Sometimes Mother Nature has her own timeline. It is always wise to accept it…never mess with Mother Nature.

Translation: I didn’t get much 5K training in, in fact I spent most of my training time indoors being lazy and watching the wonderful snow fall.

However, mother nature did pause long enough for my perfect running partner (PRP) and the floppy old lady (FOL) to do another 5 mile walk on Saturday. We drove west from town, parked on the side of the road and took off down a gravel road that was not muddy. Glorious! The mountains had a lovely frosting of snow. The high desert looked as though it might come alive from the moisture.

We had 3 dogs today. One of the dogs, a beautiful border collie named Johnny, always finds little hoof and leg bones laying around. He has a nose for leg, bones, and toes. Saturday he had a small antelope hoof. Last time I saw him carry around a couple of nice leg bones. That is about all Johnny does with them, carry them around, perhaps munch a little, and drop it when the next nummie comes along.

Tucker the beagle is a great hunter. He walks purposefully through the wide-open spaces with nose down looking for a scent. He thought he found a bunny holed up in a collapsed tire. Tucker circled the tire and bayed and bayed. We ignored him since this is normal behavior, and PRP and FOL walked the 2.5 miles back to our vehicle. Tucker never gave up the hunt. We drove back to get him, but the nice FedEx guy had picked him up for us.

As for Tango, he venture away from the road now and then. He hung out with the ranch boys some. Other times he just plodded along, keeping me in his peripheral vision. I am not sure but I think he was smiling the whole time!

So, PRP and and FOL wont be able to train together until mid-May. PRP is going off to New Mexico for work and FOL is going to OH to pack up mom. However, I will work on my own following the advice from PRP. My goal is to be actually running at least part of a 5K by the time I get back.

Advice from PRP

• watch my posture
• small steps are better than long, gangly steps
• avoid heel strikes
• pace yourself
• finish in style (no ugggggg, uggggg, owwwwww, awwwww pant pant when crossing a finish line- pacing helps here)

As for training the next few weeks, PRP says:

• Consistency
• One long walk/run day
• 2 short walk/run days
• 1 interval training day
• bike ride cross-train
• rest day, stretching

Since I am ready for the consistency part of training I need to figure out something for today! I am happy to report it is snowing yet again, so I will get up to the senior center and use their free treadmill. Woo hoo..I am on my way to running a 5K