Dogs and PARTY!

I had the best of intentions of cracking the ‘Machen 8 (actually it’s 8.2) In Under An Hour’ on Wednesday, but then thought my legs were still tired from their exertions trying for the time on Sunday, so took New Running Dog out instead - we’d intended to ‘just do 5k’ but, as with Ice Cream Sian before, 5k turned into 10.5k… Not very quick, but we did stop to have frequent pees (New Running Dog), take a breather (me), have a drink (mostly me) and Sniff Stuff (mostly New Running Dog, occasionally me - the honeysuckle really is lovely at the moment). We also stopped to take pictures of our muddy paws (yay - mud in August!!)

...and our happy smiling faces. One of us has a Very Long Nose.

And we both threw ourselves in the river on the way home. New Running Dog went slightly farther out than me because I remembered, just in time, that I had my iPhone in my pocket…

By the time we got home I was absolutely shattered. And fairly purple of face. New Running Dog didn’t even have the decency to pant…

On Sunday Fit Mark celebrated his 40^th birthday. I know - 40! How OLD is that?! Yes, ok, not very… Anyway, he had a fab all day party at his house, so obviously it would have been rude not to go - so I went twice. Once at lunchtime for a spot of lunch and a glass or two of wine, then again at 6pm when Guy was back from Morris Dance Festival Playing Music Things and I had mown the grass, walked the dogs and done work stuff… Damned Fine Party. And Fit Mark seemed pleased with his cake - planned with the help of Ice Cream Sian, and made with marvellous modelling help from Guy…

That’s Louise taking a pic of Fit Mark in the mud (chocolate ganache to you and me) with Charlie watching on. Round the back of the cake obviously we had to include Ice Cream Sian and me...

I’m the asleep one with the gin - Ice Cream Sian is the awake one with the socks and the wine. Looks nothing like us….

On Monday morning when everybody else was still sleeping (or hungover), Ice Cream Sian and I had another crack at the Machen 8. Did I mention it’s 8.2? Anyway, she overslept, I decided to take New Running Dog, I set off without Ice Cream Sian, she drove ahead and ran back to meet me by which time Guy had texted to say she was going to catch me up so I’d gone back towards home… it was a mess but finally we met up, we ran, we lifted New Running Dog over various stiles, and we chatted all the way round. Rubbish time. Actually, not totally rubbish, given the various delaying tactics we’d used (starting at different places, going the wrong way, carrying dog) - we did it in 1.09. So in fact we’re now NINE minutes off our target time. We seem to be getting slower…

Too late - I’ve entered us for the Mud Runner anyway as Team Got-a-Sec? on the basis that my time last week was 'close enough'. We have a plan. We’ll all start in the first wave and Fit Mark can gallop off at a decent pace to maintain the honour of the team, while Ice Cream Sian and I jog round at the back having a fabulously muddy time. Provided we’re fit enough to enjoy it.

And we’re famous - again! The lovely (and every so slightly nutty) people at The Mud Runner have made our picture this month’s ‘Win A Hoody’ competition - you have to come up with a caption.

We’re presuming this is ‘Win A Hoody’ as in ‘warm sweatshirt type thing with hood’ as opposed to ‘hooligan’.

We live in hope…