Different ways to run

Lately, I've been getting a little bored with my training schedule. It seems like every week is pretty much the same as the week before, except sometimes I'll add an extra hill repeat or an extra km of speed work. To help spice up my intervals, last Wednesday I had a little help from John. What did we do? Well, we went out and found a nice quiet pathway with a slight incline. John was on his rollerblades and I had brought along an old (large) shawl that I had picked up from my trip to Peru. We used it as a tether, so that the shawl was around my hips and John was holding onto the ends, and then I pulled him around on his roller blades. This is the John's eye view of the ordeal.

OMG, it was SO hard - we were going an incline and I could feel every single muscle burning. After awhile, I got a little tired of dragging him up hills, so we decided to try out running on a flat surface, which was easier, but still tiring. After one of the pulls, I was standing off to the side of the path trying to catch my breath, I heard a pack of runners coming and a "hi Michelle!" - I had forgotten that Wednesday nights are also run club nights. How embarrassing - I'm pretty sure we looked a little ridiculous!

On Sunday, I went back to my parent's place for Mother's Day. They've been watching a highly spirited cocker spaniel named Caesar for the last few months. I've been really wanting to take him out for a run since he seems to have an endless amounts of energy and finally did so on Sunday. We started off at a good pace, but then there was a lot of this on the way to the park:

and then there was more of this when we were at the park:



Then he lay down for awhile. Since I didn't have the heart to drag him around, we went back home and then there was a lot of this:



Poor little guy, I think I tired him out, he was actually quiet for the rest of the night!