea and we trotted along nicely.
We moved to the side for our first bicycle but comfortably jogged past the second. Archie didn't seem comfortable, with his tail tucked between his legs for the first half, but with encouragement he carried on. We had a slight wobble when we went through one of the metal tunnels that form bridges over the down's link as the echo's confused him and my encouragement only made it worse as it reverberated back to us.
He seemed to pick up as we turned for home, but then so do I so that's not really surprising. On the way home we passed a gentle old lab without Archie batting an eyelid, so when we approached a collie puppy I was confident it wouldn't affect him.
As I approached the collie entered a bow, and I should have realised it was up for it but it was all going so smoothly. As I passed the collie Archie suddenly started screaming and yelping, sprinting away with the puppy in hot pursuit and me trailing after.Fortunately the collie got bored first and turned back, and Archie stopped where we were going to turn off the down's link. It was a good job he did as I couldn't have caught him. He seemed tentative as I approached, but once we were off the down's link together he picked up pretty quickly and was soon back to his old self, gallivanting about.
The actual run doesn't really deserve comment, it was a generally nice pace and heart rate varied a bit because I was focussing on the dog.
Distance: 3.01 miles
Time: 28 minutes 1 second
Pace: 09:19 min/mile
Average HR: 164
Map: Here
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