About a month ago or so, we were invited by a friend to join her and her team from her company to walk a 5K in downtown Dallas. It was a charity event put on by the American Heart Association and in support of sufferers of stroke and heart disease.

We pretty quickly decided we'd join her. It was an especially easy decision, because furry four-legged family members were allowed! This was the most exciting part, for me. Renn has been on long walks with me before. Generally, we go for a 30 to 45 minutes walk once a day unless the weather doesn't allow. And on the weekends, we'd recently been going for walks of up to 1 hour and 15 minutes, so I knew he could handle the 5K.

We registered for the walk two days beforehand (my fault since the email clearly said to pre-register, but I'd completely overlooked that part until almost the day of the walk). And we set up a meeting time with our friend at her place, which is located very near where the walk was to begin. She also has a dog that she was bringing. Her dog and Renn had already met at the dog park and gotten along famously.

The walk itself was very slow moving at first. Hundreds of people filing down the road (next to the W hotel) on our way winding through downtown. After the first couple turns, though, the crown thinned out a bit and the walking wasn't so slow and smushed. It was neat to walk around the streets of downtown. I'd only ever been in a car and driven to my destination. I'd never walked around in that way, so I really appreciated the opportunity to see the city from a different perspective.

We finished the walk in just over an hour, I don't remember exactly how long it took. We were pretty hot and sweaty, but luckily it was overcast that day, so it definitely could have been worse. After the walk, we went back to our friend's place and believe it or not her little doggie was ready to play with minimal recovery time. She's so cute! Renn, a bit older than her, wanted to join the playtime as well, but he was moving at a noticeably slower pace than his puppy pal.

Overall, we had a great time participating in an event for a good cause, and we got some outdoor exercise while we were at it. Not bad for a Saturday morning.

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