Team Z recently added a 5K and fun doggie run to the 2010 fall/winter team calendar. The doggie run was to be a whole mile long, and even though Riley and I don’t go for walks more than quarter mile I signed us up!
Fast Forward to race morning! Luckily it was even time for the clocks to “fall back” on Saturday night. However, Riley was still up and at em quite early! I think she was excited about her first race!! I fed her on schedule, hoping she would take care of any ‘pre-race’ business in our yard, before we left the house. We were in the car by 6:35 for an 8:00 start! Of course, packet pick-up/check-in started at 7:30. And I wanted to stop by Starbucks for a much needed soy latte. Then we were really off!
Riley sat/lay in Jeff’s lap for the ride. She does pretty well in a lap, as opposed to the cat crate.
>^..^<
We made really good time and only made one wrong turn – and THAT was at a traffic circle. Fortunately the Garmin got us back on course. Oh, then I missed the turn to the park, too, but I fixed that on my own. We saw signs for the The Dash 5K and knew we were in the right place. We parked and quickly found Ed, Zoe, and the rest of Team Z that was there. Ed was awesome – he even provided coffee and bagels! Oh, and there was DIET COKE (Carol and Priscilla)!
I thought Riley might have to do some ‘business’ once we got out of the car on to the grass, but she was too busy checking out all the people and dogs! She met Zoe, and cool spaniel named Booker, and a lot of other dogs – like George and Nala! And a lot of people, too! I got us checked in and picked up a poo bag, just in case. Riley also got a really cute bandana. I picked out one that had cats on it.
The race was starting at 8:00 as mentioned and they played the Star Spangled Banner before the start. Riley tried to sing along. (She needs to work on this.) I seeded us at the back of the pack because (1) she was not the best at walking on the leash – hey, she’s not even 3 months old and still learning; and (2) we’d never walked more than about a quarter mile (if that) at a time. I figured worst case scenario I’d carry her. She only weighs 23.3 pounds (as of the day before at the vet) and I could handle that.
The gun fired and we were off! Riley walked and whimpered, but kept on going in a mostly forward motion at my urging. At times we even mixed in a little bit of running! It was awesome! It was also awesome that the first half of the out and back course was a downhill! But you know what that means – the return would be UPHILL! Riley ‘met’ a lot of dogs along the way – my favorite was a male Westie named Jackson (and his canine friend Harper the Carin) – and made it to the turn around. She did stop for a pee part way through the first half and lost some time. (I wish it was that easy for us humans!)
Time to go around the turn around sign and back up that hill! Things were going real well and she really was getting the hang of things. Then... she stopped to do more ‘business’. The kind that required cleaning up after! No problem – I had that poo bag and was able to clean up after her. Then we were back on our way! Turns out Riley wasn’t the only one to stop to doo-doo the same thing! I think on our way back up we managed to pass a few pups that passed us on the way down! As we approached the finish line the announced noted that I was there with “Young Riley”! She got all excited!!
We made it back to the Z area and Riley promptly plopped down for a shor
t snooze while watched the 5K get started. It was time for my Diet Coke – then Riley got a homemade dog treat made by “The Dog Chef”! Team Z really cleaned up at this race! And they had the same fun hill to run up at the end, too! Thanks, Ed, for adding it to the calendar! Finally, it was time to head out...Riley was one tired pup when we got home!
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