Tied to a Tree

My mother-in-law was pissed at me on Sunday.  Typically, I can do something to upset her at least every six months or so with either my glacial pace to report an injury to one of the girls, or something about my dog.  I love my dog. She was given the name Mango Margaret Salsa by Ruby when she was just a wee lad.  She is the second yellow lab we have had and keeps our streak alive of around eight years with a yellow running around.

She is my dog.  As much as the girls and my wife like to say otherwise, she is devoted to me.  When we say grace we always open up the prayer at the end to some freestyle blessings.  One of the girls always gives thanks for Mango. Alice likes to tell us, "I love Ruby and Mommy and Daddy and Mookie."  Mookie is and has been what Alice refers to Mango as and if Alice happens to have food, Mango responds to her when she calls her that as well.

We adopted her from Animal Haven a rescue shelter located Kansas.  She was just a little puppy. She is no longer a little puppy.  She's pushing 90lbs and is solid as a rock.  Since she turned one she has been my faithful running companion.  Regardless of the weather or distance she is always right at the front door, tail wagging knocking stuff over, eager to bound off the porch and get her run on.  I have learned a couple of lessons throughout the 1000's of miles we have logged.

1. When it gets about 75 degrees she is good for only three miles.

2. When it is less than 30 degrees, she is good for up to 20 miles.

3. Pace matters. If I am out on a slow run 8:00 minutes a mile or more, she can keep up. If I'm running sub eights, she is only good for around five miles.

4. If she lays down and is panting like she's dying because it's hot as hell and I'm an idiot, she's probably having heat stroke and my wife is going to kill me if she dies.

I would write more on lesson four but let's just say, she didn't die, I didn't take her to the vet, I thought my wife was going to kill me, and I was secretly crying when I was trying to cool her off.   She made it and I did learn that she has limits.

Mango also fills me with pride.  She is the best running partner I have ever had, including humans. I typically take her off the leash after one mile in, even if we are running in a busy residential or commercial area.  She sticks either right next to me or right behind me but nothing, not even squirrels, cats, other dogs, or food will pull her off the run.  It's like she knows what we are out there doing and doesn't want to screw it up by going off course.  That is not to say she doesn't stop to smell the roses every once in awhile, she does, but she catches back up and we carry on.  I love running past people on a trail who have their dogs on leashes and she is free.  Mango pays them no mind and they stare at me like I'm the dog whisperer.  In all fairness, she has been like this for me as long as I have had her and I can't take any credit.

She also loves to race.  We entered the spring edition of the Psycho Wyco 5K last year and had a blast.  There were about 100 runners total and about 15 of us had dogs.  All the owner/dog teams had to start in the back.  While in theory this is a good idea, in practice it's terrible.  This race is over a extremely rugged single track trail in the woods.  Passing is treacherous at best and passing with a giant dog on a leash is complicated to say the least.  My method was just to yell really loud, "DOG COMING!" and hope they moved out of the way.  Even after starting a good two or three minutes after the leaders we passed 88 runners and finished 12th OVERALL and first dog in.  Watching her run up hills is like watching a primal beast in it's element.  She was built for this and we killed it. When we hit the finish line a guy said to me, maybe you should start in the front next year.  I agree.

Now, it's the dead of winter again and I'm training for my next marathon.  This past Sunday was my long run of 14 miles.  I knew I wanted to run it just a little off of marathon pace or 7:30 to 7:45 a mile and that was going to be way too fast to take Mango with me. The problem is as soon as she sees me getting dressed to run she knows what up.  She bounds over to the front door and starts going nuts.  She just stares at me with those giant eyes and how can I not take here with me. 

Off we go, she hustles along for the first 3 miles or so and then we hit this really long straight away.  It is in a unpopulated area so I don't mind her falling far behind because she can still see me.  Well, we hit the seven mile turn around and she is falling almost a quarter of a mile behind me.  What to do? I run a few more miles and I wait for her to catch up, we hike about 30 yards off the road into the woods and I tie her to a tree.  I pick up the pace for my last four miles and get home, grab the keys, drive back to the country road, hike into the woods, unhook her from the tree and she jumps into the car.  All is well.  I thought this was a pretty quick thinking on my part until I told my mother-in-law of my great idea at Sunday night dinner.

"You are an idiot" she says. "What if someone would have taken her or she froze to death?"

Both highly unlikely possibilities given that someone would have had to have been searching in the woods for a dog tied to a tree that they didn't know existed and secondly she just ran nine miles and was panting like hell and had a fluffy bed of snow to lay in.


While in retrospect, my decision to take her in the first place was the wrong choice but leaving her tied to a tree was pretty awesome.