Yesterday, the wife suggested taking the dogs for a stroll/run around nearby Lake Calhoun. I've been neglecting my running since the attempted-three-lap trek around it almost a month ago, so I agreed to walk the dogs while she wanted to attempt to run the whole distance.

It's about a 5K circuit along the people path, and since we were taking the dogs, I envisoned a bit more dog control and stroll than running, so I didn't even change out of my jeans. I found I felt like running a little more than I thought I would, and that running in jeans and walking tennies isn't quite as nice as it may have been otherwise.

The wife took the big dog, thinking to run from the get-go, and went counter-clockwise, while I was going to stroll with the smaller dog clockwise. The plan was that she'd wear down the bigger dog by running a bit more than half way, and we'd spare the little dog by letting her go a little less distance. Since the wife was planning to run and I was planning to stroll, it seemed to make sense that we'd meet after a 60/40 or 70/30 split, or some such.

It ended up that the little dog wanted to do more than stroll, and I did, too, so we trotted more than planned. We ended up meeting much closer to half-way around.

The big dog apparently was a bit of a handful for the wife, though, as she had to drag him along. Apparently he kept wanting to turn around and follow the little dog and me, so he wasn't doing his usual "keep up with me" trot a little ahead.

We swapped dogs and continued in our directions, the dogs reversing to return from whence they came. The big dog did run ahead and then loop back as he scoped behind us when we started, but shortly the other two were out of sight and he was OK just trudging forth, a few steps ahead of me.

The shins groaned more as we progressed, and wearing jeans turned out to be really hot, so there was a little less running on the second half of the lake. That was OK by both the dog and me, as he gets a little too pooped when we run so far, and I was realizing that a month off of training reallly drops the endurance. Breathing turned into heaving when we did run for a few dozen paces, so we probably strolled the last mile instead of running much at all. We did "sprint" from the point I saw the other two already resting on the grass near the Jeep, which was a bit more than before the dog saw them, but once he did, running seemed to be the right thing to do.

The wife had a stopwatch and reported that it was a 47-ish minute trip. She reported that we had met after the first mile and a half at about 15 minutes, so the lazy second-half was two-thirds of the time. She also had a bit of a slower return as the little dog pooped out more on the last mile, too, but did state that she got to run more of the second half than the first.

In all, it was a good, if slow, welcome back to the pavement. Now I've just got to peel my butt from the chair long enough to trot around the neighborhood and start regain what I had just a month ago.