Running in the dark without a light – not too smart sometimes Harold – are you?

It is called misjudging how much light was left.

I hope your Christmas was as good as mine. It was a rather low-key, small family gathering and reflects my life very well. Quiet and peaceful, even the dogs got along quite nicely, which was a huge relief.

Yes, my presents were running and cold-weather gear…I can’t imagine why.

Running shoes – check

New running tops – check

Wool socks – check

Winter mittens – check

Thank you everyone for getting the things that I needed to stay warm and comfortable outside this coming winter.

Our Christmas dinner was not the traditional turkey/ham and we had a lasagna, rolls and of course desserts. All stuff that of course I am supposed to avoid since I have gone to more of a lower carb diet. However, I am not feeling too guilty about it, after all it is only one day and tomorrow I will get back to eating the way that I want going forward.

Okay enough about today, how was my run

I didn’t get out to run until after 4:00 PM, I did need to bond, err nap with Bennie for a while to sleep off the lunch and desserts.

The run itself was not anything special, just trying to stay within my heart-rate range and get back to the house before it got too dark. Coming back up Stevens Hill it got a bit dusky faster than I thought it was going when I left.

When I got to the neighbor’s house, I heard a little scratching noise behind me and when I looked two of their Golden Retrievers were stalking up behind me. As soon as I saw them I stopped and faced them. At that point they started barking and got very aggressive. Luckily when I started yelling the owner who was outside working down by his barn yelled and the dogs backed off. I waved and started running again.

I really figured that the heart rate monitor was going to go bonkers. Instead, my heart-rate went much lower and even after I started running again it stayed a bit lower than I expected for a ways. It was strange, even though the dogs startled me, I wasn’t scared or anything, I was very focused and ready to attack them if they had come at me.

Strange how that works sometimes.

The rest of the run, it was pretty hard to see without the flashlight I had left in the house, but I finished the 4.0 miles that I wanted to do today.

I know that I felt a lot better once I got done running – I was glad that I had gone out, especially since I came pretty close to just not doing it and saying Christmas got in the way.

I did pretty good on staying within my heart-rate range, so I was happy with how I felt.

Merry Christmas everyone and now to get to the end of 2018.