Running dog blog

28/12/2015  Sandstone Trail running today, not my fastest time and not the toughest run but it was the longest run so far at 14 km.  Very, very muddy so I jumped in the shower when I got back and had a lovely warm wash.

 

26/12/2015   Another flat run today, however there were lots and lots of gloopy bits to run through, very enjoyable for a young chap, then home and rest in front of the fire.

25/12/2015   A short flat run tonight to escape from Downton Abbey - well worth it 5.3km, 31 m - roads, woods and lots of puddles.

14/12/2015    Exactly one year since I started running, my first run was only 1.94k.
Since I started running properly in December 2014 I have run 348k (238 miles), climbing 9098 m (29849 ft).  My mountain walking distance is 109k (68 miles) with 5343 m (17529 ft) of climbing.  Not bad for a little terrier!

I had to take a break from running until today as I was really poorly with a tummy bug, so this week I've done some walking and gradually built up to running at Alvanley today.  I was a little bit slower on this run than last time but only by 36 seconds.  The weather was very warm today, some light drizzle but it was great to be out on the hill again.






28/11/2015   A great scamper on the Sandstone Trail this morning, set off towards Alvanley for a change  which is a good undulating run.  From there I turned back towards Frodsham Hill, this took me through some lovely woodland managed by the Woodland Trust   (Snidley Moor Wood, Woodhouses and Frodsham Hill Wood).  Some gloopy bits but plenty of downhill fast scampering as well.




Hilly run at Alvanley: 21/11/2015  This was my first run for a long time in cold weather, winter is on the way!

 

A short brisk run this morning: 08/11/2015 






19/09/2015 & 26/09/2015  I'm helping my human train for a Cycling Sportive so a couple of great runs in brilliant weather on Wenallt & Is-Afon, fairly steep climb 357 metres and 10 km of running.  Trending faster on these but I think my human could do a lot better, I have to keep running back to him he's so sloooow.



 05/09/15  setting a pattern now - trending faster on this one too!  Wenallt & Is-Afon 9.9km ~ 1:10:16 at 7:07 / km pace with 331 m of climbing.  Loving the downhill scampers!



28/08/15  Trending faster - Wenallt.  4.8km ~ 33:18 mins - 150m -6.52 /km pace.  Lovely run.

08/08/15  Cracking day today!  A short run in the morning before it got too hot and then a hill walk later on.  4.7 km ~ 162 m climb - pace 7:08/km

31/07/2015 Same route as 25/07 at Bala today 2nd fastest time pace 7:41/km, my human has now got a water bottle specially for me when we are running so I can have a drink whenever I want.


25/07/2015  A good run in the hills near Bala today, the pace felt slow but it was a reasonable time. The downhill scamper is getting faster and faster...


23/07/2015  5.3 km ~ 28:25 - av pace 5.22/km  Short flat run today - very pleased with my time despite numerous comfort stops - lots of trees!!

Scottish running.  25/06/2015 - 12/07/2015.  Lots of running so I'll post a selection of the runs with photos.

25/06/2015 - To summit of Knock Farril (Strathpeffer) 7.8 km/ 47:17 mins / 174 m.

27/06/2015 - My first beach run, to Cliobh on Lewis, 4.5 km /30:57 mins / 113 m.

Over the next week I did a lot of running on the beach near Kneep, known as Traigh na Beirigh or 'Reef Beech' and the headland between Kneep and Bhalthos.  Usually around 5.5 -6.5 km and 34 -39 minutes.

After a week in the Outer Hebrides I went back to the mainland and did some more runs, a few 5 km runs in the Easter Ross area and then a few in Killin near to Loch Tay. The best run at Killin was Sron a'Chlachain and Creag Buidhe (510 m).  This was a short run at 6.2 km but with a climb of 432 m (396 m in 2km) my human was struggling a bit as you can see from the the slow time of 58 minutes! I've added a picture of the hill below, it's the one in the centre of the shot.

20/06/2015 5 km 39:10 ~ slow run looking for a lost Border called 'Dylan' - I wonder if they found him?

13/06/2015 11.1km - 1:23:37 ~ 7.29 / best 6:12 / climb 370m

31/05/2015  4.9 km - 39:40 ~ av.pace 8.01 / best 6.07 / climb 182m -very slow today.

