My Dog Is Fat

Everybody hates when I don’t run. I regard everything in terms of three different perspectives, and all three groups are unhappy when I’m not running:

1. Me. I love running, hate when I’m injured and can’t run.
2. Every person that is not me. May or may not love running, but love when I write in my blog, which I do much less when I’m not running.
3. My dog. Who, because I have not been running, has gotten fat.

The one I feel the worst about is #3. I hate when people let their dogs get fat. Dogs don’t want to be fat, but don’t know a lot about calorie counting, so sometimes can’t help themselves if they’re given access to too much food and aren’t exercised.

When I was training for my marathon, Pascal (my dog) ran a lot, and also ate a lot, just like me. Then I stopped running and so did he. But I’m really bad about taking him for walks when I’m not running. I mostly hate walking. So he got fat. I didn’t even notice until one day he was outside on the patio and a bunch of people walked by and all called him things like “Rolly Poly” and “Chubby Puppy.” They said it in a very endearing way, but it was still cause for alarm. It’s hard to notice when your own dog is getting fat because you see him every day. But when he got called fat by five people in a row, I took a good look at him and realized that he was getting kind of hefty. This was about a month ago, and I immediately started feeding him less, and he got a little thinner. Then on Saturday I took him to the vet for his check-up and found out that he’s 12 pounds heavier than he was a year ago, even after losing weight. You can see here how tight his shirt is getting – as well as how embarrassed he is by his recent weight gain.

This makes it extra good that I can finally run again, at least a little bit. Except today I waited until it was dark/cold/rainy so I only wanted to run at the gym where I can’t take my puppy. Going to the gym also reminds me of how I almost never go to the gym anymore. 24 Hour Fitness has a new fingerprint-based method of checking in now, but I’m not signed up for it. So everyone else walks in and puts their finger on the thing and punches in a code and I still have to bring my membership card and ID. I’ve been two times in the last week after about two months of not going at all, but nobody has offered to sign me up for my fingerprint thing yet. I can’t help but to hate them just a little bit for this.

Once I got over my anger I ran 2.5 miles on a treadmill, very fast. I think if I had been in a race I would have won.

Miles run this week: 2.5
Miles run in 2010: 514.5

PS. Just found Elaine Carroll’s blog and it’s almost as good as mine. The only thing that makes it better is that it has more videos, which I’ll remedy by stealing one that she posted and put it in my blog. It has nothing to do with running.

Mustard sings Creep from Rex Kramer on Vimeo.