Not only did this mean dragging ourselves out of bed whilst partners slept off the excesses of the night before, but we also had to contend with snow and ice.
I'm the worlds biggest wimp when it comes to ice. On a winter's day, a nice relaxing dog walk becomes a terrifying tiptoe as I try to use the dog lead as support (don't try this - it doesn't work). I watch other runners scamper over icy surfaces but the minute I try to follow, I feel myself slip and I'm at walking pace until I feel on safer ground. I won't resort to the treadmill though as running indoors just doesn't appeal. Luckily, I also love cross country running so during the cold weather we've been going off road for our runs.
This does make the run more interesting and the snow has transformed the landscape into something beautiful.
The snow started to melt mid week but with freezing nights, we found ourselves trying to negotiate frozen fields one morning. This was when S treated us to an ice-skating display as she attempted to open a gate!
The weather isn't the only thing that makes cross country more exciting. We do plan our routes before setting off and take a map with us, but sometimes we're not 100% sure of where we're going. We're fortunate to have many footpaths in the area but some are less frequently used than others, making it fairly easy to miss them (okay, not really but that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!). One run this week saw us narrowly avoiding being shot, whilst another added some vertical distance too as a large dog ran out of a driveway at us.
The schedule we're following includes different paced runs to allow for recovery after harder sessions. One thing we realised this week was that we needed to define 'easy' as our running club session on Wednesday was definitely not that!
We managed the planned mileage, got out 5 times and extended our long run to an 8 mile cross country. Well done all!
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