If you’ve read any of my previous posts, you’ll know I love my numbers. What you might not know is that I’m not keen on dogs, more especially when I’m running. It turns out, and more on this later, they’re not keen on me either.
There wasn’t time for a longer run today so I replaced it with a more intense (well, slightly more intense) workout instead. The pyramid run. The rules for these are pretty easy: ensure you keep getting quicker until halfway then keep slowing down until you get back home, or wherever you choose to finish.
What is more, with a pyramid run, you can get a very satisfying pace chart, which looks like….wait for it…a pyramid, hence the name. This is usually very pleasing for my OCD. Mine from today shows this:
Hang on a minute!?! I hear you collectively shout, WHAT HAPPENED HERE:
I was hoping, or rather my OCD was hoping you wouldn’t notice that. This brings me on to the primary focus of the post. So what did happen in km 7? That’s when I came across a delightful dog with its equally delightful owners.
I heard it before I really noticed it since it was totally losing its proverbial sh*t. Little did I know I was about to have one of my more memorable dog encounters.
The couple, man and woman, were looking scared at this point and both threw me rather foreboding looks. As I approached, the woman looked at me in disbelief that I was continuing to run in their moment of panic. She clearly didn’t know I needed a 4:25km or my tidy pyramid would fall apart.
Anyway, at her request I stopped. What was going on? In my overly and unnecessary British way, I immediately apologised. For what, who knows, although I was about to find out. As I stood, watching them clatter past in a cloud of arms, barks, leads and ineffective shouts, she looked back at me, still very unimpressed at my presence and explained all:
“She just doesn’t like men in shorts”
I can’t portray well enough the accusatory tone but it was in no uncertain terms that this entire episode was my fault.
Still at least I apologised, safe in the knowledge that had my trousers been 12 inches longer, they would barely have noticed me pass.
Having recovered from my encounter, I tried in vain to make up for lost time but due to the delay and massive headwind I couldn’t quite continue my pyramid.
I had to resign myself to a double peak pyramid. Plus the fact that my knees are scary enough to send dogs loopy.
longruntom 
Oh what a shame. That’s totally rubbish!! I’ve had my encounters with “oh, he’s only being friendly” dogs (I’m pretty short so they can really bound up me). But I’ve also actually tripped over a dog (a barrel-shaped dog that came up to just under knee height, perfect to tip right over) and bust a rib, while training for my first marathon, so I’m really wary now. Sorry you now have a wonky pyramid!
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Ha, I don’t like that either, the “he’s ok, don’t worry about him” shout from the other side of a field. Tripping over one though, that’s a new one. Sounded nasty too. I can get over my wonky pyramid, it at least reminds if this odd episode!!
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I’m always looking for a new type of run to keep things interesting. I’ll try this one! 😀
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Give it a go, I’ll be keen to see how you like it. I like it as a change as it helps me keep focus compared with say just a steadier paced run. Makes it more interesting, as you say. Plus I like to see how tidy a pyramid pace chart I can get!!
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Funny post 🤣 I might have to try a Pyramid Run, however I don’t think I have an accurate enough watch – what do you have?
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Thanks Claire! I really enjoy them especially as I don’t go out with a fixed plan, just that each will be a little quicker than the previous, then with a more controlled cool down. I’ve got a Garmin forerunner 235, the feature you really need is the ‘lap pace’ which gives the expected time of the current lap (or km in my case). What have you got? It would be possible but a lot harder with a more standard stopwatch…
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I’ve got a FitBit Versa but it seems to be not very accurate in terms of mins per km during run. It reads quite differently to the run stats on my Strava. I need to play around with it a bit more 😉
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They do seem to all vary a bit depending on their GPS capabilities. I do tend to like using my phone for Strava as it always gives my about 100m more over 10k than my watch 😃 good luck with your playing around 👍
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