June has been incredibly rainy. And not just drizzle. Yesterday it was 44 degrees and my jacket was very wet before I finished dog chores - which included putting more straw into the dog houses.
The dogs and I, after hot end-of-May weather, have decided not to do any more training runs - despite the cooler temps...at least for a couple of weeks. Part of the reason for this break is that Jersey and Summer are both due to have pups over the next three weeks. The pups are rather experimental; they will be Cougar's first litters and my first Alaskan puppies. I just hope they have the good attitudes, appetites and movement their parents do!
In addition to this coming change, next Tuesday I start my new job - Full-time. How to manage dogs, writing, work and the rest of my life is going to be a challenge but I look forward to seeing how the adventure progresses.
Today I'm still a bit sore from my own "training". For just over a year, I've been running 1-2 miles a couple days a week. Tuesday my brother and I decided to run 4 miles and see if we could, at the very end, make it back up the driveway (running!).
For those of you who haven't experienced it, our driveway is 1 mile long and very steep in a couple places - not to mention uphill all the way. But I make the dogs do it for fall training and figured I should be able to do it too.
Handsome, my collie, is my running buddy and I think he was a lot of help. I've found I run better when I am trying to keep up with something or someone. We took a shortcut down a ridge at the beginning but Garrett caught us and passed - staying in front until the driveway, when we passed him.
But, being blessed with a longer stride, he passed us again about halfway up. Of course I couldn't let him, my "little" brother, beat me so, amidst my sister's cheers, we sprinted past him home. It was fun, but like I said - I am still sore!
After several months break, I've started working on my book again. I've been writing a lot of non-fiction or short stories, so I'm coming back refreshed and have re-written the first couple chapters. Since it's a long book, and I stopped halfway through re-writing last winter, the story is fresh and parts I'd forgotten are being rediscovered. I am very motivated to finally finish this, since there are tons of ideas floating around my head. I want to put them all on paper, but only after I get through this re-write! So I've been thankful for the rainy days - they are perfect for writing.
