More lockdown and a light at the end of the tunnel

Well it's May already, there is lots more green on the trees as the leaves come out, as I look out of the window today the weather seems quite grim for May.  However, my human will take me for a walk today.  Until last week all my exercise was taken from my house, it hasn't stopped me from doing plenty of running and walking, so far this year I have run and walked 424 kilometres. 

Finally I have got my human to understand that I do not like early mornings unless I am going for a walk, I much prefer to run in the late morning or afternoon.  My human has decided that I should have a non-running day every other day so the pattern has emerged over lockdown that I run 3 days one week and four the next with a walk on the days I don't run. Running from home over lockdown is not the same as the hill running so my human tends to be a bit faster, on the hills my human is very slow on the uphill bits so I get much more chance to scamper ahead and sniff.  

As spring progressed I started to see more leaves and blossoms the tracks and fields became much less muddy so I didn't get myself as dirty as I had during the winter.  This was a relief because my coat got longer and longer but even though the weather was sunny it was not too warm so the long coat was alright. 

The hairy look followed by the post lockdown haircut, just so smart.

  

Finally spring was in the air, a whole new set of smells and sights...

My birthday, 7 years old and a great 5 km run to celebrate as well as a very special doggy birthday cake just for me.

My human always keeps me on a lead when we can't avoid fields with livestock, I ignore horses, cattle and sheep but I find sheep worry me, there's one route we use where the sheep always chase after us.  Even if my human is walking the sheep get up and follow us, they get closer and closer and sniff at me as you can see from the photo, I don't like this and try to hide behind my human.

 Finally after months of running from home we were able to travel to start some more interesting runs, my first one was on the Sandstone Trail around the Frodsham area, it felt so good to be out on hilly ground again. A nice 10 km run on lovely soft ground and up and down lots of hills.  I prefer hill-running to running on the flat because my human is so slow running the up-hill bits that I get plenty of time to sniff and scamper around

My Strava record of the run.

I had a rest day after the Frodsham run with just a walk to get some exercise and then I did what has been the best run of the year so far, I got back into Wales and ran a very nice route around the base of Moel Fammau, onto the summit and a cracking run back down to the car-park.  The weather was perfect as the photos show.

The route heading west through the forest with the summit of Moel Fammau in the distance.

Shown below is one of the steeper parts of the route on the ascent from Cwm-llydan (about 150 metres)

The first photo shows the view to the east from the ridge of Ffrith Mountain, the second photo slightly higher on Ffrith around the 430 metre contour with a great view due north over the lower Cilcain Reservoir towards the Irish Sea.

Once up to the 430 contour it was just a short climb to the summit of Moel Fammau at 554 metres, I posed for some of the usual Trig point photos (always worth it for the special treats I get at the summit) and then an easy scamper back.

   

The day following the Moel Fammau run was a rest day with just a walk to keep me happy. Following my rest day I went for a short 5 km run and got a decent time of 27 minutes for the run so I was happy with that.  I'm looking forward to more adventures on the hills over the next few months and I will tell you all about my new buddy, Bob the Border Collie.

Wags and woofs,

Dexter.