;)
Today was a full day! We started out this morning heading down to San Diego before 7am to go to a South Coast Jack Russell Terrier Club “fun day” with practice terrier races. Anne wanted to have Astro try the racing event since Astro loves to run with us (she usually runs at least 4 miles and sometimes up to 9 miles). It was being held at a park in Valley Center and we got there just as they were setting up. The idea is that the terriers race out of the gate chasing a lure pulled at high speed by a cable down a 200ft course jumping over four or five hurdles 1ft high along the way. Since we were some of the first people to arrive, we helped set up the course. The organizers couldn’t have been nicer or more welcoming and when everyone began arriving with their terriers, it was funny to see so many of these high energy dogs all together in the same place.;)
On her first try, Astro was a little confused and didn’t really like wearing the muzzle but after she realized all the other dogs were racing too, she was motived and did pretty good probably running about 10-12 heats. Orion in the other hand, was more interested in the other dogs than actually running himself. He made a couple attempts, and made it down the course once, spending his other two tries working on getting his muzzle off.
About half way through the afternoon, I walked over to explore some abandoned buildings in the field next door. There was a cluster of 5-6 buildings that looked like they used to be a mix of old garages and field offices not used in a long time. I made some attempts at capturing some brackets for HDR but didn’t bring my tripod and with the indoor light I might have had too much camera shake - we’ll see…;)
After the races, we drove down to Torrey Pines State Beach to get some running in ourselves. The weather was great (mid-50’s) with a good breeze and recent rains leaving the sandy trail just damp enough to firm up. This was my first trail run in my new Vibram Five Finger shoes which a got a couple days ago so I was really interested to see how they worked. We started at the lower parking lot, running up the hill then around the partially closed Guy Fleming loop, back to the road and up to the top and down the Razor Point trail to just above Flat Rock, back up to the road via Broken Hill and South Fork trails, then back down the road, down the big hill to the parking lot. The Vibrams were awesome. My legs felt great and I was rally cool to feel every bump and curve in the trail. I was able to corner and bank around curves easier and with more confidence since your feet don’t slide out as easily. So far I’ve run a few runs on streets as well and considering how the Vibrams have worked both on and off the trail, I think they are going to be my only running shoe for a while.