This run started with 4 miles with the large dog. He got some ice cubes afterwards because he is easy to please. The small dog in the picture is plotting his revenge for me never taking him with on runs. Which is completely unfair because I try to get him out there but he runs away from the road like it's made of lava or something.
After I dropped off the dog, I headed back out into the country to finish the run. I was actually thinking this would be a pretty boring post until I was at around mile 13 and coming down a small hill and then...people...it happened:
GOATS popped right out of the corn and started following me.
Every time I started to run, so did they. I thought they would stop chasing me once the novelty of a sweaty runner had worn off, but NO-it's like they imprinted on me or something, and were keeping up with me like their little goat lives depended on it.
It only got worse when I saved them from a dog. And by "saved" I mean me yelling "NO! Don't eat the goats!!" as loud as I possibly could at the dog and then me being astonished that it actually worked.
After that those goats LOVED me. I was their savior. They loved me so much they kept running in front of me so I would slam into them and scream because I am a city girl and the goats were making me touch them. I called my husband, a former farm guy, and asked him what I should do. He said not to let them headbutt me and to keep running. So helpful. During the entire phone call the goats were stopped a few feet ahead of me, as if to say, "Dude...you coming or what??"
At this point I really didn't have any other option but to keep running down the road in the direction of my house. So imagine, if you will, what this looked like - a runner with two goats dutifully running behind her, with the runner turning around and screaming, "Don't headbutt me! Go home! Where is your home????" for half a mile. The neighbors on the road don't have to imagine it - they came out and laughed their keisters off. Those goats were keeping up with my pace, and I thought they were going to come all the way home with me. Which wouldn't have been too bad, really, since they could have kept our yard trimmed for us. More helpful than my husband's advice on the phone, for sure.
Anyway, one of the neighbors finally finished his laughter at the goat-and-runner spectacle and came down to the road, where I asked him if he knew whose goats these were. He pointed me in the direction of a house a HALF MILE in the OPPOSITE DIRECTION of where I had just run. So we (the goats and myself, not the laughing neighbor) ran back to the house which, fortunately, was the goats' home sweet home. They goat-scampered happily back to their pen, and I runner-scampered the last 3 miles home happily free of my goat entourage.
So, beside the goat thing, how was the run? Not too bad. My target pace was a 10:10, and I hit right on the nose, goats and all. Although the goatness did contribute to some slowness in mile 14, which happens when you're yelling at goats following you. You do tend to slow down when that happens.
Tomorrow's workout is weights. Pray that no goats pop out of nowhere during that workout, especially if I have a heavy barbell over my head at the time.
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