Seattle Animal Shelter Furry 5k, 6/10/12, Seattle, Washington

What a race!

The Furry 5k is listed in Running with Dogs as the only competitive dog-friendly race in the United States. Yes and yes. Competition was fierce, and dog friendly would be an understatement. 

The race is held yearly in Seattle's Seward Park as a fundraiser for the Seattle Animal Shelter. 

5/6 of our feet are off the ground!

Cricket, more interested in seeing Elliot than finishing the race

The race has a fairly substantial hill... eeps. Cricket did her best, but there was still a one minute difference between our first mile (almost completely flat, 6:32) and our second mile (with the big hill, 7:28). There was a water station halfway, and Cricket desperately wanted to stop... but I was a terrible running buddy and made her press on-- I knew we had a shot! (In fairness, she would have just gotten a sideache and regretted it, anyway.) 

At the end, Elliot had walked along the sidelines to before the finish line to cheer us on-- and Cricket thought this meant the race was over! Elliot had to run the direction Cricket and I were running to convince her that the race wasn't over. 

We crossed the finish line, 22:12, and a race official handed me a piece of paper that said "please attend our awards ceremony..." I hugged him. Somewhere there is a picture of that; if I can find it I'll post it. I was 3rd in my age group, 3rd in my gender (with dog), and 25th overall. 

Always eager to nibble a friendly hand!
Clearly nobody ever told her to not bite the hand
that gives you medals.

At the awards ceremony, we were both awarded medals for being the third place female team with a dog! (Furry 5k does awards in kind of an awesome way, for race directors reading this: top 3 in each gender, with and without a dog. I think it was initially intended to make it so that people who had to hassle with a dog could still get an award, but it seems to actually work out so that people without a dog still have a chance at getting an award.) 

A very fun race-- definitely my favorite dog-friendly race. Afterwards, there were tons of dog-friendly booths with samples, including doggie frozen yogurt! Cricket enjoyed it. 


The Furry 5k happens every June-- we did it in 2013 as well-- so if you're in search of a fun race that gives its proceeds to a great cause, check out the Furry 5k. Well worth the trek to Seattle! 

Family photo! Elliot was 3rd overall, possibly 1st without a dog. The online results don't say. His time was 18:34.

Auburn Petpalooza Dog Trot 5k-- 5/19/12, Auburn, Washington

No pictures! Bad humans. 

This course was nice and flat. It started out along a residential street-- bad choice. Cricket bites tires when she's excited... my apologies to the residents of the neighborhood, as most of your tires probably had white teeth marks after Cricket went through. No tires were popped in the running of this race, however. 

At the start, a few children and their teacup-sized dogs were on the start line. Cricket actually leaped over one of the dogs in an attempt to be first through the gate! 

Cricket and I were first in my age group, second females, and fourth place overall. Not too bad! She won a gift basket of doggie things for having helped me place first in my age group, which included some Zuke's greenies-style bones. Cricket immediately tried to bury them. 

Afterward, there was a great pet fair, with lots of different animals, demos, and activities to try with your dog. Cricket tried agility for the first time! Every time our guide told us "most dogs don't take to ____ right away," Cricket zipped through or over the obstacle! Good dog. There were also several contests afterward, which were fun to watch: best trick, best kiss, and dog/human lookalike! 



One last note: Auburn, Washington has breed-specific legislation as of the writing of this post (I did not know this at the time of the race. "Dangerous dogs" are defined under the city's code, section 6.01.010). Breed specific legislation is not effective, and it is not fair to responsible owners. (Sidenote: Argus Ranch for Dogs is technically outside Auburn city limits! Hooray!) To learn more about BSL and find out what you can do to help pibbles and other breeds, please visit Understand-a-Bull. 

Woodburn Proud 5k: Cricket's first ever race! 4/21/12

The Woodburn Proud 5k was Cricket's first ever race! She'd been on plenty of runs up until that point, but never an actual race. I wasn't sure what to expect. 

What I got was excitement.... lots of excitement. 

She yipped. She howled. She barked. The race director had to stop her pre-race directions to wait for Cricket to quiet down. 

Once it started, we sprinted. I did my best to keep up with Cricket, who was dragging me after the lead pack, about 5 high school-age boys. We kept up. We even led for about 100 feet.

 Post-run. You can see that Cricket is exceedingly proud of herself.

We took kind of an off-course because of some confusion regarding the signs (another friend further back had the same problem and actually ended up running well over 4 miles), but we finished! First place females. 

Post-run, left to right: Allison, Darci, Smokey, me, Cricket 

Top female finishers, Allison and Shelby! Sadly, this was in a hospital waiting area, and Cricket had to stay in the car.

Welcome to our blog!

Welcome to our blog!

Here the human half of our running team will post recaps and pictures of dog-friendly races and particularly interesting training runs. (Sometimes they do exist.)