"and if they send a whirlwind"

I haven't run since Friday's fiasco. Taking a 3rd day off always kills me (I could explain the science of it, but I wont...yet), but I wasn't able to run Sunday like I wanted, so Monday was our third day off. Anyway, long story short, I ran tonight (Tuesday). Like I said, I wont be running at Ft Custer until after firearms season, so tonight was on the road. If I do the whole block,it's 3 miles. We're up to more than that, but I didn't want to do TWO full blocks because 6 miles is a little much. What we ended up doing was cutting a trail through the woods near the middle of the block to the other side. The driveway is the access on one side of the square, and we cut a trail straight back from the driveway, over the river and through the woods. It cuts off a little more than half a mile. So, tonight it ended up being 5.3 miles. It's a perfect in between. It's great to have options. I'll continue this route for a few weeks, throwing in short runs sporadically, and my next jump will be 6.2.
Alright, so on to the interesting stuff: the dogs. I had all the hounds and left Oakley at home. Keytone and Freddie lead first. Fox and Heini were behind and Brew and Tune were in back. I kept them pretty slow because we hadn't previously been over 4.5 yet this season. They kept steady at 15pmh. I'll up the speed slightly in the future. For the second lap (we have to pass through the yard to hit the trail through woods that connects to the road on the other side) I switched leaders. Thank you, Alaska Heli-Mush for ingraining that into me! Ha my switch was mechanical and fast. Funny how old habits die hard. Heini and Fox were now in lead and they took off just fine. I thought they would have a problem leaving the yard, but they were great. We took the shortcut and hit the road. They were tired and in retrospect, I should have stopped for way longer! I'll take a bigger break from now on. Despite that, they just kept driving. Heini was getting a little "flighty." She was bouncing around, running wide (which is bad news when we're on the road), and VERY curious about all the horse farms we were passing. Petunia to the rescue! Leave it to Petunia. She's not the fastest dog in the world, or even in my kennel, but the fat little girl DOES NOT QUIT. She was working her butt off to keep up as is, but gladly stepped up to help lead. Everyone was really tired at this point, except for crazy Heini, but they kept pushing. Tune never backed off once and ran her heart out up there. Fox is more comfortable at higher speeds, and I think that slow speed just messes with her gate. She was a little off by the time we finished- she's SUCH a fast dog. It was just a great run. Awesome mileage, awesome drive, awesome finish. I'm running that same length tomorrow and then either taking Friday off or, more likely, just doing a quick 2 or 3 miles. Kalkaska is less than 2 months away!!