Mating Moose Make Running Hard

Workout: 5 slow, moose-interrupted miles at Powerline

I spent my afternoon at this pretty li'l place. The plan was to run 3-4 miles out, finish 5 miles on the way back, then walk the rest of the way to my car.

The run was on track until I ran into three moose. Now, moose aren't a big deal. This is Alaska. I mean, I'm not going to do anything stupid, but if you leave them alone and use some common sense, you'll probably be fine.

I continued past these three moose, and somehow Bailey didn't see them. Either that or she doesn't understand that they're alive. I'm starting think it's the latter. Bailey is a sweet, sweet dog, but I'm realizing she may not be the smartest canine ever. This suspicion was further strengthened when we ran into another group of three moose and she galloped right by them, continuing on her merrily stupid way. It's okay, Bailey: you've got other qualities.

I went a bit further and hit another obstacle: ice.

I had to walk over this stuff because, duh-I've had enough injured body parts this year. This was only a short stretch of what I walked over.

At this point I was kind of wondering whether it was worth it to continue on. It was a beautiful day, though, so I figured I'd give it one more shot. That shot went to hell almost immediately when I looked down towards the river and saw a pack of probably twenty moose. Guys, I'm cool with a few moose here and there, but I'm not too keen to be running near a pack of horny moose with my clueless dog. It's mating season, folks!

Anyway, I turned around and was wondering if I should just cut my run short when I decided to head north on Powerline (I always go south). This section of Powerline is pretty, but since it's descending it gets more and more overgrown, so I tend to steer clear of it and any bears it may be hiding. Well, there's that and the fact that it's steep as hell.

This doesn't look steep, BUT IT WAS. Especially when you're two days removed from this.

I did a half mile on this, turned around, and almost died coming back up. It was horrible. Not gonna lie, there was some walking in there. Deal with it.

I moseyed back and forth along a two mile stretch until I finally hit five miles, then walked the last .6 back to my car. My splits? Let's take a look!

Not much to see here. I ran, it was hard, I was slow and encountered some obstacles. Overall, a huge success!

Apart from the five minutes I was considering calling in a helicopter to pick me up, I felt strong during this run. My legs seemed mostly recovered from this weekend, and I definitely think I could have kept going. Had those pesky moose not been milling about, I might have considered it. I'm still determined to run up to Powerline Pass once mating season's over.

Eating a stick and totally failing at protecting me from potentially dangerous animals.

On an unrelated note, DING DING DING, we have our first commenter! Major props to Mary for dropping by the comment section. And my parents didn't even have to pay her! Not much, anyway. I attempted to respond to the comment but don't think I managed it completely. You know something's gone horribly wrong when you're asked to verify your human-status on your own blog. But despite my #commentfail, I really appreciate anyone taking the time to leave a comment, whether complimentary or insulting, mundane or fucking weird. This is an all-comments welcome blog! Well, within reason. I'm just relieved my first comment wasn't left by a sexbot. Here's to milestones!