Walk your dog 100 miles (day 31)

Did anyone make it to 100 miles in March? I know Pickles and her owner made it further than Ace and I. If you made it 100 miles or close to 100, let me know. If you blog about it, I will link to your site.

Ace and I walked a total of 60 miles in March. I measure my times and distances on a GPS watch. If you don’t have one, I highly recommend getting one.

Many factors played a role in us not making it to 100. On top of blizzards and record flooding, I did not plan my time well enough. Poor planning is the main reason I failed, and the main reason most people fail to meet any kind of exercise goals.

Oh well, I will try again in April. My goal is 101 miles, mostly so I can title the posts something different than last month’s posts.

I hope many of you will participate and set your own distance goals for the month, whether that goal is 50 miles, 100 miles or some other number. We all know our dogs need more exercise. Oh wait, we also need the exercise.

The Fargo Marathon is coming up May 9, so if anyone around here will be doing more running in preparation for the race, April will be the perfect month to run 100 miles with your dog.

I will write about our walking, running or biking more often as a way to motivate myself and keep myself on track. This will give you more chances to leave your comments and updates on your miles as well.

Obviously Fargo still gets snow in April in addition to thunderstorms, mud and more flooding, so I will not use weather as an excuse. If it is too dangerous to be outside, then it won’t matter because Ace and I will have built up some extra miles on previous days – something we failed at miserably in March.

My goals for April are more specific than last month so that Ace and I will do better:

1. Walk or run my dog 3-6 miles first thing every morning.

If I don’t walk or run right away, chances are it won’t happen. Walking my dog right away needs to become more of a habit. The distance and whether we walk or run will depend on how much I have going on for that day and how early I get up.

During late mornings and throughout the afternoon is when I am usually out doing dog running for other people’s dogs. When I come home, I am not in the mood to walk my own dog. Sorry, Ace.

2. Bike with my dog another 3-6 miles every evening.

Hopefully the ice and snow will be gone at some point! I thought I’d be able to bike in March, but I couldn’t. With the addition of biking miles, Ace and I will cover at least 3 miles but up to 12 miles each day. We have about a foot of snow on the ground right now, but it’ll go away eventually, right?

Here are some tips for biking with your dog.

3. Fargo half marathon

Yes, I agreed to run it again.

By “agreed,” I mean my friend Maren called me up last weekend and said, “Hey, you are running with me.” And I said “OK, fine.”

I won’t do very much to prepare for the half marathon. But between now and race day,  I will run two 8- to 10-mile timed runs with Ace.

How many miles did you walk in March? How many will you walk in April?

March miles: 60