Meet Malcom

Meet Malcom. He's my ever faithful running, walking, dragging partner. He's roughly a year old and hates getting his picture taken, the cold, being wet, and pretty much anything that might get him dirty.

Malcom joined our family in November of this past year. My daughter, Little Miss, was given a choice for her birthday. We told her she could either get a shiny new Nintendo DS or rescue a dog from our local animal shelter. She is 6 and my husband was sure she'd choose the video game; otherwise, I'm positive he would have never allowed me to make such an offer. (He's not a fan of animals.) My ever compassionate Little Miss chose to rescue a dog.

We made 2 trips to the animal shelter before we decided to bring Malcom home with us. The first trip we took was just to get to know the dogs and talk about possible choices. We viewed each dog at the shelter (which was heartbreakingly full) and I wanted to bring them all home. She had a decision to make. The moment Little Miss laid eyes on Malcom I knew he was going to be joining our family. She lit up. We asked the attendant if we could take him out to the yard on a leash to see how he acted.

Malcom was a bit jumpy so I was apprehensive. With 3 children, day care kids, and a constant stream of nurses and care takers coming through our house I wasn't sure how we would adjust to having a jumpy dog. But he fit all our qualifiers. We wanted a large dog, a protective dog, someone for me to run with, a dog around a year old, short-haired, preferably black lab and who would have a decent life expectancy. Malcom fit the bill. He was everything we wanted and more.

The next day we picked him up. His name was Ronald at the time, which Chloe changed on sight. We found out his story before we took him home. Ronald had been found at a McDonald's parking lot. He was scared and starving. When the woman rescued him he jumped from her moving vehicle. He was pretty badly beaten up when he arrived at the shelter. He was skinny, had some cuts, his ears were roughed up on the ends, and he was anxious.

We brought Malcom home. He was still a bit beaten up from his escapades when he was rescued. Everything I read said to give him roughly a month to adjust to living in a new place. The first month had a lot of ups and downs. We had one near run away, (he ran around the neighbors house and came right back.) lots of accidents, lots of toys, lots of snuggles, lots of giggles, and lots of moments that made me question whether or not this would work. We made a commitment to this pup and to teach our children responsibility. Malcom calmed down and became a great member of our family.

We are now in the process of training Malcom to run with me. The first time I took him out for a walk he pulled and pulled and pulled. I think he is rather new to the leash. It seems each time we go out we have a little better of a time getting him to not pull. Today for about 1/3 of our 3.8 miles he was great. I'm beginning to think the road to a well trained running dog is paved with 10,000 no's but we are making progress. Instead of having to stop every step to make him stop pulling we can go for a few steps at a time, soon it will be a block.

We thought we were rescuing Malcom when we brought him home with us. Turns out Malcom has given us each such a great part of himself. Every day he rescues us a little more. I'm so proud of my daughter having chosen to sacrifice a toy to save a life. I'm proud of how far Malcom has come and I'm proud of my family for having given him more than a place to sleep but a home.

So here's to running all over 2015 with Malcom, my running buddy, always at my side.

Yak Tracking

For my Christmas stocking I received an awesome pair of yaktrax because I am determined to become a winter runner. While shopping at MC Sports I picked up the Yaktrax Pro Size Small for 19.99 which happened to be miss marked but they gave it to me anyway. (Shout out for awesome customer service MC Sports!) They retail at 29.99.

The only instructions for the product is a picture on the back. I'm thankful for that picture but trying to figure out which end goes on the toes and what goes on the heel took me a minute or two because it really wasn't clear. The trax themselves worked great. They allowed me to keep my crazy 60 pound black lab/boxer mix from pulling me wherever he pleased. I was able to run effectively up and down some pretty major hills.

One negative is that they popped off twice (once for each foot). I had them on there pretty good and tight when I left the house so I'm not really sure how that happened. One of the times they popped off I tried walking to see if I really needed them and it was quite slick so I found a place to put them on so I could continue. Maybe it just takes practice to get them on the way they work best.

Overall, I really enjoyed my experience with Yaktrax and I plan on using them plenty over the course of this winter. As of right now I have no intent to get anything else to take with me to keep my feet sticking to the ground but I'm open for suggestions if you think you have used something that works better than a Yaktrax.

