Dexter the Border Terrier: Midwinter blog

Well it's virtually the end of the year, and what a strange year 2020 has been. I've missed all my friends in Wales over the last few months and I haven't been able to get out for long runs on the hills. But I have done lots and lots of running, in fact I've done more running this year than ever!

I even did a half-marathon , I ran in Cheshire with my human and we ran virtually with my Auntie Sarah and her friend Sarah who were in Oxfordshire. All four of us ran at the same time, it should have been the day for the a real half-marathon race but as this was cancelled we called it 'Not the Silverstone half!' The distance was 21.17 km which I completed in 2 hours 14 minutes. My human was able to chose a route with lots of muddy fields and tracks so not too much road, it was great fun especially when my other human came to meet us on her bike and I was able to run with both my humans for a while. I'd been training hard for the half-marathon, so far this year I have run 1087 km and climbed 11,395 metres, and I haven't worn out my paws even a little bit, unlike my human who has worn out a pair of trail shoes and a pair of fell-shoes!

When I'm running in lockdown I am very lucky to be able to run on a mixture of tracks , fields and some roads. Over the last few weeks the tracks have been very wet, the picture below shows one of my favourite tracks with a little stream running where the path should be, but it was nice and sunny so that made up for the wetness.

I've even had to swim on one of my runs, the water across the track was up to my human's knees so I knew it was going to be a few metres of swimming for me, it did get rid of the mud for a while.