Month: December 2020

2434

No 2434 isn’t a date in the future when life on earth ceases to be – though I might as well make it a bold prediction as I won’t be around.

2434 is the final number of miles Murph and I walked and ran this year. 2000 was the target so we beat that by quite some way. I’m actually impressed I managed to keep a log every single day for a year. When I think about how much I enjoy being out with him, even when its cold or raining thats a lot of distance and time to be happy.

We averaged 6.65 miles a day, I can take a wile stab in the dark and say our average speed was 3 and a half miles and hour (averaged out between walking, running and idle ambling) which makes around 700 hours outside with my dog – no wonder I enjoyed 2020 more than most. That’s 30 whole days of pleasure. A month – We spent a whole month of our year wandering through the fields and beaches. Happy dog, happy owner.

I’ve thought about it and I wont be logging the miles this year, my curiousity is sated and despite everything above numbers are pretty meaningless when you can’t measure happiness. We have other projects to be getting on with anyway.

When I think of all the sunrises and sunsets we’ve seen it does make me feel truly blessed

  • Watching the sun set
  • Just being y’know – handsome
  • Another day at the beach
  • Sun through the clouds
  • Early morning overlooking the lighthouse
  • Frosty start for the last day and run of the year
  • 2434 …. I’ll take five minutes then we go again right?

    Yes Murph damn right we do

Always live to run another day

It’s been an odd few weeks (probably more than a month I admit) since my last post. At the end of November training and pretty much everything else came to a juddering halt as I caught covid from one of my schools. Them’s the breaks and the risk was always there so you have to be philosophical about things. To be honest it could have been much worse and the part I struggled most with was the removal of my outside world and exercise.

But there are many worse off than me and although I was rough for a while at least I survived and recovered quickly and am back running again. Not quite back where I was but it’s coming. So since we were allowed back out we’ve been off covering some lost ground. And twice our plans have been thwarted by nature. Firstly we headed off to a cove which you reach by a set of steep steps which we discovered had been removed by a landslide!

I swear there were steps here not long ago
Murph explores the area searching for lost steps

What can you do? No point crying over spilt milk and landslides, Murph was happy to navigate the fall but I didn’t fancy plunging to a painful death so we adjusted our afternoon plans and headed off on a different path which meant we got to spend time on a different part of the beach and found a cool new rockfall. Survive and adapt.

Rockfall discovery – as close as we got as the cliffs are lethal this time of year – especially with the amount of rainfall lately

The rain lately has been pretty incessant and yesterday we decided to dodge the showers and get some miles in on the road by navigating the back lanes, we can get some good hill work in too as a bonus. However at one point we need ot cross the river via some stepping stones which had … disappeared

Murph would have made it but maybe not me

Never fear I know another crossing I informed Murph and we trotted onwards …

Ok so now the road has gone too

Only to find that the ford inclusing the stepping stones was completely underwater. Maybe we could have made it, probably not, I’ve been in there before and it’s slippery and the current is surprisingly strong. After a bried discussion we decided Murph would have a treat and we would retrace our steps. He who doesn’t drown and runs away lives to run another day.

So no, things haven’t gone to plan. Plans never survive first contact with the enemy anyway so they say. Who cares, make new plans. As lomng as you live to run another day eh