Ten weary miles on...even the dogs were knackered!

A wee trip round Loch Glashan with Liz and the dogs today before the rains came. Lucy realised what was afoot early on and paced herself but Ginny did not need to. Every so often her little black head would pop back over the crest of a hill to check our plodding progress. My legs were definitely heavy and the brain sore too I think. It took me a good long time to add up my mileage over the last two weeks and to come up with 53.3 miles. The litany of aches and pains grew as the miles clocked up and it made me feel so much better to list them all out loud. liz generously tolerated this foible for at least a mile. Who needs way markers when, for example,the tummy gets hungry at 2 miles,the right hip reliably and regularly starts to ache at 6 miles followed by various ailments both imaginary and real roving up and across the body with abandon? Liz beat me with a sprint to the car fair and square...(well, she did have Molly pulling her along on the lead but who would be churlish enough to note that, not me for sure......). We had a mutual confession as soon as the car was reached that internally we had been willing the other to drop to a walk at any point. However we are obviously made of sterner stuff and so celebrated by falling upon a packet of Rollo's lurking in my car. Fab soup at Liz's with toast and salmon finished a perfect (I can say that now) exercise routine nicely. All aches and pains forgotten and forgiven.The finger nails are rapidly disappearing and so that can only mean RACE DAY next weekend.
1hr 29 mins and 57s!!

jogscotland inveraray

Finally we got to the big night and headed off to the school to wait with trepidation for any takers. The first one hove into view at just before 7pm and we anxiously watched her approach the school whilst trying to guess if she was in running gear or not! Happily she was as were the other 10 or so folk that arrived to join us. There was a mixed range of abilities which makes things more interesting and I hope everyone enjoyed themselves. The weather was great not too warm, no rain and no MIDGES!! We did an "out and back" run with the fastest off the blocks scooping up the rest on the way home. All survived and so watch this space for how many come back next week for more!! Garret and I collected the dogs when we got home, they were not happy to see running gear going off without them an hour earlier and did a training run which just about finished me off!!

Blogging By Numbers

A bit late posting these but, well you know the rest of the saying I am sure.......

1.Three pals and a dog off for a walk.
2.The old "jumping the ditch" game
3.Lucy and Ginny are bored with that game now and have transferred to the "It's my stick, No it's mine, no really I know it is mine"! conversation
4. Down the hill we go
5.Cally having some "me" time.
6.Ginny is not too sure about swimming in February
7. "we can do synchronised swimming in a line"
8."Off we go again"

Boxing Day Walk

A wonderful relief from the cooking and drinking duties (the two go hand in hand with me at festive times of year) as the children and I headed up into the hills. This means a very steep start that we timed (22minutes) and then a walk around a lovely Loch at the top on a crytal clear day. The dogs were doggily appreciative, the world up there is so different, no trees to speak of and moorland stretching away over to Loch Awe. We left the cobwebs on the top, along with the ghost of Freya's srisps which she dropped almost as soon as she opened them...even happier dogs.

Starry, Starry Night and the Light Fantasic.

At this time of year the darkening evenings are made more evident by the need to lock the birds up before the light drops to a certain level. At the moment this is about 8.15pm but by mid winter will be 4ish. Tonight I was on my ownesome with no one to try to persuade into accompanying me with the result that Mr Pig caused me a few problems as he was trying to get into the Hen House at the same time as I was trying to chivvy an errant hen in through the only open door. He luckily responds to a tap on the snout, luckily as he must weigh almost as much if not more than me. The earlier time means that the dogs get their walk later on which tonight was a pleasure,the afternoon drizzle has cleared beautifully and the stars are magically bright and clear above us. The effect is slightly marred, or enhanced depending on your view point by the bright lights of the Connect Festival 4 miles away to the west. It is quite a contrast depending on a turn of your head. Both my boys are there amongst the excitement tonight. Toby, predictably after having been told to text me every two hours has managed just one which bizarrely said "yes". Garret did manage a bit more contact with one phone call, battling against a dodgy connection and the noise with the news that he had caught a glimpse of son and heir and he is having fun...hmmmmmmmm.
I am official taxi driver tonight so Garret can give a considered opinion on the Loch Fyne Whisky on offer (amongst other things). This for a girl who likes to be asleep by 10pm is more of a sacrifice than most would imagine.I have done all the jobs and even brushed my teeth so as to save time between killing the car engine and sleepy time, I did contemplate putting on my dressing gown and pink slippers but best not. Toby would never forgive me (will be taxing various mates home too I suspect).

Reasons to be motivated parts one two and three....

1.Other peoples achievements always seem much better than your own
2.Far too many fit people on TV over achieving in a shameless way.
3.Sheer terror.

Suddenly we are overwhelmed with Dutch guests attending a wedding nearby, a very happy experience for us and hopefully for them. Spurred on by one couple, who ran 14 miles this morning after breakfast (I was of course able to advise on the perfect route and nearly bored them to death with my overly enthusiastic local knowledge) in preparation for The New York Marathon I got on the bike yesterday and whiled away ½ an hour staring at the hut floor and listening to a spooky Play for the Day. Today, still on the up crest of the exercising wave we had a Corner Family style Duathlon. Toby, Rosie, Freya and I cycled down to the shore with the dogs (they ran) and then Coach Freya and I took off, me on my pins and her monitoring everything from speed, distance and possibly wind speed to for all I know for a 5 mile run. She was fantastic especially once I had encouraged her to give me distance updates only every 10th of a mile not every 100th. Even as we approached the turn round place which was up a hill meaning she dropped behind I could hear a distant shout giving me the distances run (if you are trying to make sense of the map we were going to go 4 miles but I was shamed into 5 so we carried on past the finish line and doubled back...psychologically this is quite shattering!). We had a wee rest with the others in a shelter thoughtfully built by Toby and then cycled the 2.5k or so home. Running along by the shore we thought of Lizzie on Coll doing her ½ marathon…it s a perfect day here for running so hope they had more of the same.

"Nowt much 'as 'appened "as they say in Yorkshire.

A wee bit wet today..actually it is more than a wee bit,I did manage to grab the only semi dry 38 minutes of the day to get a run with the dogs and now it is coming down again. Quiet sort of day, I feel like a mother-in-waiting for the summer holidays.....

Run total 13.8 miles