Today's Training Run

27 December 2009:  Sunday

6 miles

13.5 mph max

7.9 mph moving average

Flat terrain, mostly hard-packed or packed powder trails.  Temp ~ 5 above zero. Stephanie Little Wolf’s to CHSR trail to Pleasant Valley Rd to Baseline to Schoen’s Field to PV Rd to CHSR trail to Stephanie’s. 

Just & Rose (lead)

Nels & Beau (swing / team)

Orion & Seamus (wheel)

Orion tangled his harness being silly at hook-up, but only once.  Then he lined out like a big dog, which was great because I had my hands full keeping Just and Rose lined out while Stephanie got her team hooked up.  We had a good clean launch.  Just refused the gee onto the CHSR trail until Steph went by with her team.  Then he took the turn to give chase.  He also tried to turn into Lynn O’s place and it took chasing the other team to get him moving again.  At one point we passed Stephanie’s team, then her dogs wanted to try to pass us.  That was fun. 

On the straight away between PV Rd and baseline Just went totally silly and tried to turn into a drive-way.  Then, rather than correcting turned the team around.  I wasn’t able to hook down but Stephanie came up with her dogs in two, got Just aimed up the trail properly (with her team in front), and untangled Rose’s harness, which had become all boogered up in the melee.  We followed Stephanie the remainer of the run without any major problems, until returning, when Just tried to turn into Lynn O’s place again (he’s lived there much of his life).  Rose helped turn him back onto the road and we finished the run in good shape. 

Beau got into a bit of neck line tangle when we turned onto the trail around Schoen’s field, but I was able to hook down well in order to fix it.  I think we had about four or maybe five hook downs in this run.  All were a bit “iffy”, but we got away with it. 

Poor Orion worked too hard at the start, and pretty much wore himself out.  He was slowing considerably by about mile 4 or so.  He nonetheless finished in harness had a wagging tail when we finished up.