Day of the Dog

Please let me first start by saying how appreciative I am from the unbelievable feedback I have been getting from people reading up on the blog, it means a lot. It is funny bc lately it seems the night before our long runs can be more interesting than the day of the run. Let's begin by saying this Saturday, Bonnie and I were set to run 14 miles. But on Friday night, Bonnie and I went to Tacoma WA (2 hours away) to go see Alan Jackson in concert. Mark got us free tickets through his work, we were pumped! I never listened to country music until last summer when everything happened with my dad, and I started working with Neil painting, and Mark was home, and I decided to listen to his ipod one day while painting. I let my guard down and listened to his counry playlist, and I have been hooked ever since. It's so cool bc oftentimes I feel like a cowboy, and I just wanna go wrangle up cattle, but since I do not have cattle and just have dogs, I just let them run wild in the yard and then I run and tackle them around their necks. Sometimes we do end up landing in their crap, and that's just no fun for any of us. I wish I could just do the rope thing instead..

So we didn't get home til like 1 am from the concert, and needless to say, we were beat down on Sat morning. So the deal was, we were not going to be running with our TNT group that morning like we normally do; we were just going to run the 14 on our own later that day. Bonnie had signed us up for this "Doggie Dash" on Sat morning. It was at 9:15 am, a little 2 miler that a ton of people do in downtown Portland. It's a big dog city up here in Portland. But the plan was to get up early to go meet with our group before their run at 7am, bc our new new found friend Cassie was going to speak to the group before the run about why she was doing TNT. (I spoke a few weeks ago).

The reason this was such a big deal for us to go support Cassie for her speech is bc first and foremost, she is a total sweetheart, and also bc the reason she is doing TNT is bc her dad passed away from non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, (same as Big Neil) a year ago on this day. So her dad passed away a year ago on May 10th, now the day of her longest run ever. Just 12 days before we lost the big guy. I am not sure, but I don't think any of our TNT members have lost someone so dear to us so recently, so we share a common bond. Cassie is doing the San Diego "Rock-n-Roll Marathon". And her mom Patty came down from WA to be there to support her on her run too, very cool.

We ended up missing her speech bc we got kinda lost on the way, which sucked, but everyone waited to run til we got there, which was awesome. At least we got there to see our crew off before their run. And none of the TNT groups are doing short runs right now, and these people have become like family in a way, so to be there to support them even when we were not running with them was great, especially Cassie. And we had time before our doggie dash to go work an aid station so we could give out water to our runners. Cassie's mom Patty went to the same aid station as well, and we spent an awesome 20 minutes talking with her about her husband Ron, and my dad. He was a State Trooper in WA for many years, and he fought the good fight for 10years, but lost. Patty was blown away to find out my dad was diagnosed and passed after only 13 weeks. Anyways, it was an UNBELIEVABLY POSITIVE way to start our day, and how cool is this, her mom's full name is Patty Neil Looker! Has anyone ever heard of Neil being a woman's name? I haven't, but Patty if you are reading this, let me tell you how cool I think it is! I tell ya, his name just keeps popping up with my training, too funny. Another God wink, eh ma??? ;)

So now Bonnie and I head off to downtown Portland to do our 2 mile dog run, and Brady and Jake are frigging loving it! Bon ran with Brady and he just took off out the gates. Bonnie told me afterwards he was trying to win it. I guess he was dodging and weaving in between runners and dogs for the whole race. With a name like Brady, dude's gotta be a winner right? Hells yeah! And I got to run with crazy Jake. I have never run with psycho Jake before, and now I kinda know why. He is the worst to run with ever! What a nut. All he did was cut in and out in front of me for the first mile. I eventualy had to make him stay on one side, and he did. But from the minute we got there, he was going nuts with all the dogs. There were like 1500 dogs at this event, it's a big deal out here. But it would be like putting me in an open area with 1500 beers to sample and having me leashed up. Now jake is just over a year old, so he is still very much a puppy, a big headed 85lb black lab puppy. He was just dragging me around sniffing dog's asses and playing the whole day. I couldn't even have stopped him if I tried. Jake was in his happy place, so was Brady.

So the race ends, and there are these little swimming pools set up for the dogs to drink out of, or step in to cool down. So Jake LOVES to cool his belly, so we knew he what he was gonna do. So he goes in the pool, which is right near this long line of people waiting for their free pancakes, and jake just lays down, hind legs out like a frog. Now the pool barely fits him just laying in it, it's small. So he lays down and starts spinning around the pool as if he is swimming but he can only go in circles. Everybody in line is watching and ROLLING! Later on there was a dog kissing contest for a free night stay at a nice hotel, so Bonnie decides to do it with jake for a laugh. I mean you are lucky half the time if Brady let's you pet him, so Jake got the nod.

So they call Bonnie and Jake into the ring and I am laughing so hard bc I know Jake is going to blow this. And so does Bonnie, but she does it for the laugh anyways. Sure enough, Jake barely pays attention to her in there and is juist checking out the scene around him. Hilarious to us bc the other people in this contest should have gotten a room with their dogs the way they got mauled, jake by far was clearly the worst, love it though! Jake ends up giving her a quick kiss at the end, good dog.

Bon and jake leave the ring, and Bonnie and I are rolling. Then all of a sudden jake starts rolling around on the ground submissively, but into groups of dogs to play with them. Now there are like 10 dogs standing around him and he just keeps bowling into them all. He is not just laying down, he is literally tucking and rolling into a bunch of them as if to say, frigging play with me already!!! But he is going so nuts doing this to all these dogs, none of them even know what to do with him. Now
10 dogs are all just standing ther watching Jake go wild, it was one of the funniest things I have ever seens a dog do. There were almost 2,00 dogs there, and I would bet anything no dog was funnier or crazier than jake. Dude's a nut. It was just so funny to see how excited he was to be around so many dogs. Brady was chill and just tried to hump a few dogs along the way. No Giselle's were there, but Brady got his swerve on anyways. I think he could could've used a little Tessa loving Murph...

After the dog dash, Bon and I decided we would take this week off from doing a long run. We were just not feeling it. And we figure we can just make up the run this week on our own. I do not want to try to do long runs when I am just not in it to win it. And on a sidenote, Mark and Talin ran 18 on Saturday!!!! Mark's longest run ever! And they ran it at 9 minute miles!!!!!! Damn!!! What a couple of studs! We are going to have to work to keep up with the Jenner's come gameday...

So our run went from 14 miles to 2 miles, but it was such an exhilariting 2 let me tell ya....Thanks for reading guys!

Sean