Women's Tricks and What to Do About Them

26 October 2006
Thursday, 26 October 2006

6 miles - 49.27 min.

It's important not to overstretch yourself. Had two days rest, and today managed to run inside 50 minutes. Good sleep, lots of water in small glasses or sips at regular intervals, good food - easily burnable calories, warming-up and stretching, especially after the run.

These are the principal components of enjoyable running, no matter what how old you are.

Light drizzle today and strange easy wind that seems to blow from no particular direction. Pleasant cool October day.

Tried a new trick on Nala, the female retriever, today. She keeps stalling and dragging us back at the 'bad house'. Real pain. No cajoling or threatening, encouraging or pulling helps. I think men just can't be straight with women, it never works.

So I tried ignoring her and talking to Strelka, the male dog, instead. He likes being talked to, looks up, smiles and pulls up. I keep encouraging him, tell him to go ahead.

So, what happens is Strelka pulls Nala with me. We make a V-shaped formation with Nala struggling at the bottom. This helps, and it also makes Nala jealous, as it does when at home I stroke one dog and another immediatley comes and nudges in to get stroked too. So at moments Nala forgets her tricks and tries to keep up with us too.

Men, generally, can't outwit women. Women have too many tricks up their sleeves. But sometimes our tricks work too.