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From: ajm
Date: 8/20/00
Time: 10:56:58 AM
Remote Name: 208.47.225.3
Maybe some of these folks know something i don't, but I firmly believe in starting the season with 6 runs, in two weeks time, of 1.5 miles. First, it loosens the dogs up, muscularly and mentally. If any of you have run distance races, human races not dog races, you know that after a lay off it is imperative to start slow to build muscular and cardiovascular conditioning very slowly in the beginning. It greatly reduces the chance of injury as well as exhaustion. I move up to 3.5 miles after the initial 1.5 miles runs with ease. And I soon am doing 3.5 miles twice per day by mid-late September. I agree with the night runs. All my runs are at night during fall training. I train some evening and morning runs once snow falls, but the dogs do better at night. OldMusher, I use a headlamp. Batteries and lightbulbs are cheap and replacable. As a matter of fact, I often run with the lamp off, even when there is no moonlight. If there is an animal ahead on the trail, the dogs will surge and cue you into it. I guess everyone has their own training techniques and opinions. I believe you may be short changing dogs that otherwise would do very well if you gave them a short period of time to build some cardiovascular conditioning. Dogs that are more mellow around the dogyard, and lounge on their houses will not be in as good of condition, at first, as dogs that are very hyper and do laps on their chains all day long. After a few weeks of short running, you may not be able to tell the difference in conditioning while they are in harness.