Mrs Spaniel's Muddy Dog Challenge - the training diary

Karran

Karran

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Waaaay back in dark, dreary February an email went around the members of my flyball team about doing the Muddy Dog challenge to raise funds for Battersea Dog and Cat home.

"Running 5k?" I questioned Mrs Spaniel. "We can do that surely?" On an average day we walk 6 miles according to my fitbit. Maths and me do not get on well but I figured it couldn't be as far as that, even with the challenges we would storm around.

So I signed us up and apart from vague occasional pleas on Facebook for donations I thought no more about it. After all we walk loads I thought smugly. I go to a Keep Fit class once a week, we do our flyball and we're on DIY livery with off road hacking for her to trundle after the horse. This is going to be a piece of cake and I pitied the other people in my team who were fretting about what they had put themselves down for.

Last week I was alarmed to see a email ping into my inbox reminding me of our challenge and giving us a training diary. :0

Oh dear... It's all suddenly got rather serious.....

We have just returned from our first training run....

I think I am about to have a heart attack and have poured myself a large glass of wine to recover and wait for my heart to stop pounding. My knees are like jelly and I'm suddenly aware that 1km is lot further to run than it is walk and I couldn't even do that without needing several rest stops.

Mrs Spaniel however cruised round, often turning to give me despairing looks and is now busy chasing cats out of the garden and yelling death threats at them loudly.

Still! According to my schedule I get a day of rest and then i'm supposed to be able to push myself to run further than I did tonight with the goal of Friday being about to run a full kilometre without dying.

Hopefully this will keep us motivated until September 30th and i'm planning on borrowing a GoPro to film my inevitable demise from Mrs Spaniel's POV.
 
Haha! Excellent start to the training diary, you may not be enjoying it but keep up the updates and we will be! Will send you some sponsorship when I've got five minutes. I can just about run 2km before collapsing so 5km at spaniel pace sounds pretty worthy of sponsorship to me.
 
Clodagh said:
There, it was worth the update as it reminded me to go and donate. Good luck!
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Widgeon said:
Done! Now to do real work.
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Thank you both very much!

Day two:
I remember when I was 8 or 9 my grandparents asked if I wanted to go watch the athletics at Crystal Palace. There was a fun run afterwards they enthused. Just 3 miles around the park and you got a medal from the British Heart Foundation at the end of it!
My 8 or 9 year old self was excited about this and agreed. I watched the athletics then ran down the stand and ran 3 miles. I think this was my last experience of long (mid?) distance running bar being forced to do the 400 and 800m in school.

My 33 year old self woke up on Tuesday and remembered that I am not 8 or 9 years old. That my Keep Fit Sadist/Trainer insists we do warm up and cool down stretches for a reason.

I have broken my hamstring.
“Oh dear God what have I done?”
And then I felt guilty. Poor Mrs Spaniel. She must be suffering too. I must look up warm up exercises for her.

I limped her to the park. She did two laps at full speed showing no ill effects and returned home triumphantly with a tennis ball left in one of the courts.

Day Three:

Still unable to do a full 1km. Mrs Spaniel has clearly taken to looking up motivational speeches whilst I am at work and ran backwards on her harness most of the way "encouraging" me. I need a new bottle of wine.

Day Four:

Keep Fit/”bodywork” training and a day of rest for Mrs Spaniel.

After Keep Fit I went to dinner with my ex. After abandoning me and Mrs Spaniel he decided that moving back to Wales was not far enough away from us and moved to Russia instead and has returned a year later to renew his visa, we are still on good terms however.
“You know” he delicately said. “Perhaps you should consider eating to match the training? I mean Usain Bolt probably has a special diet when training?”
I glanced down at the remains of a large burger, fries and thought about the 4 pieces of cheesy garlic bread I had just consumed.
“I’m a long distance runner though. I bet Mo Farah eats lots to keep his calories up” And ordered a chocolate brownie sundae to finish.


Today we are not doing too well - somehow I managed to overdo it at Keep Fit and my leg which was still painful is a bit worse and I am limping noticeably. The plan was to have a run this evening after my dressage lesson but I think its best if we rest it.
Our Training Diary suggests a long walk (minimum 1 hr) together over the weekend. This we can do! This we do every weekday, this is a piece of cake even if I am broken!
Sunday we have Flyball training and then she can come for a hack with me. Monday we will attempt the dreaded 1k run without stopping….. and then rather alarmingly we jump from 1km to 2km with no 1.5km in between!
 
Day Five:
Mrs Spaniel knows she is not allowed in the arena when horses are in there. However she clearly has great concerns over my fitness levels now and spent an hour chasing after me and Share Horse yelling reassurance whenever we stop, evidently she is concerned that I may pass out from all this exercise and fall off.
 