28/05/2015 10.2km - 81:08 mins ~ av. pace 7.56 / best 6.21 / 349m climb, Llangower.

16/05/2015  6.7km - 52:26mins ~av.pace 7.42 / best pace 6:04 /232 m climb, slow run at Bala today.

05/05/2015  4.4km - 29:61mins ~av. pace 6:31/ best pace 5:09/ 126 m climb Short easy run on the Sandstone Trail today.

03/05/2015  4.8 km - 34:36 mins ~ av. pace 7:05 / best pace 5:04 / 162 m climb.  A short easy run today but trending faster on this run which is good.

02/05/2015  10.1 km - 77:17 mins ~ av. pace 7.39 / best pace 5:27 / 360 m climb.  Just a slight change to the end of this route to add a few metres of climb. Managed to pick the driest part of the day so not too difficult to gain some speed on the downhill scamper, but I was surprised this was the fastest run so far, it felt slow.

25/04/2015   10.1 km - 78:33 mins ~ av. pace 7.46 / best pace 5:30 / 338 m climb.  Overcast and cold today but at least the rain stopped. The picture shows part of my hill run (on a sunny day).

18/04/2015  Slow hill run today 4.7 km ~ av. pace 8.43 ~ best 6:40. 160 m ascent.  Running on vet's orders!

12/04/2015  Hill run. 4.7 km ~ 35:40 ~ av. pace 7.29 ~ best 6:33 & 160m ascent.  Trending faster on this run which is great as weather was horrible; very wet, windy and cold. Cracking downhill scamper at 2.1 km.

06/04/2015  10.2km - 95:36 mins ~ 8:22 / best pace 6:16 / 344m climb.

This was my longest hill run yet so I took it easy on the uphill bits (4 km of climbing).  As you see from the gradient profile this was a fairly hilly run, lovely sunny day with brilliant views over to Cadair Idris, Aran ridge and Arenig Fawr and Fach. The downhills were high speed scampers through the forest and down the grassy slopes back to the lake.  This was followed by a paddle in Llyn Tegid and a snooze - a perfect day.

...........................................................................................................


How it all started, back in December 2014!

I've had a few practice runs but today I went for my first proper run:

Dexter's first run.  1.94 km~14 minutes ~ pace 7:14 min/km   (19.Dec.14)
Great fun, some road running and part off-road and my   human lets me stop for a wee if I need to.

Second run.    2.13 km ~ 21 min ~pace 9:31 so quite a slow run today.  

29/12/2014    1.99 km~16min:26sec / pace 8:15 min/km

01/02/2015    2.63 km ~18:08 ~pace  6:54 min/km

21/02/2015    5.32 km ~35:53 ~av. pace 6:45 km /best pace 5:48 /ascent 66m

This was a great run for a little terrier; in the forest with lots of gloopy mud, big puddles and I wasn't on the lead. There were sticks to play with and logs to jump over. I was pleased with my average pace and in the last 2 km I was running much faster than my human.

28/02/2015   5.29 km ~ 34:20 ~ av. pace 6:31 km /best pace 5:41 / 62 metres

Not so much mud this week and it was much warmer.  A bit slow on the 5th km but the average speed was OK.

01/03/2015  4.25 km ~ 29:47 ~ av. pace 7.01 / best pace 6:24 / 105m climb

Slow run today, quite a lot of climbing in a short distance.  Muddy and gloopy again.

07/03/2015  5.64 km ~ 35:45 ~ av. pace 6:19 / best pace 5:24 / 71 m climb

A lovely day, warm and dry.  Delamere Forest again

14/03/2015  5 km ~ 39:26 ~ av. pace 7:54 / best pace 4:48 / 161 m climb

A real hill run, lots of gloop and a cracking downhill scamper at the end after a fairly steep climb in the first km.  (142 m) Loving it!



(Times shown as minutes:seconds  Pace minutes per kilometre )

Seasons Greetings

Wishing you all a peaceful and happy holiday and best wishes for 2016.

Wags and woofs,

Dexter

November sunshine.

What a wonderful day to be out on the hills, having set off from the gloom and mist at sea level I spent a great couple of hours running with my human.  We set off from the lower car-park at Bwlch Penbarras where the autumn colours were spectacular, the sky was blue and the sun warm.  The photos don't really give a true impression of how colourful  the forest was today.

The views soon opened out and we could see our first hill for the day, Moel Famau and good views to the east towards Maeshafn.

