I was really looking forward to the Thursday night Gal Gallop at the river trail. I love that trail. I love those girls. It is so much fun to catch up on each other’s weeks, and to talk about upcoming races. Atlas wanted to come along, and I have brought him a couple times before, so I let him tag along.

We did our usual pre-run picture. Nicole is getting really good with that selfie stick!

Amazing group of girls. And a rotten dog. Photo by Nicole 🙂

And then we were off. I explained that we usually run toward the back since Atlas tends to stop randomly for poop breaks. (And when he is bring a jerk, to pee on every rock and leaf available). Sure enough, 2 minutes in, he needed to cop a squat. OK… Fine… But before we had even caught up to the group, he stopped again… OK, get that out of your system. Good. But then he stopped again, and again. I counted 4 poops and 2 potties in the 1.5 miles. I caught back up when the girls stopped to take a picture of the sunset…

Again… Photography by Nicole.

 But by then I was spent. When he stopped to pee again, I was so tired, I could barely drag him back onto the trail. And again… Annoying! I almost caught back up. By the turnaround, which is just shy of 2.5 miles, I was just sort of done. I was tired and crabby. I had done nothing but wait for my dog to poop and then sprint to catch up.

And then, Atlas stepped on the back of my foot nearly taking my shoe off. I stumbled and told him to stop being a jerk. My pace was slowing. I was annoyed. When we met the extra little jog the Trail Hawks take, I thought about going straight but went ahead and followed the girls. This time, Atlas darted in front of my and then randomly stopped so I ran into the back of him and stumbled. Not cool.

Finally, we were in the last mile, which starts the series of little billy goat inclines. I was puffing along and was so happy just to be done. On the last hill, I charged up and Atlas stopped suddenly behind me. This caused the waist belt to jerk me violently back. Maybe the incline made it worse? But I felt the wind get knocked out of me a bit. I continued to run, but I wasn’t getting air. I felt like I was hyper-ventilating or something. I started to panic but told myself that crying would only make it worse, so I slowed to a jog. Finally, I met the girls at the trailhead, sort of panting and probably looking ridiculous. I think I just muttered that I wasn’t going to take the dog anymore because it is just too much work on a group run. I didn’t have much fun at all. What was supposed to be an easy run had kicked by butt.

So Friday is a rest day. Saturday is race day. The forecast is calling for rain Saturday morning, which means that there is a good chance we will be running the levee trail instead of the river. This is not a good thing. The levee trails is a flat, straight gravel sidewalk that sucks out my will to live. Yuck. At least there will be pie at the end.