Running With Dogs

We have to skip the lie-in and the sex this morning to get up early to head over to Cannock for a Cani-cross event. Cani-cross is a competition for people who run attached to a dog. This is what L and I do all the time but it seems that we aren't the only odd people who do this and now they've started putting on events for nutters like us. L and Doggo did one last year in Cheltenham and came 3rd, so hopes are kind of high that she can get another good result. L is therefore nervous. Not that this means much, she often gets nervous sometimes even when I take her out for a training run. I've no idea why. I tell her that these 'nerves' are a good thing because all athletes thrive on adrenaline and that is what this is but I don't think I've managed to convince her.

We do our usual trick and get there only just in time and it's a rush to get Doggo primed and raring to go e.g. he needs to spray up 15 assorted trees/bushes/other inanimate objects and have a dump before he starts.

There are sixty entrants and L is not looking particularly confident. Not so Doggo, he looks raring to go. For once, as he stands there squeaking and shaking in anticipation, he doesn't look the most ridiculous of the dogs, there is actually one dog that is worse!

Each dog starts at 15 seconds intervals and soon Doggo is off in hot pursuit of the dog in front with L being towed along behind.

The event is over 5K, although there is a shortened course of 2K as well, through the forest tracks. I wonder off into the forest to watch the action.

My team appear to do quite well but we're not sure if they've done well enough to get a top three place. It’s a two hour wait for the prize giving and we are undecided whether to stay behind and wait or not but in the end we do. As we wait for the prizes to be given out some poor chaps' dog starts howling pathetically. I look round to see which particular mutt is embarrassing their owner. Then I realise its Doggo. He's never done that before. How embarrassing.

Despite that, staying for the prize giving is a good call as L and Doggo again bag third place in their category. Bravo.

Drive home and both my travelling companions sleep most of the way. I head for the leisure centre and the ideal way to wake L up. An ice-cold swimming pool.

We have a good swim session. My front crawl is improving all the time. Whether I'll be able to swim 500m by May, which is when my next Tri is likely to be is debatable but who knows. Stranger things have happened.

Get home and book our Scottish cottage over the internet. Unfortunately my Dad can't join us. My mother has pulled rank on him.

Then I knock up a curry. L adds a chickpea side dish. Teamwork. The curry is fairly hot but not painfully so, although Daughter disagrees.

We are tired but the new super rampant L is up for sex, so we retire to bed at 9pm. After quenching her sexual thirst, I return to the computer at 10pm and try to book an apartment in Austria too. I send a few emails but can see that language problems may arise with the out of the way village I am trying to book us in to.

26 units for the week - good.