It's a good thing Mrs Spaniel is on the case, wouldn't want you fainting from all the exercise and falling off. It's well known that sprinting in circles around your person prevents these kind of incidents.
 
Ok, that's four days with no diary. Has the fitness regime killed you off? Please reply, this was getting interesting lol
 
PucciNPoni said:
Ok, that's four days with no diary. Has the fitness regime killed you off? Please reply, this was getting interesting lol
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Goodness I had no idea there were that many twisted individuals on this forum taking pleasure in others pain.

Never fear I shall have a full update for you including a run in with our travelling buddies, cake, vodka and the tale of how poor Mrs Spaniel finally gave in and started looking for a new home tomorrow when I can use a real computer and upload photos!

Stay tuned as they say!
 
Karran said:
Goodness I had no idea there were that many twisted individuals on this forum taking pleasure in others pain.

Never fear I shall have a full update for you including a run in with our travelling buddies, cake, vodka and the tale of how poor Mrs Spaniel finally gave in and started looking for a new home tomorrow when I can use a real computer and upload photos!

Stay tuned as they say!
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Whoop! Yes, absolutely twisted, though I did also give some money on your page to ease my conscience about delighting in your troubles
 
DabDab said:
Whoop! Yes, absolutely twisted, though I did also give some money on your page to ease my conscience about delighting in your troubles
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Thank you very much!

This week training has been a bit disrupted. I'll pop the full update into the next post to prevent this one being horrendously long to read!

So Saturday (Day Five) our training diary suggested an hours walk. Mrs Spaniel rolled her eyes at this one a bit - She is taking this far too seriously for my liking.
If we are not competing and life is not in the way, I like to take her at the weekends a bit further afield from our usual weekday haunts. I figure she must get bored doing the same lap of the park or laps of the field so I try to rotate between Greenwich Park, the local woods and two country parks about half hour down the motorway.

This Saturday we ventured to Lullingstone Country park (they do the best cake)

Mrs Spaniel went swimming



we walked amongst the fields



we ferreted about in the woods for sticks


We dodged the golfers


and stopped to admire the flowers



Finally we arrived back at the visitors centre for the best part of the adventure (Mrs Spaniel got a biscuit)



Not a bad Saturday morning stroll although it then (in Mrs Spaniel's opinion all went downhill training wise)

 
Day 5 continued....

I was due to go out for the evening for a 10 year workplace reunion so after a sufficient rest we headed confidently to the field at the end of our road to attempt the dreaded 1km.

Disaster!

Our field had been invaded by those people who travel around in caravans and do not do much in the way of legal activities.

40 caravans stood proudly on the 1 and a half acre field that we frequent. I hovered unsure of our best move. Mrs Spaniel whined. Wanted to be let off the lead. Two stones came whizzing our way. I am a coward. I turned and left the field dragging Mrs Spaniel who did not understand this turn of events at all.
The owner of a friend of hers Mr Beagle (This is turning into something like a Mr Men book....) came out of his house and asked if we were ok. Apparently earlier in the day Mr Dalmatian and Little Miss Cockerpoo had ventured in (safety in numbers) and the kids had let off a firework at them causing both dogs to bolt out onto the road - luckily all ok but shook up.

We abandoned the idea of our training run and headed back home. I went to the pub.....

Day 6.

I came home from the pub at 3.30am. I may have been slightly drunk. Mrs Spaniel took advantage of this to commandeer a spot on the bed and grumbled at me for disturbing her sleep.
I somewhat foolishly agreed to meet my friends again in the pub for 1pm Sunday afternoon for Lunch. I somewhat foolishly set a 6am alarm to get up and to the horse and then go to flyball training. I somewhat foolishly proceeded to get up at 6am, throw a rather surprised Mrs Spaniel into the car and I actually rode. It is however entirely possible that we just ambled like a drunken snail on the buckle end of the reins for 20 minutes while I felt slightly ill.

We went to training. Mrs Spaniel set off to collect the ball with her usual enthusiasm. She was less enthusiastic about coming back to the person who stunk of stale booze, kebab, horse and sweat with unbrushed hair and as it turned out a t shirt that was inside out. Mrs Spaniel abandoned all hope of making me a civilised member of society and gave up that we would ever be able to complete our Challenge. She hopped out of the lane and ran to the wife of my Flyball Captain. She threw herself onto her back and begged them to take her away from the madwoman.
Getting no joy from her and being wrestled back into shape by me she then fled to another person sobbing about her mistreatment and how I was an unfit person both mentally and physically. We made a tactical retreat from training early. And yes I did go back to the pub as they do rather nice roast dinners.

Day 7.
Monday we were supposed to be attempting our first go at a 2km run. We have also failed in our previous week's mission of a 1km run. However those pesky caravan dwellers were still on our field preventing us from using it. We were feeling slightly poorly and only just managed to get through the day at work. I drove Mrs Spaniel to the woods after work and we had an amble there.

