My #1 Running Partner

I have always had an immense love for animals therefore I’ve always had pets. I’ve had a wide variety of different animals however more often than not, it’s usually a dog in my life. That said, I’ve never thought of having a dog as a running partner, that is before Rocky entered my life.

A few months after our move across the country. out of the blue, my husband said he found a dog at the Boulder Humane Society that he put on hold. The kids and I had to go see him after work that day. Rocky was a 3 month old Australian Cattle dog mix whose entire litter was rescued from New Mexico. The humane society will only keep a puppy on hold for one day so we had to decide in that instant if we wanted Rocky to join our family. Obviously, even though we were leaving on a camping trip to Utah the next day, Rocky came home with us.

I was pretty unfamiliar with the Australian cattle dog breed when we adopted Rocky. It seems to me that they are not super common back east whether that is true or not, I’m not sure. Doing some research, I learned these dogs have a lot of energy and tons of endurance. They like to stay active and busy. I saw these traits immediately that first weekend we had him. We ended up bringing him camping with us. He seemed to have endless energy running around chasing the kids and loved being outside.

That first year, I started taking Rocky on some short runs. He loved every second. It was actually really devastating for him whenever I went on my long runs without him but I did not want to do anything that might harm him. Also an added complication was that it was discovered Rocky was born with a heart defect. Luckily his is able to be controlled with medication and he was cleared for all activity as long as he stays on his medication.

Despite, Rocky’s obvious intense love for running on the trails with me, I truly never imagined he would wind up being my main ultra marathon training partner. I gradually started taking him on longer runs. He never seemed tired and would be totally recovered the following day. So I kept letting him come on longer and longer runs.

Now he easily does 20+ milers with me including very mountainous terrain. Honestly, half the time I think I’m holding him back. He’s always waiting for me especially on uphills, looking at me like “what’s taking you so long?”

Another trait of cattle dogs is their need to herd the herd. I literally have spent no time training him on how to run properly with me on the trails and that’s because none was needed. Boulder has tons of off leash trails, which is amazing for us. From the first time that I started letting him off leash, he just naturally always stayed within feet of me. He always knows exactly where I am, even if he stops for a minute to say hi to another dog. My favorite is when we go on group runs and he spends the entire time herding the group. He never lets anyone get left behind, it’s awesome to watch him work.

Even though I never intended to have a dog as my main running partner, now I can’t imagine what I would do without him. He’s helped me through one of the toughest times in my life. When my dad was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and passed a few short months later, I was devastated and obviously depressed. It was so hard to motivate myself to train even though I had some big races on my calendar. Not wanting to let Rocky down was a huge factor in getting me out there.

And now that life is tough again with quarantining, social distancing and race cancellations, Rocky continues to be here for me. I’ve been stressed, sad and at times so unmotivated. Running usually helps me feel better but it can be so hard to get out the door especially with no races coming up soon and not knowing if Leadville will happen or not. Often getting out there with my running girls, helps a lot however we can’t do that right now either. If I didn’t have Rocky pushing me to take him out there, I probably would not have stayed on track with my Leadville training the way I have. We were definitely meant to be.