sports

I was bitten by a dog today. A big one. I'm fine.

The weather today was great. It was really sunny and I went for a run in the late afternoon without my watch, just for fun. After 20 minutes I reached Whole Foods, and there was a girl walking two big dogs. I stopped and warned her: "on your left". She pulled the leashes so I walked past the three of them but one of the leashes wasn't pulled in close enough.

The big gray dog thought I wanted to play a game and cheerfully up jumped against me and bit me in the arm. Luckily the bite isn't too deep, and the doctor said I shouldn't really worry about it, just keep it clean and watch it over the next days.

Three weeks ago a quick sprint helped me escape a furious little dog that was tied to the house with an overly long leash and wanted to bite me in the ankles.

I like dogs but I could do without their attention while running.

Today I ran my first race ever, the Run for the Roses in Raleigh, NC. It was great! I am very happy with the result: 26:46, a lot faster than I expected. The adrenaline and the people around made me run faster than usual.

The race started at 2.00 pm so I left home around 12.15 pm. It's a 40 minutes drive to downtown Raleigh, and I was well on time to pick up my Championchip, which is tied to your shoe and enables electronic measuring of the results. The next 20 minutes I sat down, drank some water and enjoyed watching the preparations. I did a 10 minute warm-up, and at 1.50 pm we all lined up in a big group. I'm not sure how many participants there were, but I'd guess at least a 150.

It was very windy but sunny. I'm very glad that I ran the route earlier this week because it made it a lot easier to time my effort. The big difference was of course that now the roads were blocked off. I knew that in the last mile of the race there are two roads after each other uphill, and I was ready for them. On the 1-mile and 2-mile markers there were volunteers yelling out the split times.

A part of the proceeds of the Race for the Roses goes to Urban Ministries. The race was very well organized: lots of volunteers, a good course, lots of parking spots nearby the start and there was a even a water break half-way. For a 5k run I don't need water but it was a nice touch. Every female participant received a rose at the finish. After the race there was free food and drinks. Throughout the event there was nice and friendly atmosphere.

Now, up to the next race!

Tomorrow I'll run my first ever race, the Run for the Roses in Raleigh.

I've been running for a while now, and hope to run a longer race later this year. I want to get some experience with a real race before I do that so I signed up for tomorrow's 5k race.

I just came back from Inside-Out, a runner's store in Cary, where I picked up my race number. The run starts at 2.00 pm tomorrow in downtown Raleigh.

Don't expect any great results since I'm not very fast -- my goal is to run at least within 34 minutes (11 minutes a mile). I'm really looking forward to it... look out for number 28!

Yesterday I arrived in New Jersey for an engineering conference of my company that starts this morning.

After work I went for a run on a small dike that separates a canal from the river, on a recommendation of a colleague. When I was halfway my run and ready to go back I took a short break. All of a sudden, a pretty big snake dropped from its tree on the ground next to the trail: I must have startled it. Needless to say, the sudden sight of a big snake moving startled me even more and I continued my run immediately with an inspired sprint.

The trail was very nice; it's well maintained and beautiful. It is part of the D & R Canal Park. It's pretty cool, so much nature in the middle of a city. I looked at the few waterlilies with some suspicion but of course there are no alligators in New Jersey.

Sunday I tried a new, excellent running trail.

It turns out Duke University has a golf course fairly close to our home with a running trail around the golf terrain. Esteban and Belen had mentioned it last week -- thanks a lot!

It's a great 2.5 mile long nature trail with distance markers and a public water fountains. It's a little over a mile from our home so all together I ran about 5 miles on Sunday. This was a bit more than I should have done and it took me 2 days to recover.

I hope that I feel good enough to go for a shorter run in the morning. It's Fourth of July tomorrow so a day off, and before all the festivities start I hope to try out my new running shoes.

Inspired by the website with routes I found I went for a longer run tonight.

It wasn't too hot so I ran before dinner. The route took me across the Duke campus, which is beautiful. I saw squirrels and another animal that I don't know the name of. It looks a bit like a fox, but with longer legs. It was wandering behind a bush, very close to people and apparently used to humans (no, it's not a dog).

A 3.2 miles route.

Tonight I had only one break instead of my usual two when I ran.

I left around 9.30 pm and it was colder than usual. When it's not too hot, I prefer to run a bit earlier in the evening that this, especially when I'm alone. The route goes mainly over the Duke campus and it's completely safe, but it just feels better when it's not fully dark.

We run a few times per week, usually the same track. Tonight I calculated the exact length of our route. It's 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) which is not as far as I was used to running in the Netherlands, but the route is much more elevated than in Haarlem.

The last two months I have been running a few times per week. It's fun to do, especially in the beautiful summer weather.

Lately I discovered a new track to run, the track of the Haarlem Grachtenloop. There are two distances: 4.6 and 9.2 kilometers; I must say that the 9.2 km track is way out of my league. But the 4.6 kilometers is just right for me, and I have been running it a couple of times now.

It's nice to compare my result with the official times of this year's Grachtenloop. The quickest guy runs the track in just under 15 minutes, it still takes me about 35 minutes.