On August 27, 2015

Progress despite setbacks

This week was fun, a long run, a short fast run, and a whole bunch of burpees, and otherwise uneventful, without much to report.

The long run was pretty easy, just shy of 12 miles. I ran the Sherburne Trail, up the Hershey Highway to Pico Peak, back down the Hershey Highway to the trail, up to Killington Peak and back down. I didn’t go particularly fast, but there was no heat stroke, and I had no problems, but for my left hip. The usual.

Further into the week, I did more walking as I had very little time for training.  So I tried a short fast run, three miles on Killington Road, the length of the sidewalk, up and down.

The best part about this run was that I really cranked. All three miles were half up/half down, and all three were in the seven minute mile range, two in the mid-sevens, one almost eight (the first mile). It was a really easy, and for me, very fast. Hopefully by the time I run the Dallas Turkey Trot this Thanksgiving, I can make it down into the sixes!

Hopefully this coming week I will have more time to run.

After a week or ten days of true guinea pig progress, affection, petting, no biting, Pip the Impaler is back and worse than ever…snapping at my fingers like a dog biting water from a garden hose.  While this is discouraging, it seems like we do a two steps forward, one step back kind of thing.  While he is snapping, he is also far more relaxed during our daily snuggles, and he is stretching and flattening out on his belly at the beginning of the snuggle (which is a sign of relaxation and comfort).

This means that though there are setbacks, that the rescue effort is paying off.

Also, his behavior seems to involve primarily fingers. When he is feeling snappy I can put my toes in the cage and he investigates them without so much as a nibble. It’s totally adorable!

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