I had wanted to go to the club’s hill session tonight now that it is back off road again but, due to Duncan going out on his bike, I decided to give it a miss for a reason which some of you just won’t understand: Ruby! She has been in on her own all day from 7.30am to 4.30pm so there’s no way I can then leave her again for another couple of hours in the evening. She hates being left on her own and she gets major separation anxiety so I try to keep her time alone to a minimum. If you're a dog lover, I'm sure you'll understand.
I decided to do my own brand of hill session though to ease the guilt a little so Ruby and I ran from home and had a gentle warm up to top barn. From there, we ran to that bit that I can never describe - the zig-zag graveled path which runs from behind the barn up to 'the driveway'. It's a short but steepish path. I decided that all the short steep bits I would try to run up as fast as I possible could so, after a stretch at the bottom, up we went. I let Ruby off the lead so that she wouldn't stop and sniff and slow me down. I was gasping for air by the time I reached the top but felt really good. We then headed down towards the pigeon tower car park, past a burnt out Nissan Micra (scumbags!). We then climbed the rocky route up to the Pigeon Tower, which was really hard work tonight. i think I exerted myself too much on my earlier uphill sprint ha ha.
From the Pigeon Tower we then headed over to the Pike. Again I let Ruby off the lead as there were no other dogs around and we took the steep grass route to the left hand side of the steps. Again as this was a short and steep bit, I ran it as fast as I could. When I got to the top, we ran straight off down the Pike Race route, which is my favourite bit of running round here.
We got back onto George's Lane and ran along to the kennels and turned off left to head to Two Lads. As we went through the kissing gate, a walker went through just before us. Ruby stopped for a number 1 at the bottom so the walker was now half way up the first bit of hill before we started the climb. We started to make our way up but I was totally cream crackered by this point. I kept berating myself for not being able to catch up to the walker and I got more and more determined that he wasn't going to beat me to the top. Granted, he was walking pretty damn fast but still I wasn't going to let him beat me so I pushed and pushed and pushed. I eventually went past him about 200 metres from the top but he arrived at the top only about 15 seconds after me.
After a brief chat with the walker who, thankfully, admitted that he was walking really fast, we headed home which I'm pleased to say was all downhill.
I really felt like we had a good hill session and I'm pleased with myself for getting out and doing it. Still a bit sad that I didn't get to the actual hill session but there's always next week.
Total distance – 5.70 miles
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