And I ran. I ran so far away.

After over a week of no running, I decided to jump back on the proverbial treadmill. 

When Hubs got home from work the other day, he asked if I wanted to run.  I said a firm, "Yes," and turned off the taco meat.  (See, I told you our dinner menu is full of boring. However, I am thankful for the suggestions so far. Keep them coming!)

We have a timeline of goals that we are trying to meet.  To be honest, I am the one with the goals since Hubs is already capable of running a 5k.  Hubs keeps saying "we" because he is kind and considerate and doesn't want me to feel badly about the fact that one of my first goals was .25 mile.  (That's about 3 mailboxes.)

This is why I love him.

That an the fact that he was the cute one in my sociology class and he makes me laugh.

So, WE have goals that Hubs has set for us leading up to the 5k in May.  I mean, you can't go straight from watching the Amazing Race on the DVR to actually running a 5k.   There are like a hundred mailboxes in between.

Needless to say, with the allergies and the sickness, WE are behind our goal.  I had some catching up to do.  So, we ran the other day with the idea in mind that I would run as far as possible. Considering the time we have been off our game, I didn't think it would be very far.

At a few points, I did have to stop and walk a few steps to catch my breath. Hubs is always kind enough to stop with me and pretend he is tired, too. (More reason to love him.) I did keep going and at one point I seemed to get my stride.

Then we rounded a corner and out of nowhere my motivation came running at me. 

Two stray pit bulls ran toward us out of nowhere.  Let me tell you, when I joked around about only running when something was chasing me I did not expect for something to ACTUALLY BE CHASING ME.

The moment of panic turned into a moment of relief when we realized the pit bulls were friendly.  One of them ran away but the other one decided to join our pack and stayed with us.  We kept telling him to go home but he was determined to stay.  Maybe he liked us.  Maybe he thought I needed to run a little faster.

At one point along our run, he decided to visit another dog in a neighbor's yard. The dog was not happy about it, but there was no confrontation. (Whew.)  Our new canine friend left the dog alone and continued to run with us.  Hubs called the police to connect us with animal control, but they would not respond after hours. (Not only we were concerned about the dog being loose, we were concerned about the dog.  He was obviously friendly and we didn't want to see him hurt.)

The pit bull followed us all the way home.  I called a local shelter number and was also told they wouldn't come pick him up due to budget cuts unless it was an emergency.  As concerned citizens and dog lovers, we considered it an emergency, but what do we know? We only pay the taxes.

After all the running hoopla, I turned the taco meat back on and we had our tacos.  Dinner turned out to be exciting after all. 

We cleaned up the kitchen and Hubs mapped out our run.  I managed to run (with a few walking breaks) beyond our goal. I'd like to say it was because of my awesome coach, but the fact is that the closest thing to a lion motivating you to run is actually a friendly pit bull.

The next day, however, I had a different kind of motivation- stubbornness.  That part tomorrow...

Edited to add: The friendly pit bull left our porch and was found by another friendly neighbor who apparently found his home. I love happy endings. Don't you?