Conditioning question

[Gertie]

A little background: So I'm in my 3rd week of a 25 week marathon training program and the pup, now 9 months old, joins me for my running workouts 5 days/week. She runs off leash and probably does at least double what I do, if not more. Most runs are about 45 min. to an hour long with the exception of the long run on Saturdays which is currently 8 miles and will be increasing by a mile every week until I'm up to 23 miles. She also comes with me on a mountain bike ride usually once/week (mileage on those rides range a lot depending on the trail but 15 miles is probably about average).

So my question is: If the pup is joining me on these runs is there any need for her to be roading in a harness as well? Also, is this too much running for her? So far it hasn't phased her a bit but I'm wondering about the longer runs later in the training program and if she needs more rest days.
Lets hear your thoughts! Thanks.

[Gertie]

Btw, I know this is very similar to the roading thread that is currently up but I wanted to ask the question and didn't want to hijack that poster's thread. With that in mind, sorry for any redundancy.

[ymepointer]

I don't think she will have any problems and no real need to road her IMO

[DonF]

I doubt she'll need more than your giving her. Die hard conditioner's want the dog to be pulling, not just running. They like them to pull up hill also, not really steep but where they have to pull rather than just free wheeling. Good part of what your doing is at some point she's going to learn to pace herself for a certain amount of time on the ground, maybe she already has.

You coming out to the corrals next weekend? Walking stuff and your welcome to walk along. I'm going to walk all I can.

[Gertie]

Thanks for the quick responses. What's up at the Corrals? I could probably come walk around with ya for a while

[frosso]

My vet told me not to run my Llew pup until she reached 9 mo. But she was running like crazy chasing tweety birds in the back yard all day long so around 7 mo I started jogging with her. Since I'm a slow runner I don't really think what she is doing can be classified as running. She's really just trotting along while I'm doing my over 50 shuffle. We usually do 3 miles but we did 5 miles sat and it didn't seem to phase her. Am I running her too soon or is my vet being too conservative for a sporting breed? Just curious.

[Gertie]

We've worked up really gradually from the time she was about 4 months old. I started out just going on off-leash walks of about 15 minutes and didn't start running with her until she was about 7 months old. By then we were running only about 30 minutes but she was running laps around me. :roll: I think the big concern is over-working their joints and stressing their growth plates before they've fused and having it cause problems down the road. I try to mitigate this by only running her on soft surfaces (no pavement) and I've waited until she's 9 months to really start adding any kind of distance. I also think it depends on the breed and how heavy they are. Mine's an ES and only weighs about 35 lbs. Hope that helps.

[jwnissen]

My vet told me that you should not run your dog for more than a mile or 2 until she is at least 12 months old and that I should wait until she is 18 months. The theory behind it is that her joints arent fully devoleped, or finished growing, until 12 to 18 months. So running them that much could, potentially, damage her joints in the long run. I personally dont know, but it makes sense and I want my dog to be healthy for as long as possible. I have been taking it easy with her. Hope this helps.

[frosso]

Thanks for the help. I'll keep it to 3 since that's about 30 min. of jogging. I'm pretty careful trying to keep her on soft surfaces and I try not to her jump out of the truck onto concrete. She's just so wide open in the back yard for hours on end. I'm hoping she's not putting pressure on soft joints and ligaments but short of keeping her locked up inside I'm not sure there's much I can do about it. She's a wild and crazy girl!

[DonF]

Thanks for the quick responses. What's up at the Corrals? I could probably come walk around with ya for a while

I think it's the Britt Club walking trial. I think there's supposed to be one of those hunter gun dog stakes. No need for a broke dog or even registered dog. It's to introduce people to trialing. Got my little generator running today so I'm gonna take out the trailer with the computer and printer.

[hi-tailyn]

When first got my astro 220 I put collar on my 12 month old gsp in the back yard at 7am and took off at 9pm that day and read that she ran 9.8 miles just in the back yard in one day. I guess I let her run too much.

