The longest three miles

I ran my first 5k last night, and the results are in! Let's just say I won't be qualifying for the Boston Marathon any time soon, but since my goal was to survive, and I'm alive enough today to write this blog post, I'll call it an overall success.

There were a few things I did not expect (I almost typed "roadbumps" but decided to skip the pun):

• There was a guy who power walked past me while I was running. That was a low point.
• There were lots of people who gathered around the course to cheer on the runners, and some of them even brought their dogs! I knew people did this for longer races, but apparently they do it for shorter ones too.
• And there was a mountain of ice cream sandwiches at the end, which was the high point for me. My coworkers and I also hit the bar afterward for a few beers (this was expected), so overall I was less healthy than if I just never showed up for the race.

There are a couple of dog-friendly 5k races coming up in the fall, and I was thinking of signing up with Mushroom as my running buddy. I did some training with her prior to this race, and despite her looking like a sausage with short legs, she is amazingly fast. Well, maybe not so amazing if you take into account how slow I am, but she could easily handle a 5k.

"Can I get ice cream afterwards too?"

Has anyone done a race with their dog before? Would you recommend it?