the day after yesterday

a grainy shot of me ad AJ
Originally uploaded by Auswomble

Never had a dog as a kid. Dad would say we couldn't have one because we couldn't look after it properly which meant it would not get enough walking. Might have been true, might not have been. But the upshot is that I got my first dog at age 37. Well, strictly speaking Rumpole is Sal's dog. Before we got him Sal assured me that she was prepared to walk the little fella, a golden cocker spaniel, as any good dog owner would. So, since then I've walked Rumpole most days. Nowadays I walk him with Rowlf, the dog I bought 9months after we got Rumpole. The boys are now either side of four, and our daughter will be two in a fortnight. Sal lists among her many hobby "sleeping" so as a rule every morning I throw AJ in the backpack, lead up the hounds and we walk to a local rest-park-come-dog-park where I stand about and chat with other dog owners while the three smallest members of the family run around and have a great time. By the time the four of us get home at about 07:00am Sal has usually managed to crawl out of bed. Usually. Not always. And so started today, 4.75km, the starting point-seven-five having me say ooch-ouch as my thighs reminded me what I'd done yesterday. By the end of it the legs felt worked but OK, the humidity was and I was sweating like a racehorse and hanging for a coffee.

Janathon interlude. I had a twinge of, well not guilt, but something like it, when I thought that logging my dog walk miles was maybe a bit unfair. Then I thought hey, maybe they won't count, maybe there are other dog walkers in the pack, maybe this, maybe that. So I'll clock 'em up. Will be interesting to see how far I travel under my own steam in a month. And besides, AJ weighs 14kg so that is exercise in my book.

OK, dogs walked we headed for the beach (sorry to the Janathoners in the north; this is merely fact and not intended to have an accompanying Nelson Muntz "nya-ha!") where I had a double breakfast - got to love that refilling - and then failed to encourage AJ to have a play in the surf with me. Nevermind, plenty of time yet. The water was glorious, could have stayed in all day, diving under the small waves and failing to body surf down the front of them. How do they do that? AJ did have a blast around on her scooter and then had a kip in the bus while we took a drive out to West Head. On the way back Sal did the driving and it all caught up with me a bit and I nodded of for maybe 10mins. Ten mins is 10mins, take it when its there for taking. Sal was off out to see her folks for a couple of hours in the afternoon so I had, and didn't take, the opportunity to have another kip. I uploaded a few pictures, read a few blogs and decided to have a run before they got home.

Plan A was a gentle 3k trot, but having read a few blogs and seeing that LocalAdventures had pulled 19miles on Jan 1st I decided on a slightly longer loop. This was new territory for me. Not the course or the distance, but running the day after a long run. I tend to take a couple of days off each week and I'll always have a day off after any big effort. Like yesterday. So this was new. Thighs still ached a bit and grumbled as I set off, but I took it easy and was pleasantly surprised to pull up OK at the end of the nigh-on 7km. And not tragically slow. Slow, but not tragically. The humidity and temp were not as bad as yesterday, but still a little up, and at one point I remember saying "rain, you bastard!" The rain came three hours later, about now in fact.

I read a while back that distance runners (OK, I'm not a thoroughbred distance runner, but humour me will ya') don't benefit hugely from stretching. Of course there is a massive amount of literature that tells you to stretch, but, well, well...so I kept true to form and did few of the stretches the physio gave me after patching me up back in September. And October. Yes, I'm a berk. I did, however, have a beer. Or three. Fluids and carbs, that's good innit?

Day 2 done.

I wonder if "watching the Ashes" counts towards Janathon?