Today we took a different route and using forest tracks and old roads crossed the ford in Cwm-llydan (time for a drink) before heading round the base of Ffrith Mountain, passing Brithdir Mawr on some very,very old tracks.

Autumn sun and old hedgerows.

A gentle ascent on the heading west on Ffrith Mountain.

As the track gained higher ground there was a great view of Moel Famau, looking a bit closer now, but there was still a fair bit of climbing to do.  We passed some cyclists on this part of the climb, my human said the steep bits are easier to run than to cycle up.

A bit steeper here on the approach to the summit, I'm just running back to my human to try and get him to run faster.

The sun was so bright that the route down from Moel Famau looks very dark in contrast, that is low cloud in the distance 

Here's part of the route down from Moel Famau with our next hill, Moel Fenlli not too far away.

Looking back on our route from hear the top of Moel Fenlli.

Coed Ceunant - a Woodland Trust woodland.

From Moel Fenlli it was a brisk scamper back to the car park and a sleep on the way home.




Wags and woofs,

Dexter.

...zzzzzzzzzzz

Hills and water, a busy weekend.

I had a great weekend with lots of active stuff for me  to do. On Saturday I went for a run on my favourite hills Moel Fammau and Moel Fenlli.






On Sunday I was out on Llyn Tegid, there was a gentle breeze and the sailing was easy.  I kept a good look-out for other boats.

Wags & woofs,

Dexter.

Ludlow castle

Well have I had an exciting weekend. My human dad and his friends went to Ludlow to complete a 69 miles cycle ride on behalf of Macmillan Cancer Support. It is a really good cause.

Me and mum went to Ludlow by bus which stopped near to the castle. As they allow dogs, we went on a tour of the castle. We went up lots of high towers and windy stairs. I almost got dizzy.

Mummy is scared of heights, so I made sure I stayed really close to her! I took a selfie right at the top of one of the towers, when I looked down the humans looked like little ants scurrying around. It was really weird. I then went to the Castle cafe ( they also allow dogs) and shared a blueberry scone. 

It stayed misty all day so parts of the castle looked really spooky...

We then went back to see Dad finish his race, me and mummy were very proud when he and his friends all finished.

Woofs and wags,
Dexter.

Nuttalls and trains.

A day in the mountains climbing three summits - ( Nuttalls are mountains over 610 metres, there are 190 in Wales so only 182 to go!).  A great day on the ridge of Arenig Fawr (854 m) taking in the additional minor summits of Arenig Fawr south top  and Arenig Fawr south ridge top (peak-bagging!).  No rain and clear views in all directions made the day even better.

Arenig Fawr - from the southeast.

Arenig Fawr

Yr Wyddfa and Snowdon Horseshoe

South Ridge top -712 metres

South ridge

 

Rhinogydd

An energetic day on the mountain was followed by some relaxing time in a train the following day:

  Wags & woofs, Dexter.

A busy few days.

I've had a really great few days involving mountains, running and a brand new activity  - cycling.

My human has always promised to take to the top of the highest mountain in England and Wales so on Thursday we headed into Wales to climb Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) which is 1085 metres high.  The weather forecast wasn't too good with rain forecast but soon after 09:45 we started the walk from Pen-y-Pass using the Pyg Track, this is an easy route even for humans as the walk starts from over 350 metres.  Before we headed into the cloud there was a chance for one photo looking towards Llanberis but by the time we got to 500 metres we were in the cloud with no views.

That really set the theme for most of the day and as we got towards the top of the zig-zags at Bwlch Glas there was strong wind and rain.  The first peak was Crib-y-Ddysgl which at 1065 metres is the second highest of the Welsh peaks, the view was non-existent and you can see from the photograph how wet it was.  So we didn't linger here!

My first Welsh 1000m peak.

From here it's an easy walk to Yr Wyddfa and the whole ascent only took just under two hours.  This summit was no place to linger, by this stage there no sign of the cloud lifting so just a quick pause for a photo with my humans and then a walk down the mountain by 

Yr Wyddfa - my second Welsh 1000m peak.
Very wet!

the Llanberis Path.  Once we got below the clouds the weather was fine and sunny and it was a very easy walk for me.  In total the walk was about 14.5 km with 787 metres of climbing so not very tough on the paws.

