Wednesday, July 25, 2007

A Run, A Dog, A Scare (15 Days)




I wanted to get up earlier and run at South Mountain Park. Get some hill work done on the 5k course that my next race is going to be on. But, that was not to be. Instead I ran in the neighborhood going down some streets I had not run on in a while. It was 7 am, 82 Fahrenheit and humid. Well, humid for Arizona - 68%.




Ran 3.11 miles in 40:56 for a 13:07 pace. The 15th consecutive day of exercise.




Got to run in a new commercial development at the end of our street. On the map it looks like a leveled field (actually desert), but now it has a 5 story building and several smaller single stories. There's a Mowi Wowi that is having it's grand opening this weekend and a Firehouse Subs opening soon. Can't wait to see what else.

Then I moved on thru the various subdivision and encountered the dog. I didn't hear it. It didn't bark. I was just crossing over the street when I heard a lady yell, "sorry, sorry" or something to that effect. I thought I was about to be hit by a car, but then I saw the dog. Big nasty teeth and it looked pretty fierce. I thought it was a pit bull at first, but now that I think about it I think it was something else. It had a buddy too, but that dog wasn't aggressive. As the dog got to my feet, I turned to him, gave him my meanest look and yelled, "STOP, STOP" , as loud as I could. I could have grabbed him at this point, but he saw I wasn't going anywhere. I was prepared to grab him and drop him with a knee to the gut or a foot to the chest. Luckily, the owner was right on his tail and apprehended the dog before anything happened. I'm sure contact would not have been a good thing for anyone. As she was dragging her dog out of the middle of the street, she kept apologizing. I gave her the mean runner look I gave the dog and started running again. My garmin shows that my HR was elevated at this point.

School starts in a couple of weeks and kids will be in the streets then. Hopefully, this dog won't be. I know it's just being itself, but it seems there's a lot of mean dogs around. I counted three this morning.

I ended my run with stretches in the driveway and a bowl of cold watermelon as I write this post. I hope you all have a great day and a better run. Maybe I'll get to South Mountain tomorrow.
Oh yeah. . . I saw this plate as I was running today. And yes, I had on Asics.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

Definitely glad to hear that the owner was hot on the tail of that dog. The potential of those kinds of encounters are why I run with pepper spray in my hands. Anything or anyone tries to attack me and they are getting sprayed. With the exception of birds. I would rather not kill a bird just because I got to close to its nest and I can't for the life of me figure out how to spray the pepper spray in the air and not have it come back down into my own face, lol.

bigmike600 said...

Glad nothing bad happened. I carry the pepper spray as well when I remember. My buddy has a Rotweiller that is really freindly but likes to play a little rough. I have learned a thing or two by playing with him so I feel comfortable I could do whatever was necessary to defend myself but would not like it and it would mess me up emotionally for a while. Nice run of exercising. How long can you go?

Unknown said...

pepper spray user here too. Have had to spray a couple too on the bike in the country.
I love dogs, I own dogs, and I would never want to hurt a dog, but I control where they go and what they do. Stupid owners who let their dogs loose in the street are the reason the pepper spray is necessary and I think they should probably get a spray too.
I think of it a little dose of karma to a snappy dog.

Mom tried decaf once said...

I have some pepper spray that I got at performance footwear. That is a cool plate!