Introduction

Let me begin by saying that if any of my grammar police friends, i.e. Rachael, are reading this - I MIS-SPELT TALE ON PURPOSE!

This is a blog of my running exploits with my 8 year old Patterdale Terrier, Ruby.

I’ll start with a bit of background…

I started running about seven years ago as a means of travel and keeping fit at the same time. It was shortly after I moved to Horwich and lived around 1.5 miles away from the train station. As I didn’t have a car back then, I decided that running home would be better than walking home as it would get me there quicker and I would get fit at the same time as every other attempt I had made to get fit, i.e. joining a gym, had failed so I wanted to try something new.

I was a bit on and off at first and it took me quite a long time to build up my mileage on the roads. In 2007 I did my first 5k which was a Race for Life at Heaton Park. If it wasn’t for a work colleague, Helen, I would never have got around without walking some of it but Helen spurred me on and made sure I kept running. She believed in me when I didn’t. Doing this 5k finally made me catch the bug although it wasn’t until training for a half marathon at the beginning of 2011 that I started to up my mileage and get a bit more serious.

After the half marathon running started to get a bit stale and one night I wandered down to the running track at the Arena where I knew that Horwich Harriers trained. Whilst there I met Brenda, who really put the fun back into running for me. She introduced me to the fells and trails around Winter Hill, which were always daunting to me before as the thought of running up there on my own was too scary. If it wasn’t for Brenda I would most probably still be bored senseless by miles of road running in traffic fumes or may even have given up running altogether.

Brenda and her husband, Tony, talked me into joining Horwich Harriers and I then began running competitively in trail races, fell races, cross country and the occasional road race. At the moment I run an average of two races per month. I’m not a fast runner though, I’m pretty much mid-pack (unless it’s a huge race like the Manchester 10k then I’m much further up the ladder – conversely if it’s a ‘proper’ fell race, then I’m much further down the ladder).

I have run quite a few short fell races but only one longer distance fell race – the Kentmere Horseshoe - where I was twelfth from last. I’m quite daunted by the longer fell races where you need to be able to navigate so I intend to spend 2014 getting my confidence up with navigation skills so I can take part in more fell races without fear of getting lost.

Ruby started running with me in July 2013 and has since become a great personal trainer. Since running with her I have come on in leaps and bounds which is evidenced when comparing my 2012/13 cross country season results against my 2013/14 results. The intensity of my sessions has probably lessened but the frequency has increased a lot as I now run most days. I have to walk her anyway so why not run? I have to keep her on a lead though as she’s an absolute nightmare if we see sheep, other dogs, squirrels, llamas, horses… well anything furry really and sometimes feathered. Still, I suppose it’s a good workout for my right bicep!

I was going to start my blog from New Year’s Day but as I'll probably be a bit hungover that day I think I'll start tomorrow instead, New Year's Eve. I haven’t decided yet whether to put down our running time as well as mileage as it’s quite pointless really because I don’t stop my Garmin for things like sniffing (Ruby), peeing (Ruby and occasionally me), pooing (definitely only Ruby) and stopping to chat to other runners we bump into. We’ll see anyway because I have never written a blog or diary before and have no idea what I’ll end up writing about.