Dog Days of Summer

Today I had a brick workout.  That means I had to do two workouts, back to back.  Today it was a 75 minute bike ride and a 30 minute run.

Joe was doing the Strawberry Century ride in Lebanon so since I was awake anyway I decided to drive Joe to Lebanon and then go back and pick him up when he was done.  I know how nice it was to have someone drive for me last weekend so I figured Joe wouldn't mind it either.  I know he wasn't racing but seriously, 100 miles!!!  On a bike!!  He deserved to have someone drive him home.

After he took off I came back home and got ready for my bike ride.  It was weird.  I was really nervous.  I don't know why.  I had some of those, "I am sure I'm going to fall down" feelings.  Which is weird because I have gotten so much more confident with my stopping and starting and everything and I haven't fallen down since February.  ;-)

I had mapped a route out on Runkeeper that I thought would be about 75 minutes and if it went to short or too long on time it would be easy to extend or shorten the route.

Here's the route I had mapped out:

Here's what I actually did:

I did fine until I was on Engle.  For some reason I turned off that road when I should have stayed on Engle. 

It was kind of fun seeing some new roads and new things to see.   Then I had my first encounter with a dog.  I mean first encounter ever while riding my bike.  I guess I'm pretty lucky that in all the months I have been riding there hasn't been a dog out that has chased me.  That all ended today.  This dog was a sheep dog of some kind.  I had seen some geese and other birds in a pen as I rode by a farm house so when I first heard a rustle in the bushes beside me I thought I would look over and see a bird.  Nope!  It was a dog!  And it was chasing me down the road.  Yikes.  I shouted "NO!!" a few times and it stopped and just looked at me like, "What?"  lol  Okay, that wasn't too bad. 

Then I took the wrong turn.  I was supposed to stay on Engle but instead I turned onto Gerig Dr.  Of course I didn't know I had taken a wrong turn at the time.  The nice part about doing new routes in this area is that most of the roads hook up with another road that I do know so if I got of course I would eventually pop out somewhere I knew.  

I riding down this road and I hear something from the side of the road in the bushes and I look over my shoulder.  Crap on a cracker!!  A German Shepherd dog is running after me!  Oh man!  I start shouting NO like I did before and pedaling faster.  The dog just kept running after me.  I got a nice little aerobic interval right there because I got up to 20 miles an hour and my heart rate was about 170 bpm.  I thought that dog was never going to give up!  Scared the shit out of me, not going to lie.  The dog wasn't barking or anything but in my mind this is what it was like:

Here's what it probably really looked like:

I wasn't going to slow down to find out if it just wanted to give me a lick and get a pet!  I think I went almost 1/4 of a mile before it finally gave up.  What a relief!!

I came to a T in the road and wasn't quite sure where I was.  I took a right and figured I'd bump into a road I knew sooner or later.  I couldn't figure out why this road was so busy.  I hadn't seen any traffic all morning and now there were a ton of cars.  Then I saw a sign I recognized and realized that I was on Hwy 20.  Well, I went quite a ways the wrong way!  I really didn't want to be riding on the highway but fortunately there was road to the right and I knew this one would get me going back towards home.  I turned right on Bohlken and started making my way back.  

I was keeping an eye out as a I passed houses because I wanted to be ready if there was anymore dogs.  Fortunately I didn't see anymore....on my bike ride.  

I was supposed to ride 75 minutes but because of my little adventure off course I went 85 minutes.  But the last 10 minutes were back in town and took awhile because of traffic lights and being cautious about cars.  

Once I got home I changed out of my bike shorts, got on some running pants and took off for my run.  I was supposed to run eight minutes and walk one minute, repeat for 30 minutes.  It always feels odd to run right after a long bike ride.  I can't tell how fast I'm going and my rear end is either completely numb or feels really weird.  It took almost the whole first eight minutes to feel like I was getting into any kind of good rhythm.  

I had just finished a walk interval and was running again when I saw more dogs.  Yep, this time there were two.  They were on the sidewalk and no one was around.  As soon as they saw me they started barking like crazy.  One of them was doing the whole snarling thing.  I just kept running but kept my eye on them.  

Just as I was nearing them and wondering if the ferocious animals were going to be the ones who actually got a bite out of me, a man a few houses up ahead steps out of his driveway and yells at the dogs to stop it and come back.  Whew, what a relief.  

Actually, I was pretty sure I could outrun these two dogs.  They were two fat little wiener dogs.  They totally waddled down the sidewalk.  Not near as terrifying as the encounters I had while I was on my bike ride.  

It was a near thing but I got away. :-)  

I am sure there are little dogs that could be just as scary as big dogs but fortunately for me these were not the scary little ankle biters.  They just acted like it for a minute.  The owner apologized and said if I had taken one step towards them they probably would have peed.  

I finished off my run with a decent pace.  Not great but not terrible which is also how I felt about the bike ride.  At least I got both done.  :-)  

My friend Trevor said that next time on the bike I should spray my water bottle at the dogs face.  Sounds great except that would take coordination.  Get the water bottle out, point it at the dog, spray and do all of that while pedaling really fast so that I don't get caught.  Oh ya, and don't fall down.  lol I don't think that would work very well for me.  

Last day of school with students was last Friday.  Last day of work is Monday.  

I'm ready for some summer fun and to keep working on getting stronger and faster, especially if I'm going to be chased by dogs!!