Wednesday 3rd October, A bit of exercise

I’ve been back from my Via de la Plata trip for a few days now. Since returning home nearly all my time has been spent catching up with various administration duties and being a carer. Whenever I go on a trip I need to ensure that I have care-cover in place for the the family members I’m responsible for. This certainly makes me appreciate my trips away.

I’m off out for a run this Saturday and feel terribly unfit – even though I’ve just walked around 200km in Spain. I tend to work by the axiom: Train for walking by walking, for cycling by cycling, for running by running, and so on.

For those not in the know, the term ‘running’ is very much a generalisation. There’s a huge difference between road running (on the flat, on a hard and solid surface) and cross-country-running – where you can be running on (and through!) virtually any surface imaginable.

It’s cross-country running wot I do. Not very well, and certainly not very quickly….but it’s fun and I enjoy it immensely.

From time-to-time I run with the Cheshire Hash House Harriers (A drinking club with a running problem) but mainly with the very splendid Cheshire Tally-Ho! Hare & Hounds running club. Whilst the Hash run throughout the year, the Tally-Ho! season runs from September until April. Tally-Ho! is a fascinating club with a well documented history going back to the club’s birth in 1872. The club is the second oldest running club in the country, beaten only by Thames Hare & Hounds.There are suspicions that some of the founder members are still running with the club. There aren’t many (any?) young members. 

Tally-Ho! What a fine bunch of, er, athletes. Ahem.

Tally-Ho! usually run around 8 – 10 miles, following a sawdust trail left by the trail-layers. Well what else would you call them, eh? Only the trail-layers (the hares) know the route in advance, it’s up to the runners (the hounds) to keep their eyes open when following the route. This often results in some interesting and varied routes taken by the hounds!

A typical Tally-Ho! route.

Both these clubs are non-competitive. This suits me perfectly. I don’t race. I’ve run various marathons, half-marathons, 10k etc, but I’ve always tended to use a race as a motivator to get / keep fit. Mountain Marathons (KIMMs, OMMs, Saunders etc) are a bit different, ‘going steadily in the right direction’ is the key to a reasonable result. Having said that, there always seem to be 95% of the field who are better than me going steadily…etc. Oh well.

Anyway, back to the exercise thing.

Saturday’s Tally-Ho! run will be around 8-9 miles in the Peak District…..but I haven’t run that sort of distance for a while, and certainly not over hilly ground.

I went for a gently undulating 6 mile run this morning. This went well. Nothing dropped off and it didn’t hurt. Not bad for a man with knackered knees. This afternoon, as part of my caring responsibilities I had to visit my father. I decided to cycle over to see him. It’s not far, a 12-13 mile round trip, but it’s gentle and low impact exercise. Tomorrow I’ll repeat the run, probably extending it by a couple of miles.

As autumn closes in it’s lovely to see the hedgerows filling with berries. Theories abound on the subject of the volume of berries produced. Does a large crop of berries mean we’re going to have a cold winter? Or does it mean the summer’s been very wet? I don’t know, but the berries look nice!

          

I suppose I’d best get on writing up my Via de la Plata trip, it won’t write itself.