Day 342 Friday 7th December 4.1 miles : miles to date 2276.4 Its Friday, its 5.30pm and its crrraacceerrjacckkk. Oppps, showing my age there. Still apart from the crackjack, it should be its Friday, its 5.30pm, its the forrreessttt centre. For a description of the route/run and highs/lows, please see the posts from most of the last two months worth of Fridays. Right, another festive ho, ho, ho down tonight and and a chance to show off my dancing skills yet again. I hope they have Sister Sledge tonight, as I am the greatest dancer they have ever seen. Not. Bet I can run further than them though.

Day 341 Thursday 6th December 9.3 miles : miles to date 2272.3

Sssshhhh, don't tell anyone but I slipped off at lunchtime for another mid day meander, due to a pending festive party tonight. I saw a client at their home and took the oppurtunity of parking up in Clophill, intending to go up on the Greensands trail. It was a little difficult stripping off totally in the front of the car, with cars parked next to me on both sides, but I am now something of a ninja master in the dark arts of nudity, cars and public places. That being said, I am a little worried I may appear on some dodgy website at some point.

I  set off along the road in the opposite initial planned route, worried about falling over in a field. I bumped into Steven Upton almost straight away and had a chat. I ran down to a road section where I have done mile repeats and toyed with the idea of a whizz, choosing instead a slower, longer run. The long play is damaged and was stuck spilling out the rather angry chords of one Mr.Eminem. Now there is a chap who didn't get a cuddle from his mumsy when he was a wee one. The pain shooting through my head from the dire splurge and really offensive stuff potty boy was rapping, distracted me from the run, which was in fact quite nice taking in as I did part of the Greensands trail, albeit four miles further over than I had planned. A quick change back into the whistle and into the office for another smelly afternoon.

Right, time to get my party clothes on and boggie. Oh boy, Dad dancing coming up.

Fi, Foo and no 2's

Day 340 Wednesday 5th December 8.9 miles : miles to date 2263 Tonight's run can be summarised as no Fi, lots of Foo, no No2's, more Foo, seeing Fi and having a wee. You can tell I'm a legal eagle with such command of the language, innit. Having put a shout out to the super hero crew and a potential apprentice in the form of Paul Newton for a mid week stomp around the frozen wasteland of the forest centre, I was unceremoniously blown out by all. It was as a result a billy no mates wander in the dark without even Fi to keep me company. By the time I started, the temperatures had plummeted and the snow that had fallen last night that was left, was frozen, slippy and rutty. I parked a little further away than normal to encourage a longer run and soon realised it was just to dangerous to try to hammer it. So, out came the long play, on went the Foo boy's and off I trotted around the streets and two internal laps of the centre. The path inside was a mix of ice, hardened patchy snow and some clear sections. A did have a no 1 for a change, although I didn't leave the little chap dangling too long. It was nippy you know and the cold has an odd effect on a chap's rhythm stick. The darkness, head torch, misty breath and limited vision made the run as always really enjoyable. I just chilled out to the middle aged mid week mosh blaring through the ear plugs and felt very satisfied to be out there on my tod. I didn't mind what were in truth some junk miles (sorry Frankie but they do exist) put in just to ensure I don't fall even further behind target. Talking of which I now have just 26 days to cover 237 miles, which is a 9.12 mile per day average. Ohhhh, think I might have to nip back out again?

wildpoepen!

Day 339 Tuesday 4th December 6.3 miles : miles to date 2254.1 Its taken all year, but I can now say that officially I am a wildpoepen offender thanks to Jeremy Bell. It comes to something when the chairman of the club tells me at training he think's I'm a wildpoepen. Charming I thought. It appears that a Dutch footballer called Jeffrey De Visscher's has recently been convicted of the above offence, which was basically having a No 2 in a street whist no doubt under the influence. Granted we share some similarities. When we go, we both are no doubt sweating, unsteady on our feet, pong, lacking a roll or two of Andrex and probably look like we have been through a hedge backwards. The difference is I probably have been and I don't make my pit stops spectator friendly. Unless you count muntjacs and other wildlife. You do have to laugh at the Dutch mind. What a name for having an open air No 2. Anyone able to translate it into English? Luckily, the Chairmans ribbing didn't put me off training. Having made an almost miraculous recovery from my 32 hour man flu (ok I might be exaggerating a tad), it was back to the need for speed. The session was one minute running fast with 45 second recovery and repeat six times. At the end of the six, we had a two minute recovery and repeated the efforts two more times. I tried my best to hang onto the whippets which I did at the start, on a sliding scale downwards by the end. Another cracking session in my go fast daps on what was a cold wintry night. Right I'm off for a wildpoepen. It appears I'm a repeat offender. Looks like its Wormward Scrubs for me.

