Grete's First Furry 5k!

Grete's First Furry 5K went great. The number of dogs was in the thousands, I think. At the starting line, it was a huge cacophony of dogs barking out of excitement and nervousness.

As you can see, Grete got a cool green bandanna out of the deal. I got a t-shirt and lucky number 374. More pictures can be found in Jason's flickr set: Furry 5k. (I'll blog a couple more of my favorites.)

In retrospect, a few tactical errors were made by Team Grete's Gang.

1) It was pretty cool in the morning when we first arrived. I pinned my number to my outer fleece, thinking I would run the whole race in that. After about mile 1, I was dying and felt like I wasn't going to make it without a wardrobe change. I stopped off to the side, and with sweaty slippery hands clumsily re-pinned my number on my t-shirt. This probably cost us at least 3-5 minutes.

2) I think, in retrospect, I should try using Grete's Easy Walk Harness instead of her Comfort Trainer Dog Head Collar. The harness rubs her funny behind her legs, but the head collar makes her do an occasional nose-dive trying to get it off. I dunno. It's a tough call though. Grete just needs to learn that running on a leash doesn't mean Warp 11 out in front.

In any event, you can see our iPod time on Runner Plus. I started it at least a minute and a half early, I think. I also didn't shut id down right away since I had to make my way through the endless sea of volunteers with water bottles.

I think my official time was somewhere around 33 minutes. I'm not sure how long it will take Active.com to post the official results. More news when I get it.

Finally, a huge thanks to all of you who donated!!
(We might have overslept if it wasn't for you generosity!)