That's all for today! Keep on running all over 2015.

I am not a paid employee or representative of Yaktrax. The Yaktrax were purchased by me at MC Sports. I am not receiving any endorsement of free equipment for my opinion of MC sports or Yaktrax. The picture at the top of the blog belongs to Yaktrax and can be found at www.yaktrax.com.

Weird Weather

Today, I ran and walked 4.4 miles. It was an interesting run, a balmy 40 degrees. Helped me break double digits on only the second day of the year, bringing my ytd (year to date) up to 11.2. The brisk wind rushed over my face was invigorating but not painful.

There is so much to see in the little park that I run in. First off there are these magnificent man made waterfalls that change colors. During most of the off season they are turned off but the shear magnitude that mankind could create something so colossal and beautiful is a reminder of the ingenuity of man and it stands smack in the middle of my run. Across the street there is a pond with wetlands. During my 2.5 years of running at the park I've witnessed and heard the screams of heron, I've danced with defensive geese, I've rescued the odd duckling wandering away from it's flock, laughed at the dancing otters as they bounce along the surface of the water and crossed the path of countless deer some coming so close that I was sure they would run me over.

Today was a first though. Today as I ran along the 1.3 mile loop of trail and sidewalk and marveled at how crystal clear the fresh layer of ice was across the pond I saw people. They were ice skating on the pond. Now I've grown up walking on ice. You really can't grow up in Northern Michigan and think you will never go out on ice. But whenever I go out on the ice there has to be at least 12" of the stuff or I get ancy. I'm not sure there was more than 3 inches of ice out there but they were skating. It looked like so much fun just to race around the little stretch of pond. These guys were pretty skilled as well. They were doing figure 8's and little tricks. I enjoyed watching them dance along while I puffed next to the pond like the little engine that could.

It was a beautiful moment captured in a memory. What a wonderful moment in time. Excited to get back out there tomorrow and capture some more memories.

Let's go 2015. I'm going to run all over you.

The Running Truth

I'm sitting here trying to figure out what I want to post. Today is the first day of a brand new year and I should write something inspirational, right? Why is it that I'm not feeling very inspired. 2014 wasn't the greatest year for me but it wasn't the worst. I would say it was pretty mediocre and much to my dismay I have a foreboding feeling over my head for 2015. There are several people in my life who aren't well medically and so many other things seem to be out of my control. How can I go forward with eager anticipation into this new year? To make matters worse I kept none of my resolutions for last year and actually gained about 10 pounds over all by the end of the year.

I don't even want to do the classic let's review 2014. I just don't want to be reminded of it. I don't want to think about failures, deaths, sorrow, anger, frustrations. There were some highlights. We moved into a fantastic home. We made a lot of amazing new friends. We rescued the most loving dog you could meet. I will hold those highlights and learn from the failures. Everyone has them. We are so afraid to admit when life defeats us. But life defeats all of us sometimes.

Looking forward to 2015, I really don't want to set any major goals that won't happen. I guess you could say my lack of enthusiasm for last year has impaired me. However, I made one goal. An amazing friend of mine who I met through this fantastic facebook group changed his life last year. He went from mostly sedentary to a 7 minute mile pace runner. I made it my goal to run at least half of what he does this year. It won't be fast but I'm going to get the miles in. I'm going to become a winter runner. (I'd say running on January 1st in 27 degree weather qualifies me.) Those are two goals that are just going to happen no matter what.

As for the rest of my objectives, I'm going to set mini-goals. Weekly goals that will keep me going. This week my goal is to run at least 5 days. I started that out with 7.2 awesome miles of run walking. I ran over half of the mileage and walked the rest but everyone has to start or in my case restart somewhere.

I'm pledging to post on my facebook page and blog daily. To keep me accountable and just get my words out into the abyss. If no one reads this but me than I will be happy enough but if you find my words honest, helpful or just need to say something please feel free to comment or share. I'm always open to meeting new people and this journey is tough when you go solo.

That's it for today. Time to dish out some soup, hit the grocery store and maybe see a friend or two tonight.

Life happens but you don't have to just watch it go by. Let's jump into life and make the most of what we can.