Who let the dogs out...?

I collected hubby from the airport first thing yesterday, and while he headed to bed to sleep off his jet lag I should have gone straight out for a run...but instead I got comfy and read my book (Ken Follett's 'Fall of Giants').
I promised myself that I'd do my long weekend run later in the day, but never quite got round to it. Actually, I didn't really get round to doing very much at all yesterday. Lazy, but quite nice!
The clocks went back an hour last night so I used my 'extra hour' to get my run done early this morning, heading out just after half past six.
The weather forecast said that today would be dry and warm. Sadly it was neither that early in the day. The heavy drizzle soon turned into full-on rain, and within half a mile I was soaked through to the skin. Hey ho - nothing to do but keep going.
I'm still following a walk/run strategy but I've tweaked the ratio for the long runs; this morning I ran for two minutes and walked for one, then repeated for 4.2 miles.
The run/walk strategy means that even on longer runs I'm not too tired by the end, and looking at the breakdown of my timings when I got home I could see that my speed was picking up throughout and I ran a negative split (meaning that the second half of the run was quicker than the first). My pace is also not much slower than when I'm running all the time (averaging about 10 seconds a mile slower) so over the distance of the marathon I should feel fresher without losing out on time.
Half way round my run I went past a pub in the village. Two puppies came tumbling out of a side door and were pottering around on the car park...until they saw me. I suddenly gained two new best friends, and couldn't get away. Every time I started to run on, they followed me. I tried to ignore them. I tried to shoo them away. I tried to find their owner. In the end, to get away, I threw a stick for them and ran at top speed (7.7mph, according to my watch!) in the opposite direction.
The rest of the run continued without incident, and I got home just after quarter past seven. Another run - done.