Does a dog S#!& in the woods?

It's Christmas, and I went for a run.

I have not run in several weeks, probably over a month. And I spent those weeks eating holiday cookies and candies. I figured I would do a 3-mile run to start getting back into the swing of things. There is a vey specific 5k distance I do in Griffith Park all the time: I park at the Zoo, get on the horse trail, do a loop around the golf course and come back. 3.1 miles. But today the Zoo parking lot was completely locked up. Stupid Christmas. I had to go to another parking area a half mile down the road.

I have tons of milestones around Griffith that I know the distances between that I can mix and match to generate just about any distance. But from this particular starting point, I could only do 4 miles. I don't run with a GPS, so I couldn't simply go 1.5 miles and turn around. Fine, I did the 4. 

It was cold. 53 degrees when I left, and I was out of practice on how to dress for cold-weather running. I definitely could have used an extra layer. I did OK for the first 3 miles or so but then my knee started hurting. It's been a while since I've been running, but I remembered something about "listening to your body." I think it was, if your knee hurts, it's because the muscles around it are too tight and they need to loosen up and you can loosen them up by running. So I just kept on going. Probably a bad call, because it's still hurting a little bit.

Anyway, during the run on the trail I saw a woman walking her dog. It was maybe part chihuahua part poodle - a chihoodle? I don't know, it was small and white. The dog did its business, and the woman picked it up in a doggie baggie. I stopped and told her "it's very nice that you're cleaning up after your dog, thank you, but this is a horse trail. We have horses coming through here making messes a whole lot bigger than what your dog is doing so I don't think you need to worry about cleaning up. But thank you." Because, seriously... those rabbit pallets her dog was dropping are NOTHING compared to the land mines we dodge all the time on the trail. Still, nice to know people try to be conscientious about their pets.