18 miles flat dirt tempo run DOG ATTACK

Thurs 12 Feb: Thought about waking up early and hitting the rollers and did get up very early but hit the computer instead after a hard discussion with the wife last night and her not liking 3 a days and wanting more family time. My goal was to see what mid week activities I could cut and maintain my long efforts. End result was I worked it out so there are no more 3 a days and 2 a days are limited. The key will be not biking to work every day but only every other day for the new plan since it is really the long efforts that matter most. Who knows since my volumes were kind of arbitrarily fixed anyhow. Maybe the new numbers are better for my performance. I am still shooting over the 12 hr per week number that Maffetone lays down. Found myself with a few hours to kill and some miles to catch up on so I decided to run to Peyton and back on the Rock Island trail that runs up the old railroad bed up 24 in a very straight line. Had a no carb breakfast before the run. I was taking the dog so I didn't have high hopes on pace. After warming up and still carrying 48 oz of water to share with the pup, I quickly found it comfortable to hold an 8 min pace. Was sure I could hold it the whole way and felt at about MAF so I went for it wondering how long the pup would hold out. Was hitting just seconds under 8 on every mile into Peyton and then same on the way out. The dog was off leash cause there was no one else out there. WEll... cept for one lady with 3 dogs and a bike with 20' leashes. When we were approaching she got way off the trail. Since my dog doesn't chase other dogs off trail, I decided not to leash him up. Turns out, 3 dogs was too much for her and they pulled her until they got to the path where they attacked my dog. Luckily after being attacked over the years, he has learned to bite back. I was proud of him. Then she has the nerve to say "You should leash your dog." I yelled something not nice back at her and just kept moving. Kept the pace a few seconds faster per mile than the way out for most of the way and had to coax the dog more and more as he took more and more water. The last 2 miles he finally called the pace a quitz and we slowed a bit to cool down. Ended with 18.3 on the day for running and zero on the bike. Did the run in the Merrell Trail gloves with no pain or issues and had one bottle of GU endurance drink and one CLIF shot at the turnaround. Nice to see compared to when I first wore them a couple of years ago for a 2 mile run where I thought my calves would die. A hot tub soak later and I was feeling good as new. At night was mock Christmas with the family and had a few delicious beers and opened past due presents while we had home made egg nog and marinated flank steaks.