one for the road

running solo and on the road at the same time are as rare as methodists at a beer festival for me.

but just once a year i go back to where my long distance running really started - snowdon marathon. fantastic in so many ways. it has a quirkiness about it to make it worth battering your limbs on the tarmac for 25 miles (1.2miles is off road thankfully). starting in a usually boggy field with a start line that would befit a craggy island race with father ted, it has ups , downs, great scenery, gales and driving rain and a killer hill at the end just for good measure.

this year i managed 4.07, 15mins quicker than last year and 32 minutes quicker than 3 years ago. hopefuly next year i'll break the elusive snowdon 4hr barrier.

in the meantime, it time to unleash my pooch out onto the countryside once more..maybe the roaches fell race in a week, definitely the six dales circuit in 2 weeks. bring em on.

5am there's nobody around (actually where we live there's few folk around anyway at anytime) but the odd bit of wildlife caught in the line of my head torch (charlie has a flashing disco light collar for early morning / dark night sortees so i can see where the heck he is).

its 17+miles into work mainly along the canal which means charlie has total freedom to follow scents, jape around and roll in any old muck he can lay his snout on. gorgeous morning with light breaking around 6.45. todays run in seemed to pass quickly though we didn't run it any quicker than usual..funny isn't it?

anyway, our timing into work was spot on as breakfast was being served so charlie treated himself to a mammoth sausage buttie...good reward for the early morning effort.

its been a quite couple of weeks for charlie. he's having a bit of a rest from all this long stuff and honing his footie skills (video to follow soon). i've been doing a few sessions for snowdon marathon including a 17m road run and hated it!!! so it all off road here on in. sod the tarmac..its boring and it hurts.

tomorrow im running into work - a nice little 18 miler - and i think charlie will be leading the way

after snowdon we're off again - six dales ldwa in november (a mere 25m) then its round rotherham (of all places) - a gentle pre-xmas 50miler. better stock up on the flapjack for the pooch hadn't i!