Marathon Dog

Tory is my best 4 legged friend.  I owe him so much.

In the Fall of 2004, after my first marathon, I go into the office an my coworker, Charlie, who always encouraged me and gave attaboys after each distance milestone, said " I see a sub 4!"  Why do people do that?

After some low mileage weeks I started training for the 2005 Myrtle Beach Marathon... flat, fast and cool weather!  I increased the training paces and Tory joined the longer runs because it was nice and cool.

When running with a dog there are things to check periodically.
1. Is the gait normal and peppy (not favoring any leg)
2. Is the tongue normal pink and not red (as in dehydration)
3. Is there still interest in going after a squirrel, rabbit or deer?

As long as these are fine, no problem.  In mid December 2004, Tory and I ran 18 miles together. He was fine with no water needed. (he drank normally when we got home, not like he was overly thirsty. Temperatures were in the 30's.

In early January we ran Tory's first 20 miler!  He did great averaging 8:30 pace!  Alot of the run was on trails in the woods.

January 22, 2005 was a very memorable day.  We ran our last long run before the February 19th marathon.
The American Tobacco Trail in Durham, NC had a 6.5 mile section. Tory and I ran out and back and out... by mile 13.1 we averaged 8:12 pace. Just past the turn-around for the second out-and-back, we hit mile 20 at 8:22 pace.   That was a good place to quit but we were 6 miles from the car. No sense in being heroic but...
so we ran/walked the last 6 (more walking) and added 0.2 miles more. That leg avgd 9:45 pace.
We finished the 26.2 mile training run in:

We drove home and Tory went to the back door wanting to go outside.  I let him out and he gave me that stare! "Let's play". SO I threw a ball for him a few times as he barreled after it...... I was walking very stiff!

------------------ AMAZING-------------------

Myrtle '05..... I hit the half at an 8:05 pace (a PR....uh oh!)  The second half was ugly but I finished with 3:53:01... and learned a lesson..."START SLOW"


When I returned to work "someone" mentioned qualifying for the Boston Marathon....................