Red Dog Days to resume

Red Dog Days, the city’s popular summer conditioning program, will begin Thursday.

Don “Red Dog” Gardner, a retired Lawrence police officer who has run the program for the last 21 years, has scheduled sessions for 6 a.m. and 6:15 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays in June at Memorial Stadium.

Beginning July 5 and running until early August, the program will expand to workouts at 6 a.m., noon and 6:15 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays.

Also, run-walk sessions are scheduled at 6:30 a.m. and 8 a.m. on Saturdays in June and July, starting at the Lied Center parking lot.

Gardner said Red Dog Days drew an average of about 800 participants last summer.

“It varies,” Gardner said, “but we had as many as 1,005 last July.”