Diary of a Canicrosser

How a canicrosser trains to be able to keep up with a dog!

This post is all about how I train to be able to race with my dogs so others can see how much dogless running and training is involved in running with a dog :)

I thought of starting this social media #diaryofacanicrosser, and please note the starting date was 11th March 2025, so that anyone can see what, how, when and how much I do, with or without my dogs, and inspire others to follow a similar structured approach to training. I don't follow a training plan at the moment because I simply cannot afford to time-wise - busy life!, but I follow the principles of endurance training which, if you do not know about them, you will learn by following my Facebook and Instagram page.

I try to go out for a run as often as possible, I try to have a longer run (it should be a Long Run but hey!) each week but it is not always possible, I try to do a recovery run after each speed session (canicross too), even if it's only 20 minutes - it has an amazing effect on the tired muscles and helps and speeds up recovery, I do a minimum of 2 canicross training sessions / week and a maximum of 4 sessions in harness for the dogs - a variety of speed and distance. The variety in speed and distance helps my dogs develop a good aerobic base, endurance, strength and speed.

My speed sessions happen on a Tuesday or Thursday at the track with my favourite athletics club #mansfieldharriers. I love this club! There are sessions for middle distance or longer distance, at the moment I am focusing on the middle distance sessions, once a week, usually on a Tuesday so I can train with the dogs during the weekend. This gives my body time to recover whilst I log some easy longer runs (7-10k) in between.

The middle distance sessions are intense, focused on short distance intervals - 200-600m, in various patterns and with little recovery between intervals. Why I'm doing these sessions? Because I need them. I need speed strength training in my routine in order to stimulate the fast twitch muscle fibres which support me when racing with my dogs. Basically so I can keep up better with my dogs which in turn means my dogs can run faster with me with less resistance from me. The canicross trainings I do with my dogs help my body stimulate my VO2max at a higher intensity and building the endurance of my fast twitch muscle fibres. The rest of my runs are dogless and at a very easy pace usually following my heart rate zones. The easy runs make up the leg time I need to maintain an excellent aerobic base.

Training session with Ren

Training session with Nyx

I have active recovery days without running but I cannot stand still for too long so I just take my dogs for a longer bike ride whilst they run free or for long walks.

I always balance easy runs with hard runs in 80/20 percentage and when I need to ramp up my hard training I look at adding more easy and recovery runs to my routine to compensate. This can be a second run a day or longer easy runs.

This racing season I was not able to follow the training plan I had designed for me and my dogs due to, well, life again and weather (sometimes) but, even though I have raced with my young hound who is inexperienced, we got to see what the big races are like, that we can improve so much, we just need structured training at the right time, and the areas we need to work on to improve. I mean, we did 4.95k in 16:38 and we are ranked 5th in the UK (according to the latest published ranking table, this may change though) so we didn't do too bad :) but there is a lot of room for improvement.

So how can you learn from this? Well, I will keep posting my runs and trainings, with stats etc. so you can see the frequency, distance, pace, intensity etc. and bear in mind I am a woman, 41 years of age (at the moment!), mother of two, taking care of 4 dogs, a part time job and a small dog training business - I know, I am pretty busy! But, where there's a will there's a way ;) and if you are committed, you too can do it!

You can follow me on:

• Strava: Cristina D (Run With K9s)

• Garmin: Cristina Dinescu

• Facebook: Run With K9s

• Instagram: run_with_k9s

  
  

... for a daily entry of my #diaryofacanicrosser