Friday was a rest-day for me (although I think that might have been for benefit of my human) followed by an 8k run on the Sandstone Trail on Saturday.  This was mainly in the woods and very soft on the paws with a steep uphill bits mixed in with fast downhill scampers.



Now here's the new activity.  As I'm now running easily and quite fast (I could go faster but I don't want to damage my human!) I was told I could go cycling, this was very confusing, how would I reach the pedals?   So on Sunday off I went to Delamere Forest to find out what this was all about.  It turned out that all I had to do was run alongside the bike not ride it.  Wow, this was fun, I ran with my human; sometimes ahead of the bike and sometimes behind.  We went up hills and down hills, through gloopy mud and even through a stream.  Because I'm used to running and listening for the safety commands I didn't get tangled up in the bike, this was the first cycling adventure so we didn't go very fast but I'm already looking forward to the next run out with the bike.




 Wags and woofs, Dexter.

Moel Emoel

Back in September 2014 I went for a walk to the top of Moel Emoel so it was great to get back onto the hill in lovely sunny weather on 8th August.  It's an easy walk and a great chance to run around on the parts of the hill with no sheep (my human keeps me on a lead if there are any sheep or cattle around).  The route opens up with great views in all directions.  There's not much else to say, it was lovely for a young terrier to be on the hills again.

 ...watch out for my next adventure...

wags and woofs, Dexter

Welsh hills again.

Back to wales this week end  and some walking and running on my favourite hills , Bryniau Clwyd.  On Saturday I went for a walk to Penycloddiau summit (440m) and then around the lower (western) hillside, this is a great route to take in the landscape of the area.

The following day was my first trip to the top of Moel Famau (555m) and as on Saturday the weather was dry and sunny.  I took the long route to the top and then a high speed scamper down to the car-park.

Dexter's Scottish Adventures.

This was an epic adventure for a small terrier, I’ve never been to Scotland but my human had done lots of training with me to build me up gradually for the mountains.  On my first day in Scotland I had a chance to scamper around off the lead in a small forest, then the next day I ran up my first named Scottish summit.  Knock Farril is only 218 metres high but the view from the top is great, east to the Cromarty Firth and north to Ben Wyvis.

Next day I continued to travel north and sailed on a ship from Ullapool to Stornoway. Now as you know I’m quite a nautical little chap (experienced at canoeing and sailing) but this was a bit bigger than the boats I’m used to. My human even drove the car onto the ship then I got out and scampered up the stairs to a special area for dogs.  I went out on deck and had a sniff around before going back inside for a sleep. Nothing much happened then for a while, I got back in the car and my human drove off the ship then I was somewhere else new.  I was on an island on the Outer Hebrides, also known as the Western Isles, on the outer edge of Europe!

 

The next week was spent on an island called Lewis, I think it’s designed especially for dogs with huge beaches where I could run around and swim in the Atlantic (a bit cold) and the photographs show some of the places I went to for walks and runs.  I went to an Iron Age House at Bosta.

This was a busy day on the beach there were four humans on 2 km of beach!

 This was the first beach I ran on after a run across the headland and on lovely grass.

Watching the sunset over the Atlantic.

One day on a walk I saw a Golden Eagle but it was very high in sky.  On another walk I tried to climb a mountain called Clisham (799m) on the Isle of Harris, as you can see from the picture the weather was awful (low cloud and F5-6 wind) so at 500 metres my human turned back.

Golden Eagle - Harris.

There's a mountain up there somewhere.

From Lewis my adventures continued with some great walks and runs in Easter Ross, I climbed my first Corbett (a Scottish summit over 762m and below 914.4m).  This was Carn Chuinneag (839m), it was quite a long walk (18 km) but only the last 4 km of climbing is steep and the walk along Glen Calvie to start of the climb is really easy.

 

Glen Calvie & Carn Chuinneag (west summit)

Carn Chuinneag(west summit)

Carn Chuinneag summit

Spot the terrier...

My first Munro (a summit over 914.4m) was Beinn Ghlas (1103m)  closely followed by Ben Lawers 1214m) , the views were excellent when the cloud cleared.  This walk was much easier than my human expected it to be, for me it was really easy because I was a super-fit terrier by the end of the holiday.

My first Munro!

Cloudy, wet and windy - Beinn Ghlas.

Cloudy & windy - Ben Lawers.

Woofs and wags, Dexter!