Went running on Friday around Stone Mountain again.  I decided to push it on the first half and take it easy on the second half.  My time was exactly the same as it was the run before, 62 minutes. 

I broke a blister in the middle of my run and just kept going.  I didn't think too much about it, until the next day.  That's when it really hurt.  I mean, I could barely walk.  It was two blisters that met in the middle and became one huge oozing bleeding blister.  I hope it heals before the race, there's about two weeks left.  On Sunday and Monday, I only ran a mile because of the the blister.  The dogs got to benifit from it though. 

I took Ringo and Sandy for a run around the Mountain once, and it took me 40 minutes just to go 2 miles!  My husband drove around the mountain looking for us after an hour, he found us only having gone 3 1/2 miles.  Have you ever tried to drag a reluctant 80 lb. dog on a run?  So now, I only take the dogs on my shorter runs until after I'm done training for the 10K that's when I'll go back to running just 3 miles at a time.  They still aren't all that keen on running that far, but they like it better than running 4 miles or more.

You know, I see people running with their dogs, and it all looks so effortless.  I've got mine with me, and there's one dog pulling hard on the leash, and the other running with it's breaks on.  I'm saying "Come on Sandy."  or "Faster Ringo." or something like that, depending on whose doing what.  Not to mention they want to stop and sniff things, or take off after a cat.  And then they only want to go one speed, once they've decided they want to both run.  They want to go one speed on the straight-a-way, but it's the same speed up the hill and the same going down it.  They don't believe in slowing down because maybe you might get tired running up hill, and they certainly don't believe in speeding up just because you're running down hill, lol. 

Not only did I have to slow down my running because of the blister, but my ankles got swollen after my Friday run.  I injured my left ankle back in like April, so why is it getting swollen again now?  And why did the right ankle get a little swollen.  My son who was in Cross Country in High School, said it could be because I over used my right leg while running.  And thinking about it, he could be right. I have been over compensating for my weaker ankle and pulling with my right leg harder while I run.

Next year will be my year to run a good 10k!  (Lol, I say that every year.)