Promotion At Last

We’re at a dog show called Dogs Unleashed today at Bakewell. L is with us, supporting but secretly coming to clear the place out of Bakewell pudding. The puddings may, of course, be world famous but you know they’re just not going to be anything like the one she made at Christmas.

MD has four runs today but sadly there’s nothing for Doggo. The entries are quite small, so if ever there’s a chance for MD to get that vital promotion winning run, it is today. Mind you, we’ve been to several small shows before and said exactly the same thing. Famous last words.

We get five faults in our first run but with a small field struggling to get around a tough course, we still come third. It wasn’t even a very good run. Our second run is better and clear. It puts us in the lead and then as dog after dog fails to beat us, we win. Blimey. At last we will move up to Grade 4. The boy done good, finally.

Our remaining two runs are forgettable and not clear. Although I find our later that our final one was still good enough for a rosette for 11^th. We are long gone by the time the presentation is made, off to start the celebrations.

(Sunday 29^th June)

Dark And White

Today we head over to the Lady Manners School in Bakewell for The National Trust’s Hidden Peak Sportive. Actually the peaks aren’t very hidden at all, they’re totally in your face all the time, looming up in front of you and your bike.

Today is L’s sportive debut on her new bike. Cue drum roll. To say she’s a touch nervous would be the understatement of the year. She’ll be fine, I keep telling her. She’s doesn’t believe me obviously.

L does the 38km and I do the 82km which obviously has about twice as many hills in it as we toured around the Central Peak District and Staffordshire Moorlands. Thankfully it also has twice the number of cake stops. Some of the downhills, it has to be said, were awesome. I bet L was glad we got her brakes adjusted.

Everything about the event is good really. It’s well signed, the road surfaces are good and the feed stations well stocked. Some of my route overlaps with the last Sportive we did, also by the same organisers, and they send me up past Thorpe Cloud again. Thanks guys. I really needed to do that one again.

The only downside was perhaps the rumours of sausage roll rationing at the finish and the fact some poor soul had their bike nicked from outside registration.

The weather also behaved itself, turning out remarkably mild and largely dry. Although I’m guessing the guys starting late on the longest route were perhaps not so fortunate.

L comes away with a silver certificate and is stood waiting for me with the dogs as I finish my route. After having stopped to embrace all three of them and to cherish my survival, I roll across the line to collect my bronze one. Hmmm. Apparently I’m one solitary minute outside the silver limit. Be careful who you embrace and for how long on these things.

In the evening we head over to Stapleford again and a night in the Horse and Jockey.

(Sunday 20^th October)

Pretty Pretty

It's the almost excitingly named 'Dogs Unleashed' at Bakewell today. Including all manner of doggy sports:- Terrier racing, Flyball, Gundog scurry and of course agility.

Sadly most of the showground is underwater. So I can’t really see the general public turning up but turn up they do, in wellies. Although it's not actually that muddy, bizarrely enough, just submerged.

Also unbeknown to me, the start has also been put back an hour until 9.30. So I could have had an extra hour in bed, had I read my show info.

I have decide that the problem with MD, well one of them, is that I have been pushing him too hard to get this illusive win to take us up to Grade 4. Instead of winning we're simply collecting faults. So today I take it steady on our first run.

The result. A clear round and second place. Yay, so not a bad start.

Meanwhile L’s credit card is up in Sheffield helping Daughter celebrate her birthday, which is on Monday. L goes along to keep it company.

MD has a good second run but we went really wide on one turn. So I pushed hard to make up time but MD had a better ploy, missing out a jump, which didn’t go down well with the judge. 5 faults. Yet the time would have been fast enough for third, even with going back to get the missed jump. So shouldn’t have pushed.

In Sheffield L is buying porn erotica for Daughter. Not that book? Yes that book. The 50 Shades thing. Never one to miss out on such hype/controversy/porn erotica, we shall cast our ear over the audio version on the way to Scotland next week. Should make the journey wizz by.

MD's last run is tricky than it first looked and MD misses his weave entry, as do many other dogs and then I forget the twiddly bit in the middle, so we pick up an elimination.

Then Doggo gets 6th in the Veterans to round things off.

We pick L up from the train station. Then stay in to prepare for tomorrows half marathon. Spain v France is on the TV. Spain are pretty pretty but pretty pretty dull. They won’t let France have the ball but don’t create more than about three chances themselves all game. Very selfish of them. I think their chances of retaining this trophy are overrated but what do I know.

(Saturday 23rd June)

Up For It

It’s dull, windy and miserable here in Bakewell but still oddly picturesque with the hills behind us.

The old man seems really up for it today as if he knows the dreaded ‘r’ word is imminent. Retirement. He was so quick on his first course that he had a pole down, which is practically unheard of. It’s a shame but good to see him going for it. He’s clear on his second course but unfortunately he’s expelled most of his ‘up for it’ on the first run and we’re outside the places. He's done now, over to MD.

There are loads of moans from competitors about the difficulty of the G3 course that is MD’s first run of the day. We though like a challenge, although perhaps I was not cautious enough on this course and MD has five faults when he comes off his dog walk sideways, seemingly looking for a short cut. The course yields only three clear rounds from 79 entrants. We are 9th with 5 faults which gets us a rosette and a cash prize of £5. Blimey. £5 for 9th, what would a win have been worth?

Glossing quickly over run two, we queue up for run three and are near the front when they call a lunch break and we are told to go away and come back later. That’s appalling ring management, if I may say so, speaking as someone who has run many a ring.

When we return after lunch it is now throwing it down and Doggo looks a little smug that he got all his runs in before it rained. Still, my little trooper does a clear round in the rain and had it not been for a bit of a 'moment' before the weaves which cost us a few seconds and a few places we might have even won it. We are 9th again. Another rosette but no cash this time. Run four... we’ll skip over that one too.

L is running in Keyworth, the Crossdale 10k, and up against the U23 GB canoe team. Not sure if they’re any good at running though. She is three minutes down on last year. ‘Shoot me now’, she proclaims, as she heads off to make a donation at the charity cake stall. Does she mean for the run or the cake?

Her time isn’t too bad considering she did have two working legs last year and she was supposed to be taking it easy. Then she’s off to Broadway for an afternoon of dark brooding passion and romance or rather Jayne Eyre, which I have declined, still not having recovered from the TV adaptation a couple of years ago.

Back home and an empty nest of course. So we can have our own dark brooding passion and romance if we want, or a bottle of wine, or I can cook a slap up two course meal for the two of us without worrying about feeding the five thousand. Perhaps a combination of all three after of course the cycling...

A stunning performance from everyone in the Great Britain team for keeping the race together and teeing it up for Mark Cavendish to do his stuff. Cav sprinting home to bring home the world title for the first time since 1965.

(Sunday 25th September)