Exercising Peggy

Peggy's been running with me three mornings a week for three or four miles at a time but it hasn't been enough. In fact she's adapted to the mileage and yesterday pretty much pulled me with the leash around my waist for the full four miles. It made it an easy run and it crossed my mind to consider having Gary show up at mile 19-20 with Peggy so she could assist me in the last seven miles of Twin Cities Marathon. But, while you can sneak an iPod on the course, I think race officials would notice a dog. And dogs just aren't allowed in the TCM. I know. It doesn't make sense to me either.

Peggy needs more mileage and I'm not willing to run very far this month. If you watch The Dog Whisperer you see Cesar exercising a lot of his dogs while he rollerblades. That's not an option for me. I tried rollerblading once by myself and let's just say it didn't go as planned. But I do have a mountain bike. And I received encouragement from my neighbor who watched Peggy while we were out of town this summer. She took Peggy and her own dog for bike rides and said that Peggy did very well leashed to the rear frame of the bike. She felt that there was only a 50% chance of me going head over handlebars if Peggy jumped at a squirrel.

So I tried the bike this morning and what a joy! It was almost like riding a moped because Peggy pulled me for four miles. We stopped after two to get water and by the end of the ride her tongue was hanging way farther out of her mouth than it ever has before. She almost tripped over it. But she was happy. That tail was a-waggin'. And I think she'll be ready for another run tonight.