On Walk with Nitro

Didn´t take my nordic walking sticks today. I decided since this summer is pretty warm and the morning temperaturs barely crowl under +10°C, that I´ll be taking the dogs along to acompany me on my walks. Not every day, but at least every second one.

So today it was Nitro´s turn. He is one of the two "new kids on the block" here in our kennel (we brought him all the way from Canada, from our friends and mentors Karen and Mark Ramstead and their Iditarod Siberian Husky Racing North Wapiti kennel -

http://www.northwapiti.com/).

One of the main points of my human-to-dog relationship philosophy is creating and keeping a strong bond with all my dogs. That way, when a problem situation occurs on the trail in the middle of nowhere, you know that you can turn your trust to your dogs and they know they can be trusting you. So our priority is spending as much time with all our furry kids as possible. The dogs are for us not just athletes, but family members. We strongly belive in the balance between hard work and (let´s face it) "spoiling", so you can see dogs sharing a couch with us, having their own swimming pool, sleeping in our bed, etc.

Since for Nitro everything here is new, we work on bonding with him every time we can.

And he definitly did enjoy the harness and jogging line, running and walking with me today.

I actually have one little thing to brag about today. I felt no pain in my muscels, did not feel short of breath and even made the walk in the same time as my best times last year! What does that mean? That I certainly have kept a better shape from the past season and that there actually is a difference between my shape in summer 2007 and summer 2008. And that certainly feels good :o)

Now I have to incorporate some workout programs on "Chuck", which is hard for me as it is placed inside and the weather just invites everybody to be outdoors these days.

I do use the old bike, but seem to have problems so far with uphills. Will have to work more often on that -- there are MANY hills on the upcomming races and there is a BIG time difference one can make by being too slow or good uphills. So that´s the motivation now :o)

Soon more!

Katerina