My Running Partner

My running partner is three months old, she will be 14 weeks tomorrow.  She was born on August 1, 2013.  She is around five or six pounds now, I think.  I need to weigh her.  She started running with me about four weeks ago.  I didn't know how well she would do at the time.  The day before we started running together, we had gone on a walk as a family and brought her.  She did really well then.  I decided that we would test out running.

We started out with two miles.  She did very well considering she was only 10 weeks old.  I figured I should get her started early.  Her name is Hazel.  Here is a picture of Hazel and I before a run on October 30, 2013. 

It is kind of hard to imagine that such a little girl can run so far.  Her legs might be five inches long.  We do about a twelve minute mile together.  She is funny, I think of her as my personal trainer.  She will go pretty slow for awhile and then sprint like crazy for a couple minutes.  Sprinting has never really been my thing, but I figure that she is so little, and if she can do it, I can too.  I think that as we run together, we will get faster together.  As she gets older, she will be a really good runner.

This little girl is part Shih-tzu and part Mini Pinscher.  She has a lot of energy.  Yesterday was the first day we did three miles together.  I think she innately knows when she has gone two miles though.  She wanted to start walking at the two mile mark.  We walked for a little while until she figured out that we weren't done, then she decided we might as well run again.  When we are running on the trail, she knows exactly where we need to turn to head back to the vehicle. 

I need to run on the trail with her, otherwise, we encounter a lot of young children.  Children, by nature, want to pet a puppy.  My puppy, by nature, wants to be petted.  It makes for a very challenging run.  I don't want to not let children pet her, but I do want to get my run in. 

We have started running almost daily.  Today was a two mile run.  I don't want to over exert her.  I know she is still little.  The older she gets I think she will be able to go further.  For now, I think we will keep it between two and four miles when we run together. 

My children have also started to want to go on walks and runs more since we got Hazel.  I think they enjoy walking/running with her.  She enjoys being out there.  My mother-in-law made a sweater for her, because she is short-haired and gets cold easily.  She has been needing to run in the sweater because it has gotten colder around here. 

Hazel in her sweater