Dog Days

The OU women are out of the basketball tournament. We made it to the Sweet 16 but the Elite 8 was apparently not to be. And I was all ready to cheer and be proud in a pub, with beer and possibly nachos. Oh well, there's always next year...

On Sunday morning, while the Sooner women were preparing to lose, I managed a second 18 miler. I was so panicked after last week's 6 mile-long sensation of being about to die that I thought I'd better give it another shot. It was much better. A much slower starting pace easing up to a final 6 miles at race pace. Maybe I really can do this thing.

The first couple of miles were tough, they always are. There's something about the first 2 or 3 miles that always seem like they're just there to test me. If I can get past those I feel like I can do anything but those first couple of miles are a slog. Mile 4 and 5 I was getting into my stride until my favourite running occurrence occurred. Dogs.

I'd already avoided one dog at mile three. I spotted it a couple of blocks away and quickly changed direction to run around, rather than towards it (with a block of houses safely between us). But at mile 5 I turned a corner and there they were, at first they looked like a heap of clothes on the porch of what looked like an abandoned house. I was just thinking to myself what a lovely house it would be if someone took the time to clean it up when the heaps began to move... and bark. It was too late to run in the opposite direction, a big black dog had me in its sights and wasn't going to let me go without making a lot of noise about it and maybe even eat me (it had big teeth and it looked cross).

I stopped dead. I had read that you shouldn't turn your back on a dog so I looked for a way to make an exit while facing my angry friend, I looked down the street I had turned onto only to see another dog (probably attracted by the barking) walking towards me. The only way for dog avoidance was for me to back around the corner but any movement just provoked more barking. Fortunately the other heap on the porch wasn't all that bothered, although black dog thought it should be, and each time black dog turned around and barked in an effort to rouse its friend, gave me the opportunity to back another step around the corner. I must have been there for more than 5 minutes in the terrifying face-off with black dog until I'd got far enough around the corner for it not to see me running away.

This isn't the first time I've come across stray dogs although none have been quite so close and angry at me. I think it's because people here usually have their dogs sleep in their gardens and it's just much more straightforward to escape from a rickety fence as opposed to a sturdy front door. I think I'll have to come up with a better plan, possibly involving pepper spray.

Of course, the worst thing is that it messed up with my pace. How will I ever know what I can do on a continuous run if I keep having to stop for angry dogs and traffic lights?!