The fastest dog in Hanoi
Two weekends ago Tala competed in her first ever timed 10k race. While she didn’t win (probably more to do with her running partner – me – than her), she was the fastest (and only) dog so until challenged I am giving her the title of the fastest dog in Hanoi! The time to beat is 47 minutes 48 seconds… Official results for the race here. Thank you Red River Runners for organizing and letting Tala take part!
Tala has been competitive from an early age… Below is her at 6 weeks jostling for milk with her siblings (She’s the tenacious brown one in the middle). Doesn’t she now look just like her mother?
She then started running with our horses at about four months… She loved it!
And generally whizzing around the desert and the Nile beaches in Sudan.
After moving to Hanoi, her freedom was restricted as she always has to be on her lead (other than the odd whip around on a tennis court) for safety reasons (traffic and vicious dogs), but somehow she still manages to get a lot of exercise! For all the people who said we shouldn’t bring a dog to Hanoi, we have made it work and I definitely think she lives a far better life here than living on the streets of Khartoum…
Her life is pretty active even in the city. Whether it be jumping vertically for toys in our apartment or jumping over obstacles out on our walks….
She also runs with the bicycle (there are some long, relatively quiet stretches around the Citadel), which allows her to get up more speed than our runs. She can keep up a 3:30/km pace for 5km (perhaps longer – we haven’t tried yet) on the bike.
We’ve been running together now for the last two years and it is one of the best ways to get exercise in the city. It also turns out that Nubian Hounds are probably up there with Viszlas and Rhodesian Ridgebacks in terms of the perfect running dog – long legs, great endurance, and a short coat which helps in the hotter months.
I was really keen to do the 10k race as a bit of a challenge to see how hard it would be to run a real race with her. My goal was to run it in sub 50 minutes.
As I had anticipated, she spent the first kilometer or so pulling quite hard as her competitive spirit wanted to be in the lead, but with the winner running sub 40 minutes that was never going to happen. After the second kilometer she settled into her normal rhythm which is a relaxed lope that seems to go perfectly with about a 4:45-5:00/km pace. Unfortunately, on one loop, where we passed the runners who were behind us, she saw my husband and spent the next few hundred meters turning her head back looking for him, confused why we weren’t waiting. I made sure on the next loop to distract her so she couldn’t spot him! The only other thing that slowed us down by about 20 seconds was a very quick loo stop by Tala at about kilometer 6, where she had a bit of a Paula Radcliffe moment… Conveniently she did it 20 ft from a bin and I was of course carrying at bag!
From then on we cruised along with only the slippery pavement slowing us (me) down. We probably actually ran the last 50 meters a little faster as we were chased by a small yappy dog who had escaped from a house right by the finish line! All in all a great day. I can’t wait till we are either in the UK or US and can try the new sport – canicross – cross country running with dogs! Here is a fun blog which explains more about it.
Luckily despite being a bit of a speed demon Tala is equally happy at home on the sofa, moving as little as possible! This photo was taken now as I write… It’s raining, 10:30am on a Sunday, and she has absolutely no desire to go outside – let alone run!
Congratulations, to the both of you, for competing in the race. You must be proud to have the fastest dog in Hanoi. That is a really cool story – thank you for sharing.
What gorgeous photos, as always! I love Tala’s new title; I’m sure she deserves it! And congrats on the very successful race, to both of you!
Hi Jura These are fabulous pictures… the one of Tala suckling with her sibs is pretty special…did Tala actually take part in Polo!? either way to see Tala at full stretch of her leash and you in a ?Gallop!!!! ….can Tala reach the ceiling when she does the high jump? … great photos and now that we have got to know Tala and see her jumping over the tangle of wires on a Hanoi street and even take a guess at what part of Hanoi a particular picture is taken…we feel very lucky Hazel had her scan yesterday and we will have the result tomorrow in clinic…fingers crossed. We had a parcel of Cong Caphe from Piers and are looking forward to putting it together with the ice and condensed milk to bring back some vivid memories You and Piers were so good to us, we had a really wonderful time with you both. Here the sun is shining and the daffodils are out…Spring is here Thanks again for everything Love Hazel and Mike xx Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2014 08:27:56 +0000 To: drmcgalvin@hotmail.com
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