Left Leg Left Leg... Right Leg Right.

My plan was to run today... All week I've only been dog jogging 2ish miles and while every day my legs feel slightly better than they did the day before, I'm still dealing with a spasm (or something?) in my right lateral hamstring. Funny that all fall/winter my left side was the one giving me issues... left achilles, left knee. I gave my left calf and quad so much attention that my achilles and knee handled the marathon distance last weekend without any issue at all. To be honest, that was shocking! I really thought I was going to be managing knee pain for at least half that run last weekend. But instead, it was my right side that talked back to me. Right glute is a tight mess, right hamstring feels like it's all glued together, and consequently right calf is achy as well. I've been working on it the last few days with my Supernova ball (best tool out there!) and its getting better but my gut said that a longer run today might set it back so I opted to ride instead.

It's possible that the heavy gear work I've started doing the last few days on the bike is pissing off that glute/hamstring as well, but I did it again today anyway. I rode less than 2 hours today, purposely included some repeat sitting/standing climbs, and finished feeling trashed and like I needed a nap (took one, yes!). I haven't yet started using any data on my rides b/c I just don't even want to know any of that. One of these days though I'll get my garmin back out and start collecting bike data again.

Maia lived with us for a full 2 months and never saw me get on my bike. After seeing it a few times this week, today she figured it out- what the bike kit meant- and wouldn't even look at me. Full on guilt trip.

I specifically asked Scott to keep the doors closed while I was gone today so Maia wouldn't go wandering the neighborhood. She is actually in heat right now. I've never had a dog in heat before so I had to do a bit of research on that to learn about how to handle it. I'm guessing that her last heat cycle was when she ran away- like maybe she was looking for a boyfriend? (She found one b/c she ended up having a litter of 9 puppies right before we adopted her.) Anyway, my fear is that she might be overwhelmed with hormones to the point where she might run off again? Sure enough I got home from riding today and Scott said that somehow she managed to escape. He found her down at the neighbor's house. There's a handsome Ridgeback male named Keola who lives there and they *love* each other... He whines and groans in agony when he smells her walk by (he is often locked behind his fence) and sometimes on our walks she just stops in front of his house and won't budge. I'd admit that it's super cute but I don't want to deal with a huge litter of puppies this spring so I'm trying to keep her on the short leash for the next week or so. This might be a warm up for Moana's teenage years...