2011 Puppy Love 5K

So this last Sunday, we attended the 2nd annual Puppy Love 5K, a benefit for the Helen Woodward Animal Center. If you don't remember, Pumpkin took first place last year, with a time of 24:22. We found out that last year that there around 100 entrants. Well, this year, there were over 600 entries, including lots more dogs of all shapes and sizes.

Pumpkin was a good sport as usual, just happy to be outside with us, and opposed to last year's rain, this year was cool and sunny. We were able to get a spot at the front of the pack, and after the start, we found ourselves in the lead pack of about 10 runners or so. Two or three started to break even further away almost immediately.

At about the the halfway mark, some of the leaders started slowing down; some of the four-leggers even had to drop for a bathroom break! We moved around them and found ourselves in the top 4.

In the last stretch to the finish line, we overtook number 3, but I could see that 1 and 2 had left us all in the dust (see the video here). Even though final place was 3rd for us, we were really happy to find out our time was 21:11, which is 3:11 faster than last year!



I was spent, but Pumpkin had enough energy to spare for some agility jumps, tunnels and hoops while we waited for awards.

I'm really proud of her, and we're also thankful to our supporters, who raised $300 for the animal center, which according to the website, made Pumpkin the top 5 fundraiser :-)

Thanks to Laetitia for taking the pictures and video!