Time To Lance The Boil

MD is absolutely 100% again and fit for a parkrun. L asks tentatively where we're going and is rather surprised that I choose Forest Rec, where I have munched many a bacon sandwich and chucked many a ball but have never run. Time to lance the boil.

The first problem is getting Doggo there without him knowing and therefore getting excited at the anticipated ball session. So I drive there via a different route to throw him off the trail and it works a treat.

The run goes roughly ok. MD gets his comfort break in before the start but we have to stand so far back behind everyone else because of his excited barking that in the morning’s dense fog we don’t see everyone else start until they are halfway down the first stretch. Cue a manic sprint from us both, delayed by a bit of lead biting (I must stop doing that), and then a lot of overtaking up the grass on the inside.

Our time is good but not a PB due to that delayed start. Then it’s a long leisurely breakfast as L has cancelled her 10am Pilates before she heads off for her still booked 11am Pilates and then onto the 12:30 warm down I have booked for her back at home.

Then it’s the football. My favourite day, FA Cup 3^rd Round day, and Derby win impressively at West Bromwich Albion.

In the evening it’s my friend’s 50^th Birthday Celebration which is at the Brunswick. He was going to book a room for it but hasn’t which is probably wise as there aren’t that many of us. Black Santa, presumably Christmas leftovers, is added to my list while L’s New Year’s drink is whiskey and soda as apparently its low calorie. She clearly intends to be up competing with me in the half marathons this year.

(Saturday 7^th January)

The Damage Done

So the inaugural Huthwaite parkrun at Brierley Forest and its busy as most inaugurals are. I run with MD which means we get a lousy start due to prodigious amounts of lead biting. Then, as usual, once we’re up and running we’re dead last, so we have to overtake everyone. 

The course starts on very narrow paths so overtaking is very slow and laborious. When we finally weave our way through the field and catch up with L, MD stops for a number two loo break. He really should have gone before we started. Then we have to make our way through the field all over again.

By the time we start lap two of two I finally feel we have started running for real but the damage is done and our resultant time of over 27 minutes is our slowest ever by two minutes.

Sadly the park café hasn’t yet cottoned on to the potential sales boost from so many runners and isn’t doing bacon butties. So there’s no reason to stick around and I take L to Pilates for 11.

She meets me back at home and then we both head across to Derby. I’m heading to the football but I drop L in Borrowash to make her way to the hospital to visit her brother from where I pick her up later.

At the match Derby again spurn plenty of chances but would probably have lost anyway to a slick looking Newcastle side who in the end win 2-0 with a very late second goal flattering them a touch.

(Saturday 10^th September)

Just A Mile

MD and I embark (and his case actually bark) on another morning training run. It goes well. The lead biting is now zero, although we do still seem to have a few ‘other dog’ problems when we meet one.

Then I drive into work and collapse at my desk. I hope he isn’t feeling as knackered as me but then, if he is, he can stay in bed all day. He's not the fittest of border collies. L reckons he’ll need to be stretchered from the finish line on Saturday. He may not be the only one.

He is up for a park session when I get home though. Then I cook whilst L sets about embarrassing my piddling swimming efforts at the pool. Dare I ask how many lengths? Just a mile she says. 64 lengths. Ouch.

(Tuesday 26th April)

Rewriting The Pre-Race Manual

I finish work at lunchtime so that we can get an early start to get up to the Lakes. We wouldn’t normally bother leaving before 6pm but they’ve installed barriers at the camp site to keep the late arriving riff raff out. So I thought we best get there before 9pm. Which is the time when the razor wire is rolled out and the watch towers become manned.

I head home via Sainsburys for some pre-race bananas. Then I pack. As I check my emails at the same time one pops into my inbox from L asking whether I’ve been out training for the April Madness 10k with Motor Mouth yet, it was formerly the Wiggle 10k but we’ve renamed it. Erm, not yet. I had mentioned I might start training with him today. I can see that L doesn’t think I’ll do it, does she?

I have the usual problems getting him started. E.g. a lot of lead biting but then we’re off. His nose in the air looking for trouble as we head onto the park. I choose to go on the park, purely to maximise distractions. Which was ok, until we met a distraction. He had a quick lurch at the first dog we met but that was all. The second one warranted a bark and a lurch, at which point we momentarily lost focus and went back to the lead biting. We stopped, had a team meeting, discussed strategy, decided who was boss (I think) and then carried on with focus returned. So it went well. We only ran about 2k but it’s a start.

Then I load all the gear (and the dogs) in the car and head off to collect L. We arrive at Great Langdale to discover the barriers are still not in operation, so we needn’t have rushed. This also, unfortunately, gives us extra time in the Hikers Bar of The Old Dungeon Ghyll Hotel. Where L insists on following her usual three halves of beer pre-race strategy. Unfortunately they appear to be serving the beer in out-sized half pint glasses tonight, which to the untrained eye might look like pints and it's doubly unfortunate that the beer is 5.6% Old Peculiar.



After the three, there’s the one for the road, which is the narrow lane we have to walk down to the camp site, it’s a long way, 200 yards perhaps. So three and a half out-sized halves of Old Peculiar then. L's rewriting the pre-race manual here.

I like her style but I’m far more sensible and water down my Old Peculiar down with a Cumberland Ale. Which is cunning of the highest order I believe but we’ll see who has had the best strategy tomorrow.

(Friday 15th April)