Day 8
(Yesterday) was a stable day so no time for training. However! I got an email from Mr Beagle and the police have moved the travellers on after they had broken into two houses that overlook the field. TONIGHT IS THE NIGHT! There will be no excuses! We will run 1km whether it kills us or not (most likely will)
 
This is FANTASTIC! Thank you for a proper giggle. From one running non-runner to another, it does get easier. On the day you'll find you can run about 3x as far as you think you can. Top tip: trick your brain into running further by thinking "oh that's a nice tree, let's run over and see it". When you reach the tree, find something else and repeat until you pass out. Works a treat.
 
apercrumbie said:
This is FANTASTIC! Thank you for a proper giggle. From one running non-runner to another, it does get easier. On the day you'll find you can run about 3x as far as you think you can. Top tip: trick your brain into running further by thinking "oh that's a nice tree, let's run over and see it". When you reach the tree, find something else and repeat until you pass out. Works a treat.
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Glad i'm amusing! Yes I like that trick! I use it when Share Horse is a tit out hacking - ooh if I can get to that tree/lampost/bush without falling off then I'll get off and lead the rest of the way. Then we get to that marker and aim for another marker and the next thing you know we're back at the yard again! Never thought about trying it for running though! Will let you know if we survive tonight - currently comfort eating custard creams whenever the thought strikes!

ALSO - super big thank you to you all as I've now hit my £100 target, but being a greedy soul I'd love more donations if anyone feels able to contribute! Mrs Spaniel would like to give big licks and cuddles to you all.
 
Press play before reading

[video=youtube;6jzWRYr-b_Y]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jzWRYr-b_Y[/video]

Well we did it! We managed our first full 1km run in face of heavy rain.
Mrs Spaniel was not impressed. I had to drag her out for her walk earlier and we both got soaked. The temptation was strong in both of us to stay at home, under blankets drinking hot chocolate but I forced her out regardless!
I opened the car door to get her harness out and she jumped into the car and then got into the drivers side footwell where she knows I cannot get her out easily in her attempt to avoid the wet.
(She is such a diva - those of you with proper working spaniels would despair of her refusal to go out without a rain coat on)
trying to drag her out did not work. Bribery with treats did not work. I got in the passenger side and pretty much shoved her out from behind.
It was a toss up between the two of us as to who was crosser although I'd won the who was wetter contest....

The rain lashed down, it is a sad day when you can see better without your glasses as they are so wet and fogged up and my hair like wet rat tails glued to me.

It may have been the slowest 1km in history (9 minutes 47 seconds) at Spaniel trot pace and we got lapped by a snail suffering from road rage but we did it! Mrs Spaniel is very proud of me and has forgiven my weekend escapades and wagged her tail at me all the way around.

Keep Fit tomorrow and we'll try one more 1km run over the weekend as this week has been pretty disrupted and then we definitely will attempt 2km on Monday (happily the training diary has given me permission to having walking breaks if needed).

Celebrating by breaking open the ice cream!
 
Day 11

Our route has been revealed! I can see the ball pit causing a problem

20689899_1350743281690483_8654093717562757128_o.jpg
 
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Congrats on your 1k! Though I'm thinking that if it's raining you may be better swapping Mrs spaniel for the road rage snail...

A ball pit! Now that's just mean - definitely better go with the snail :p

Brilliant reports as ever
 
Day 13. Week 3.

My friend sat back in his chair folded his arms and raised his eyebrows.
"You've damaged your hamstring."
"Weeeellll" I hesitated. "I maybe exaggerating a little"
Mrs Spaniel sat underneath our table sat up and also raised an eyebrow reminding me of the fact that since Wednesdays 1k I've limped.
My friend continued. "we've only been out an hour in the park, you walked up the stairs like a waddling penguin in an attempt to stop it hurting. I play football." He reminded me. "I know what happens when you pull a hamstring. You rest. For two weeks at least. You don't carry on riding, or running.
You simply cannot try to run a 2k tomorrow."

Mrs Spaniel mentioned that my leg had given way dismounting on Friday and i'd been forced to cling onto the saddle flap to stop me falling over.

I made a note to have a word with her later about what was acceptable to share with others and what wasn't.

"I really think" He concluded. "That you should take some time off and rest and tackle it again in a fortnight. So what if you need to walk it? Better than your leg falling off."

"AHA!" I said triumphantly. "But you are a mere footballer. You fall over the minute someone comes within 4 foot of you. I ride horses, fall off on a semi regular basis. I jump back on and try again. I'm no quitter."

