About a year and a half ago, I started this blog. One of my first posts, “Why running made me cry last night,” referenced my emotional connection to running and my desire to start running again.

Admittedly, it ended there for me for a while. Life happened, and I put my desire to run again on the back burner.

Until about a month ago. We adopted a rescue dog, Clyde Eugene, and for the first month at our home, we decided it’d be best to keep him on a run to let him get acclimated to his new home–smell the smells, see the sights, but in a safe way and without risk of getting lost and going too far from home. I felt sorry for the poor guy, leashed up all day with a small amount of space to explore. So I bought a 16-foot leash and began taking Clyde on walks.

At first, our walks consisted of James, Clyde, and me walking at a rather leisurely pace around the neighborhood–basically up and down our road and down to the creek. Clyde is a beagle, so by nature, exploring any new area is right up his alley. He loves sniffing roadkill, jumping into thickets and searching for rabbits, and marking his territory relentlessly. Walking Clyde after work became one of the highlights of my day every day. When Clyde and I went walking alone, I decided to run with him to see if he liked it. He loved it, of course. Seeing him enjoy himself so much took my mind off the fact that I, too, was running rather than walking.

So thanks to our new baby, I’ve decided that running really is fun–at least when you’re running with the cutest beagle in the universe, anyway. Of all the outcomes I expected when getting a dog, this wasn’t one of them. But sometimes the unexpected outcomes turn out to be the best.