Go for a Jog and Get Bit by a Dog

Some days, you go for a jog and get bit by a dog.

(Not this dog. This is my dog, Biscuit. He is just here for his cuteness.)

Getting bit by a dog while on a jog is a bummer, because you really didn’t want to jog that much in the first place. You like how you feel when you’re in the middle of a run and when you’re done. But the beginning? Not so much.  At the beginning of your run, then, you are puffing up the hill, counting the minutes until the whole ordeal will be over, when the dog who always barks at you runs to the end of his yard and barks at you. Nothing new there.

Except today, he has a friend with him. In a flash, before you even realize what is happening, this second dog, small and brown, comes out of the yard into the street, and, lickety split, latches onto your right calf.

By this time, the owner is out of the house, yelling at both dogs.

Stunned, you squeak, “He bit me.”

The owner is shocked and kind. She gets you tissues, band aids and Bactine. The offending dog, it turns out, is not hers. It’s her son’s dog, her granddog. She’s watching him for the weekend. Yes, he’s had his shots. She actually was the one who took him to the vet to get them.  You exchange names and chat a little as you blot up the blood and spray the Bactine.  She’s lived here for 20 years. Nothing like this has ever happened before. She apologizes, over and over. You wrap your bloody tissues and band aid trash in a clean tissue, and she throws the whole mess away.

Not surprisingly, this incident drains your running mojo. You trot up the road a little further, just to see how your leg feels (a little sore, but not too bad) and then walk back home.

Running a 5k is on your list of “18 in 2018,” one of the 18 things you want to do that will make you happier in 2018.  To reach that goal, you are trying to log 60 minutes of jogging a week. It’s not that much, just three 20 minute runs a week. And if you do more, that’s fabulous.

Because even though jogging makes you happy once you’ve done it, you have a lot of resistance to it. It’s a significant effort to put on your shoes and actually begin.  You use a lot of mind tricks to get on the road. “I only have to run ten minutes. I can stop as soon as I want after that.” Usually, by the time you hit five minutes, you are feeling better about being out here. Plus, you have made it up the big hill.  Working toward the 5k goal by measuring the minutes you run each week seems like a helpful habits hack.

You hadn’t gotten to five minutes yesterday when the dog came at you.

You are a little afraid that this incident might make it harder to get back out there.  It could potentially make that resistance even stronger.  So today, the day after the jog when you got bit by the dog, will be the test. Will you put on your shoes and go out, even for five minutes?

You hope so.

As it turns out? You did.