I’m not exactly a fitness fanatic. I enjoy curling up on the couch, reading a book. I am a creature of comfort. The best shape I was ever in was thanks to a gym, not nature. 

But now life has dealt me an unexpected development: I own a Great Dane. Granted, they are probably some of the laziest dogs out there, with some interesting and surprising characteristics you wouldn’t expect in a large dog. But at 130 pounds, she is still in dire need of releasing some energy every day. At first, a nice stretched out walk was enough for her. Now that she is officially two, I started noticing she was getting uber restless. And no wonder. With me being a writer and my boyfriend an artist working from home, there isn’t a lot of “out” opportunity. But in order to keep our downstairs neighbor from hating us, something had to be done. Also, while writing is a great exercise for the mind, my body was starting to protest being kept immobile for hours. 

Running seemed to be the only option we could do together. So we have embarked on a new routine, the first day of which was extremely memorable. I probably pushed a little more than I should have, but I wanted to know both mine and Darla’s limits. 

She hated me.

We got back to the apartment 45 minutes later and she proceeded to slowly hydrate and cool down. The she didn’t move the rest of the day. The next day, I wasn’t so sore, but moving was definitely interesting. Darla, however, decided she was not going to move from her futon. I actually worried about her, but then as I got up and felt muscles I hadn’t felt in years it occurred to me: she was SORE. It’s funny, but that got me out the next morning. Not commitment to our new routine, not my own now screaming hurting body. No, it was that my baby Dane was hurting.**Note: if you own a GD, please remember NOT to run them before they turn two. Their bones are not fully developed until then, so you run the risk of damaging their bones and development if you run them too soon. 

After two weeks, we are slowly getting used to our daily run. My boyfriend and Thor (the shih tzu) have decided to join us on occasion, though Thor is not exactly built for distance. He’s more of a sprinter. The great thing about running with Darla is she is now less distracted by the world around her; the downside is if she sees an errant squirrel (and there are many on our route, those teasing bastards), it can go one of two ways:

one: she glances at it and keeps trotting along (which has, thankfully, been the course of action)

two: she already has enough speed to chase it, dragging me an unknown distance and probably causing bodily harm in the process. 

Let’s hope she decides to continue with the first.