He and Mrs Spaniel rolled their eyes at me. Mrs Spaniel mentioned for the second time that I've spent everyday since Wednesday whimpering.
She asked him if he would like to do the challenge with her - I think she is starting to get a bit obsessed - I definitely caught her studying Mo Farah's form on the athletics.

Luckily for my friend he does not speak Spaniel and was therefore unable to take her up on her offer.

"Look" I said. "It's not a full 2k run. That horror comes later on in the training diary. I'm already a week behind. We'll go out and walk when necessary. I don't want to make it worse but I'm determined to do this. I cannot sit about and do nothing for two weeks. I need to do my share of the horse and I need to walk Mrs Spaniel or she turns into a delinquent ASBO yob."

Mrs Spaniel was rather indignant about this. I reminded her that she was not the only one who could share secrets and also reminded her of how she dug up the hallway carpet when she first arrived.

So tonight full of chicken chow mein and false bravado we headed to the park and yes with a great deal of limping and a fair amount of walking we did our first 2k in just over 20 minutes.

A bit of rest tomorrow (ha!) and then we'll try again Wednesday and hopefully try and run a bit longer and finish in a slightly better time.
 
Stupid know-it-all footballer was right. Not that we're telling him that.
2k was definitely a step too far.
I am on box rest as much as possible and Mrs Spaniel has joined the gym to train alone. I would like to say I have a weekend doing nothing but resting but I have to run the community day at work this weekend so will be on my feet all day.
Still hoping to restart training next Monday....
 
This is a bit of a "woe is me" update.

Stupid Know It All Footballer was right. I valiantly attempted my 2k last week. I woke up the next day and my leg gave way as I got out of bed.
Fine. I told Mrs Spaniel. I'll give it a week to rest and then we'll try again.
But seriously with dogs and horses how does one rest? I have cut out my lessons and Keep Fit sessions and
I was rather pleased with myself on Thursday evening as I thought I'd done very little. Turns out rather than the 7 FitBit miles I normally cover daily I had still done 5...

Saturday was the Summer Fun Day at the community centre I work at. I spend most of the year planning this event and spent most of Friday on my feet putting up bunting, signage and setting up stalls.

Saturday I was on the go all day and it turns out that over two days I covered 27 FitBit Miles. Sunday I definitely paid for it as I had to bounce downstairs on my ample backside as my leg flatly refused to bend after I woke up.
Mrs Spaniel had the good grace to pretend she was still asleep and not look at my antics.

I hobbled to Flyball but then we had to come home.

I What's Apped Stupid Know It All Footballer. He suggested resting....

I threw the phone away in disgust. Mrs Spaniel also showed her disgust later today by rolling in Fox Poo which she has NEVER done before.

I still have just over a month before the challenge. I may not be able to run the full distance but we can walk/hobble what we can't do and hopefully if I can just figure out how to rest a bit longer I may be able to make some sort of recovery....
 
I did the Muddy Dog in June with our cocker Bob. It was so much fun! I couldn't run a full 5k by the time the event came round but you have to stop for obstacles so doesn't really matter! I also managed to injure my ankle at the first one so had to hobble round lol.

Rest up and don't stress. You'll be fine when you're in the moment and running with everyone. Good luck!
 
Damn that knowitall footballer. He could have come up with a useful magic solution, but I suppose he was too busy falling over and rolling around on the floor because a daisy looked at him funny....blummin typical.

Glad to hear mrs spaniel is being supportive though :D

Well, with no magical solution I suppose you should rest (I mean properly, not pretend 27-mile-in-2-days rest). And maybe hang some healing crystals above your bed - you know, just in case....
 
I feel I'm going to have to admit defeat on this challenge.

I've not got any better and if anything the leg has got worse. It buckled under me (most notably coming down the stairs one day) a few times and resting made it freeze completely and then I'd drag it behind me for a few steps once I'd get up before it came back to life.

Getting in and out of bed/chairs/the car is impossible and as for riding.... I can barely put the weight on it to get in and out of the saddle and I can feel it jarring with every movement she makes.

I went to the minor injuries unit last Tuesday and was given a natty pair of crutches and referral for physio. I've been off work since Monday as my boss is convinced my leg is about to drop off and the physio appointment today can find no record of me.

I still really want to complete it and until I get told 100% by a doctor/physio that I cannot do it, I am still aiming to attempt it, even if I limp the way around.

Mrs Spaniel has turned into a hooligan with pent up energy but is also become more clingy than normal. I bought her a raw bone at the weekend to amuse. She took it into the garden, but then realised she couldn't supervise me, and ran back in. Checked I was ok and then returned to her bone, then realised again I didn't have a carer and ran back into check on me.
In the end I had to bring her bone in and shut the back door so she could eat it in the living room with a beady eye on me everytime I shifted in my seat.

Sat now watching Homes under the Hammer and hoping the physio team can find my referral and see me at some point later today!
 
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