[Elkhunter]

Ya I am curious about the the 12-18 months also. I hunt my dogs ALOT when they are 12 months old. Never seen a problem.

[ymepointer]

This is equivalent to your pediatritian telling you not letting your kids play sports till there 15 I don't think it will hurt that pup one bit and will actually be really good for her

[Gertie]

I (and my vet) are in agreement that having her run with me is alright at this point. I'm just curious what benefits there are to roading with a harness and having the dog pull as opposed to simply running long distances? Do you get the same results in the long-run? Is roading simply a way to get a dog conditioned in less time or do you really get a better result as far as performance goes?

[Birdman250]

IMO you are doing great by running your dog without the harness. Throughout the years I had run my dogs on harnesses and without. I didn't see any difference in conditioning. I now run my dogs on logging trails at speed of 25mph on a 30 mile stretch. They eventually learned to pace themselves and do excellent at trials. But when your dogs are well conditioned expect them to run a 30 minutes trial like it was a warm up.

[DonF]

My belief is that what your doing is better than pulling. It's not so much mussle you build but endurance and they breathe better is my thought. Swimmers don't lift a lot of weight's but they are in good shape.

[RayGubernat]

Slow roading against resistance is a different kind of exercise than free running. Just as working out with heavy weights andfew reps is different than light weights and mulitple reps.

Different kinds of exercises develop and condition muscles, ligaments and tendons differently.

Free running develops stride, extension, endurance. It tends to develop long limber muscles. Slow roading develops muscle mass, power and speed as in sprint speed. It develops shorter, bulkier muscles. Think distance runner versus sprinter or swimmer versus body builder.

Doing one or the other exclusively is probably not as effective as a conditioning program than doing both in a coordinated, complementary fashion.

RayG

[jlowery]

I am doing this same thing right now, (letting my dogs, run off leash) trying to condition them a bit every evening... Question, do you all still keep the same food amounts??? I am pretty sure they get plenty of exercise in the backyard daily... I have a pretty decent size backyard, but when the weekend comes, and i start planting birds, seems as though he just runs out of dog after about the third bird.. So i am trying to focus on conditioning during the week more...

[benelli]

I know this isn't exactly answering your question, but I had a Boxer a couple years ago who did all my marathon training with me. Here are a few things I learned from that:

The first time he did 14 miles (all our running was on asphalt and concrete, we didn't have any other options), his paws were pretty tender so I thought that might be his max - so I backed off for a week or two, and then his paws toughened up so he could handle 20+ on roads and sidewalks just fine.

The 20+ mile runs took me around 3 hours, which meant lots of time in the hot Florida sun. Boxers do really badly in hot weather, but I would imagine any dog would get a bit toasty, and we had a RuffWear vest for the dog that I could pour water over which would help keep him cooler. (Obviously that doesn't make sense to use out hunting, but when you're hunting you can rest in the shade for a while ... when you're trying to get a training run in, you don't want to take a 20-min break in the middle to chill out.)

I carried a CamelBak that had a little bit of water for me, plus room for a Nalgene for the dog and a collapsible water bowl so I could give him drinks of water along the way.

If you do end up running with the dog on a leash at some point, make sure you teach him NOT to pull! I made the mistake of letting the dog tug me along, and the extra impact jarred my shins so badly I got a nasty case of tendonitis just a few weeks before Boston. Pulling is fine if you're on a bike/ATV, but not when you're running.

But that dog had so much fun running, it got to the point where he would go nuts when I got my running shoes out, and sometimes I would go for a run just because I knew it would make the dog happy.

[Gertie]

I feed 2.5 - 3 cp. per day and have for a couple months now (fed 4 cups until 7 mo.) and she does just fine and vet says her weight is perfect for her frame. I think there are about a million threads on how much to feed dogs on this forum and the gist that I get is that it depends on the dog. Some need more, some need less and you just have to watch their weight and their performance to make a good determination as to what's good for your dog.