Julie and I have worked at several of Friends of Animal's annual Bark in the Park. This year we got to just be participants. It was more interesting now that Julie is running and we have a 7 year old track start next door.
Here are Renae, Julie and Sally just before the race. You can tell because everyone is all smiles.
This is one of the few races where you can, and are actually encouraged to bring your dogs. In the past years, it seemed like about 50% of the people ran with a dog. This year it seemed more like 80%, and some people ran with two or three.
I was running with Jasper and dog runners had to start the race after the non-dog runners. I eventually caught up with Julie and Sally, who have been great training partners.
At several stops along the way, there were pools for the dogs to drink out of, or in this lab's case, just lay down in. Jasper wasn't terribly disappointed that there wasn't enough room for him.
Although they ran together the whole race, Julie started kicking towards the finish just as Sally was losing steam. Sally found a kick and they finished together. In the few weeks since the July 4th race, they managed to knock off about 30 seconds per mile. Go ladies!
Of course Hannah destroyed us all. She also knocked off about 2 minutes from her July 4th race time. I haven't seen her final time and they screwed up her timing chip, but I think she was right around 8:00 minute miles.
Jim Covaleski got into town last night and he joined us for the race. He beat me by a long ways, finishing right up with Hannah. I would include a picture of him running, but as a non-dogger, he started ahead of me. As a faster runner, I never saw him.
My knee has been hurting for weeks, so Jasper and I found a nice easy pace. I think my final time was around 27:00, about 5 minutes slower than last year. Funny though, apparently I won my age group and got a $10 gift certificate at Petco. I have to guess that I won "men, 50-51, running with a dog, black, age 7-9, one white paw". With 300 people in the race, there had to be someone else in my age category.
UPDATE:
I found the race results. I did actually beat the other 8 competitors in the Male, 41-50, With Dog category. Interestingly enough, I would NOT have won:
- 31-40 Mens
- 51-60 Mens
- 61-70 Mens (a 70 year old ran a 7:38 pace)
- 41-50 Womens
- 51-60 Womens (would have been 4th)
- Almost all of those same categories, but Without Dog
It pays to be in the right group.
As for 7 year old Hannah, she won the Female, 1-11, No Dog category. Her nearest competitor was 17 minutes behind her. She also would have won the Without Dog for:
She would have placed 2nd in the women 21-30 group and was in the top 10% of all finishers. Just WOW!
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