Still Out Of The Race

More Ice Cream - No Wonder I'm Putting On Weight!

I promised myself and everyone around me that I'd take a few more weeks off running - this was mainly to keep everyone off my back!  Secretly I thought I'd be running again by now even if I had to sneak out in the middle of the night when nobody was looking!   However, the best made plans of mice and men and all that stuff... I'm still NOT fit enough to run.   My injured foot continues to be a pain in the arse (strange, getting a pain in the arse from an injured foot, but there you go!) and I'm starting to suspect that I'll not be running again this month at all and possibly not in December at this rate!  Instead, I'm contenting myself with reading back issues of Runners World (maybe if I read about running that'll make me loose those calories that I'm stuffing down my throat  in the form of chocolate and other comfort giving items?)

Luckily for me, I do have a new outdoor hobby - Geocaching! It involves a gentle walk in the countryside looking for treasure!     Did I say treasure?    Well, maybe not treasure exactly!   Anyway, it's kind of a high tech treasure hunt - which might take you out into the depths of the countryside looking for hidden tupperware boxes! Just follow this link and click on the little 2 minute video  it's easier for you to click on this here link rather than me trying to explain what geocaching is all about....  ;)

Here I Am Proudly Showing Off My First Travel Bug Find!

A few days ago I found my first Travel Bug - Clarissa The Cow.   What's a Travel Bug I hear you ask, yawningly?  Briefly, it's an item that has a unique code on it that gets moved from cache to cache, clocking up (hopefully) thousands and thousands of miles - check out the link (above) if you really want to know more....

So, anyway, back to Clarissa - luckily for me she was in a cache that I cycle past most days. When I checked her "desires" it seems that she wants to be photographed with farm yard animals (no smutty comments from you at the back...!)    Now, I happen to know that at Daisy Made Ice Cream Parlour  has a few goats and cows loitering around - idea photo opportunity, don't you think?    It would be VERY rude to march onto the place and not make a purchase - so, DTP and I duly purchased a tub and a cone of their finest ice cream (we both chose one called Lancaster Bomber) which we scoffed with gusto!   And then took some pictures of Clarissa with some farm yard friends before jumping in the car and heading off to Wragby which is about 11 miles from where we live.

Goltho Chapel - Sitting In The Middle Of Nowhere!

Me - At The Chapel

Although geocaching involves lovely walks in the countryside it also involves driving around - now, navigation isn't our strong point and we over-shot our destination by a couple of miles before deciding to turn around and try again.   We were soon back on track but we once again overshot our first cache!  Turning  round on a little single track road was interesting - three pheasants were strutting around in the road - good job we're animal (and bird) lovers so we avoided running them down!  It'd only make a mess of the car at any rate!  ;)    Although this was a multi-cache we weren't able to find part one, however as the cache is called "Lil Church" it didn't take a brain of huge proportions to figure out that Goltho Chapel (which was signposted just down the road) was our destination.  It was pretty easy to find the cache too.  Took us about 10 minutes.  This was a lovely destination - very odd to see a church sitting in the middle of a field though!

DTP & Lady - Outside The Chapel Door

So, that was a few weeks ago, and I've been very good since then - just walking with my dogs and doing an bit of geocaching - and not doing any running at all until this morning (20th November 2011)    Today was the day I jumped back on the treadmill.  If I'd managed to get out of bed early enough I'd have done a proper run but I didn't!  That was a good thing really!  It meant that as I had a deadline to meet (getting to the shops at opening time!) I only had time to do a very quick test run!   I did ONE MILE!   Ahhh I remember the very first time I actually ran one mile and how pleased I was.  Now, it seems like a bit of a cop out!

My foot held out well.  I intend to rest up for another few days then maybe by mid week I'll do 2 miles, then maybe 3 on a couple of occasions then I'll be back to my 13.1 training!  I WILL be going back a few weeks though - maybe starting again at week 4 - and see how I get on!  Lets hope that it goes well this time!