It turns out Nixie is quite an aggressive 5K dog. She looks a bit like Eeyore in that picture, but don’t be fooled. She was my training buddy when I was doing half marathon walks (and hopefully will be again) but this is the first event I’ve taken her to. Now, I have to start by explaining the Turkey Trot. Trot is NOT the right word. The first half a mile is, at best, a turkey shuffle. After that, you get to walk. If you behave and stay on the sidewalk the whole time like they want you to, you walk at the speed of whoever you get behind.
Luckily, there aren’t enough course proctors to make you behave. Nix pulled and pulled and pulled. She wanted to be in FRONT. Not that she was going to get there with me, but we did pass a hundred or so people. Even in the rain there were at least two or three hundred people walking – all ages, all abilities, and maybe thirty dogs. Really. Lots of dogs. Great dogs. I think there were six goldens.
As a side comment, they should have closed the street for the whole thing. It would have been far more fun, and then people could have stretched into their normal speeds and kids could have brought bikes and all kinds of things. It’s only an hour, and there is another parallel street, so shame on us (I work for the city, although not in events) for not closing the street down all the way.
Meantime, Toni was watching agility on the computer so we came home and watched the finals. Lovely well-trained dogs and people.