Running with Penny!

This afternoon was very nice and pleasant. Sunny and about 67 degrees with a light breeze. Perfect for running, but I just did not FEEL it. I worked till midnight the previous night and was back at work at 6:30 this morning. I felt OK but lacked energy. As I walked out the front door Penny, my four year old Labrador, called out to me from the back yard with her whining yelp. As if to say, "come on...........take meeeee!" I walk her often, but maybe not often enough. We do make out every so often and exchange "Carinos" (cuddling) every morning as I feed her! She does not touch her food until she has walked me back to the door and gives me the the once over(smelling me from head to foot).
"OK, let's go Baby" Maybe I don't want to run today. We'll walk. Penny still wants to pull me along, but I stop when she pulls too hard and she will slow it down. We headed for the French Creek trails adjacent to my subdivision and soon encountered large puddles left over from the recent rains. Labs are supposed to love water but Penny hasn't received the memo. She finds a way around. Some of the puddles were too large to go around. There was very high grass straddling the trails, so I decided to head back to the neighborhood. I was tired and was heading home and thought, "hey, how about some hill repeats?" "can ya hang Penny?" "let's see how many we can do." My neighborhood is very small and sits along and on top of a hill. We headed up the first hill which is about a 1/2 mile long with a leveling off at about 3 tenths of a mile up then straight up. We repeated the last tenth 5 times and jogged back to the base of the hill and ran right back up once. Penny was hanging! And so was her tongue! We descended at a very slow pace.
Turning the corner heading back home, we attacked the hill leading to our house. We ran past our house and all the way up the hill. What a beautiful view from the hilltop as the sun was setting behind us. We jogged back down to the house and Penny looked at me my with her tongue hanging out of the side of her mouth but very content. Her look said, That was good, but I'm spent.
I love my Dog. And She loves me.