Can you outrun your dog in a 5K?

Agree that the weather has a lot to do with it--all that extra hair makes them very prone to overheating.

When I lived in NC, a friend of mine and I used to take his black lab/collie mix out when we went mountain biking in the winter. We'd spend an entire afternoon out on country roads and trails and the dog would keep up the whole time. It had amazing endurance.

In the summer the dog wouldn't even make it around the block.

It was somewhat of a loose cannon of a dog though--we had to be careful if there were other dogs about and eventually the dog had to be put under for biting off the back of the mailman's pants. The next dog he got was a boxer and was generally pretty lazy.

The extra hair, the reduced ability to dilate many small blood vessels specifically near the skin surface to radiate heat, and the lack of sweating all contribute to dogs' lower heat tolerance. And if they're black, like mine, and it's sunny out, forget it. They're useless then.

i have a boxer, who could no doubt crush me. when she was 7 months old, she could run 14 miles with me, no problem. on most runs, she would sniff around for a while, sprint 100m and catch back up and then play around in the bushes for a while again. she would do that the entire run and was pretty much running it as an interval workout. dogs are way more efficient, have a higher mvo2 and a higher top speed. the average dog could easily break 4 in the mile.

My dog is an adorable, grossly overpriced, purchased for my daughters but ending up being my dog Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. It maybe can run 100 yards before tiring. Needless to say, I only take her for short walks. Despite my warnings to the local high school cross country team that they would end up carrying her if they took her on a longer than half mile walk, they did it anyway, and ended carrying her for quite some time. I love my dog, but must say that I have my eye on a Redbone Coon Hound, which, given its traditional role in chasing prey through the high Southern Appalachians, and its incredible chest cavity to body size ratio, can run all day. And the real shame of my dog is I am a middle age married dude who cannot take advantage of my dog's number one attribute - it is so cute and cuddly it is the best human female attractant I have seen.

Good posts so far... I think an athletic dog could compete with the best when it comes to 5K's.

I knew somebody with a border collie and he rode his bike along a mile pathway in under 4 minutes with the dog running besides him...

I had a 95-pound malamute and untrained he cruised through a 5:50 mile during the summer, and I am sure he could have gone faster. Sled dogs are more of the ultra-runner type though, but they still have speed.

Somebody's boxer ran some intervals along side me one day at the track (uninvited, mind you) - something like 3-4x1600 all sub-5 minute, and he just looked like he was jogging the whole time.

Not to get caught up in the VO2max/performance discussion, but dogs can have VO2max's above 150, and when that is combined with long powerful legs and their slender body type, they are nautrally built to run long distances at a good clip... Of course, different breeds are differently adapted...

before my German Shepard's hips went, he could run 10 miles with me and my dad and he would be running then stopping turning around and running to my dad then back up to me, and visa versa which was about 30 meters so he actually ran a bit more, and as a fartlek

oh yea, he would easily smoke me in a 5k and i run about 15 minutes

I used to ride my bike a lot in the hills of southwest Virginia, more often than not one of the crazy farm dogs would come out and follow me, sometimes for many miles at a time. At first I was worried the dogs would get lost, but days or weeks later the same dog would pick me up at the same place, so I guess they knew the hills around there pretty well. It was spooky, a few of those dogs could pull past me at 20 mph without problem, sometimes I came close to hitting them. Amazingly, all were friendly. My average speed on those very hilly rides was about 15mph, the dogs just trotted alongside, if I pulled away on a longer downhill they would quickly catch back on. All mutts except one small dalmation, the fastest and craziest of the bunch.

I've watched a few documentaries on sled dogs - specifically those used in Iditarod. There was an estimate that those dogs (which cover ~100 miler PER DAY) were burning calories at a rate 9 times greater than humans per kg of bodywieght, which is about 2.5-3 times that of a human total calorie consumption. They were consuming (and burning) about 9000 calories in a 24 hour period. Absolutely amazing animals.

Assuming that the weather isn't hot, my dog would absolutely own me at any distance. She's some mutt mix we got from the pound. They told us beagle and lab, but she's got a real lean body like a whippet. Anyway, when she takes off it is freakin' something to behold. Looks like a greyhound in a race. Unfortunately, she hates to run on a leash or we'd be good running buddies.

Sled dogs are amazing. They do eat 10,000 cal per day - lots of salmon. The best teams can cover a 1000 mile race in less than 10 days... It's amazing, because many of the mushers run them the hardest at night, because it is cooler than during the day - and that is in Alaska in March... they really like it cold. If you watch the start of the race, they just can't wait to go - they love running. They really are the ultra-marathoners of the canine world.

Many of the sled dogs were derived from the Siberian Husky and Alaskan Malamute breeds (and the little known Alaskan Husky), and nowadays the mixed breeds are the best... if you look at a team of the sled dogs, they all look a little different than each other, and certainly different than the pure-bred sled dog types you'll see as pets.

I dont know about running but this dog is smarter then most people on these message boards.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4VMntSUskg

Look at what the wild dog types can do. Even 80 percent of the untrained domestic breeds cam easily outrun a human over reasonable distances.

The endurance of wild dogs, especially those living in hot climates is remarkable though. African Wild Dogs, Dholes and Dingoes can run all day.

I used to drag my boxer on runs.

I think he could have run under 9 seconds for 100m, though.

well, my Shepard/Lab mix is 15 months old and he can hang with me on a 19:00 3 mile tempo run @ altitude. And like most dogs, he goes back and forth, back and forth.

But i do track intervals dammit and I could put a move with 800 to go on him and he'd never recover ;)

Seriously, he'd kick my ass in a 5k most likely, but only with a good sit and kick strategy.

I clock my dog going down the runway at my family's ranch. 3800 feet and at 37 mph she was in front of the car pulling away. Me and my coach would go out on hard tempo run and she would follow then go blasting past and disappear into a rice field some 200 yards ahead. Then come blasting back by us about 2 minutes later. 60 minute runs were no prob.

my bullterrier is blazing for distances up to the mile, but he is a big puss when it comes to longer distance. short, stocky, big head. he reminds me of alan webb.