Sniffel....

Day 338 Monday 3rd December 3 miles : miles to date 2247.8

I was saved tonight by a knightess in shining Ron Hill running gear, as Fi came to the rescue and pushed us both out the door for an easy, slow village loop. I have been virtually struck down with the deadliest of illnesses known to peepkind. Man flu. It appeared out of nowhere at least seventeen hours ago and has made me both cough and splutter, its that bad.

I anticipate that it will be gone by Tuesday, but tonight I felt very sorry for myself and wasn't in the mood for any run. The current Mrs. Owen volunteered to guide me around the mean village streets, before making me some coco and tucking me up in my jim jams. 

No too much to report in terms of the run. I had wanted to go along to the Happy Feet running club, but the wise advice of she who must be obeyed was to keep it very easy, low and into bed as early as possible.

No. 2 time

Day 336 Saturday 1st December 21.5 miles : miles to date 2236.2

I had a glorious cold x-c run with SMC light this morning, back in the old hood. The temperatures dropped to -1, which compared with an earlier run this year at -13 run, felt almost tropical.

 Even on the way over the wildlife was out, I pulled up in the death trap six feet away from a muncjack on a quiet lane and stared at each other for a few seconds. Our eyes locked and it was magical. I could have been back in the Top Rank in Merthyr Tydfil in 1983. The forgotten year.

 It was great to have the long term injured  Niki Rouse back in the fold for her longest run in a very long time. She has been much missed, along with Jerry Day continuing with his own recuperation. 

 We headed straight for the trails, which were mostly hard and no longer muddy, due to the frost. Satnav took us on a  newish route and promised a new bridge to cross the M1, which kept me excited for the first three miles. I'm easily pleased. Sure enough, he delivered on his promise and I did my usual trick of bobbing up and down as I crossed partly hidden by a shoulder height wall, to confuse the motorists. Childish I know, but it makes me laugh and has done for the last 274 times.

 We headed along the Greensand's trail, into Ridgemont and then through surrounding grounds of Woburn Safari park, where there were as always large herds of deer and stags wandering around within putting distance.

 Now I don't do this on purpose, but it was another No. 2 in the woods time, not far from the spot I did one the last time we came through. Frozen, matted leaves cause numbness in areas that shouldn't be numb and it was a while before I stopped running like John Wayne. It's come to something that when I was out last night with the lads, I almost got a round of applause for using the inside WC.

 Running like there was a barrel between my legs meant that it took me a while to catch the crew as well.  The icy, frozen grounds were truly beautiful and were worth the run on their own.

 Satnav and I eventually parted from the crew of Niki Nicola Bowerman, the Silver Surfer Phil Clarke (beyond elite double club V60 record holder, eh matey!), Dave Coaker and the above.

 Satnav had mentioned that as we are planning to run 82 miles along Hadrian's Wall in just under four weeks and I haven't run more than 15 miles since early October, it might be an idea to go longer today. I put my trust in him and off we set for the second half, wandering across quite a number of new trails and routes, which was amazing for me as I thought I had covered everyone in the county. I was back with just me and him, talking nonsense, planning mad stuff and doing what we do best. Meandering everywhere and munching the miles. And we did, dodging ice on the limited roads we took, frozen ruts and just running all over the place for fun.

 I like to think of Satnav as Watson to my Sherlock, Sundance to my Butch, Earnie to my Eric, Goose to my Maverick and best of all, Ginger to my Astaire. He may disagree.

SMC run

Day 335 day 30th November 4.2 miles : miles to date 2214.7 A busy day meant I was only able to slip in a short lunch time run along the road. I had proper real life client's this afternoon and I didn't want to add to the pong that seem's to be hanging around the office after the last two days of being part of the great unwashed. As predicated, Fi read my blog and halfway through the morning rang me at work to call me a smelly git. Harsh but entirely accurate. As a result, it was an easy, slow and as much sweat free running along the main road out of and back into Berko as I could muster. A busy day and a sober night out in the heaving fleshpot sin city of Ampthill, delayed the recoding of what was in truth an uneventful run. I would love to say that my decision to drink coke on a night out with seventeen mostly lairy athletes, was down to my body is a temple thing. The rather boring truth is I live too far away and taxi's would have cost a small fortune. We were celebrating the Amazing Martin Beare reaching his half century and having what must be his greatest ever athletic year, which included representing Great Britain for his age group in the world triathlon championships in New Zealand. Huppy Burfday Martin. I eventually left at 1am, as most of the crew were still going strong. The night out did coincide with a lap dancing club opening in the gentele Georgian town against much complaint from the resident's. Any confessions lad's?