Running with friends, and dogs

I'm a week behind posting about my Jan. 9 race, the Frostbite 5K: Run With the Dogs.
It was a little too warm again this year for it to be frosty, but there were plenty of dogs (and humans) at the race.
I like this race. It's close to my house and it starts at 9 a.m., so I'm not up super early on a dark winter morning.
One of the nicest surprises this year was my friend Julie and her dog Brewer ran with me! I should have guessed Julie might be there, but I neglected to email or text her before the race, so it was a very pleasant surprise to see her just as we were lining up for the start.

Julie at the start

Brewer is here too!

I ran the Atlanta 10 Miler with Julie last fall and she's doing a run 3, walk 1 minute program, so we followed that (mostly) during the race. We came out really fast and that hampered me later on the course, but overall we did really well. We'd get to our walk portion of the program and Brewer wanted to keep running! I think he helped us be a little more speedy for this race.

Finishers!

I need to remind Julie that we've done this race together three or four times (except for the year when lightning forced the cancellation, but Julie and Brewer were there!)
In fact, I met Brewer almost right after Julie and her husband Chris got him. I think I met Chris, who was then her boyfriend, at this race.
I even found 27 cents this morning, so the found money pig got fed!

The found money pig

So 2016 running is off to a great start, running with the dogs (and friends).