Doggy delights

It's been a fairly quiet week exercise-wise, probably not that surprising after our efforts at Maggies last weekend.  A couple of mid-week runs followed by a long one today.  It was a bit odd really - when I went out on Tuesday I absolutely flew round the 6 miles, whereas on Thursday it was a pretty laboured 4.5 - it was like the fatigue from last weekend took a while to materialise.

And it was certainly there today still.  Admittedly I did my longest run yet - 24 miles - but the last 3 to 4 of those were completed using the head much more than the body.  It's rare for me to say this, but I genuinely didn't enjoy those miles; bits were hurting, I was bored and just wanted to be home.  My mood wasn't helped by the preponderance of dogs on the canal tow paths today.  Most dogs, and indeed their owners, are fine - they stand aside, I acknowledge and thank them, and we each go on our way one positive interaction to the good.  However, there are a few who indulge their canine companions like parents of unruly kids.  "Don't do that Fido" is said with such a lack of conviction that ruddy Fido then proceeds to stand right in the middle of my path/try to trip me up/accompany me down the next 200 yards of towpath, or some combination of the foregoing.  I suppose it's better than being bitten, but at least if I was bitten I could have a proper go at the owner, whereas as it is I get the distinct impression I'm supposed to smile sweetly and admire their oh-so-clever child substitute.

There, that's better.  My thoughts actually began to turn today to being back on the bike in a few weeks time.  I mustn't forget about the marathon a week on Saturday though - the danger of doing long-ish runs is the same as doing loads of revision for an exam, then opening the paper and realising that you can answer all the questions - you've still got to actually get the answers to the damn things on a piece of paper, or in this case, run just over 26 miles.  However, there'll be no more long runs - 10 miles perhaps at some point next weekend.  And I'm mountain biking tomorrow night on quite a challenging course at Llandegla.  Not sure that's wise, but hey ho.  Other than that, the usual stretching and lunges, a bucketful of protein in the next few days, and plenty of rest.

What else can I report?  Not much - the weather was great again this morning after the overnight rain (you can tell I'm running short of news if I'm turning to the stalwart topics like that), and three months ago I'd no doubt have been raving about it.  We've been so spoiled by the warmth and sunshine of the last 6 weeks however that it didn't feel remarkable. 

One of these days I shall go off into philosophical meanderings about the benefits of running, of music whilst you're doing it, but I'll wait until there's truly very little going on before I resort to that.