Category Archives: dogs

Dog Days

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Headed out to meet my lovely friend Gobo, taking the boys and the dogs with me… Recipe for disaster? Quite possibly!

We met up at the beautiful National Trust site, Calke Abbey. First stop was the play area for the boys while we caked, caffeinated and caught up.Having seen lots of trees on the way in, we tempted the boys out of the play area to find some trees to climb. As we approached the footpath there was a van (secretly hoping for more coffee) turned out to be a dog treat bar, or dog cafe run by the lovely guys at Paws and Chill little did we know it was their first ever day with the treats van! It was all very exciting.

We treated the pooches to some blueberry icecream (dog friendly of course) and a new handmade collar (so pretty).

Here they are enjoying their ice-cream. (This was just before they decided to wander off and follow a fellow dog owner instead of me… little traitors)

 

National Trust Calke Abbey is beautiful, there are beautiful walks for the dogs and a great cafe and restaurant.  The kids will have fun too exploring the streams, springs and tree climbing, such a lovely place to just be yourself and relax.

Goals!

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NO, not the football kind – the personal kind. I have several goals at the moment and a few already completed.  Over the whole year I plan to cover 500 miles walking and running – so far on target but I’ll keep you posted.  We adopted 2 dogs last summer so they are loving that we are out so much.  As I have been out more with the dogs I had to get new walking shoes as I had completely worn the old ones out.  I need a bit of extra support as I tend to roll in (overpronation) so on recommendation I tried some Merrell. They are so comfortable, having the right support is essential and that doesn’t just go for the kit.

New shoes – they won’t look like that for long!

My other fitness related goal is to do a 5km run in 30mins or less, I started the year taking 40+mins to complete 5km.  To improve I upped my running and started doing more interval training but the most important thing I did was to share my goal with running friends.  My run buddies have been super at encouraging me and pushing me to run faster for longer.  Firstly I got the time down to under 40 mins, then just a few days later I beat that time again giving me a new all time personal best.  30 mins for a 5 km is still daunting but seems like a reasonable goal already, though I still have 7 mins to knock off my times I know I won’t be doing it alone.

If you are new to running or have been running for a while and are stuck in a rut then find people to run with.  They are a great source of inspiration, encouragement and just great stress relief.  There are lots of run groups out there – you may have to try a few to find the one thats right for you.  I’m now a Run Leader for StrideOut in Sheffield but you can find lots of local runs on the www.runtogether.com website.