1st December: Daddy Daughter Running 2

This Saturday was one of the few days each year that I see my daughters and with my youngest disappearing to her BFF's birthday party for the morning of the day, in advance my eldest had asked that we go running together again in the absence of her little sister. Naturally I jumped at the chance for a bit of quality daddy-daughter time and had already planned the day to fit around this.

With my eldest easily managing a muddy 3 mile XC with me earlier this year and completing the 3.5 mile Hook fun run (as previously seen on this blog), I suggested when she brought up the subject of distance and route that we go one stage further and run a 10k and to my pleasant surprise she went for it!

Turning up on the morning, the ex had rather helpfully dressed my daughter in the clothes to go running in... but without a change for after and with fashion trainers on her feet that aren't really suitable for running, especially XC, rather than her proper running trainers which were 'still at school'. The little thing was really excited to be running with me so I knew we had to go for it even if her attire was not totally ideal!

That morning after brekkie we went out to the village store to get food for lunch and dinner together and we discussed the pending run; how we would approach it, the route and that we would not stop, just slow down to a walk and after a pre-run watching 'Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen' we left for our jaunt.

True to form the little monkey was very eager and wanted to run at a pace that would burn her out in no time, so I had to rein her in, explaining that the distance was nearly twice as far as she had run before.

We're off!

Settling down to a more manageable pace for her we made it up on to the common and our close encounter of the hairy kind with the Highland cattle. 

Tread carefully, there be hairy beasts about!

Deciding to walk past them it gave her the chance of a small rest before we went up and over the motorway bridge.

Over the motorway.

Once through the woods we were further than she had run before from the house, although she had walked further and we carried on across to the water meadow and on to the canal. After a bit of mixed running and walking we reached King John's castle and jogged round and inside it before making it to the end of the canal and the halfway point.

Arriving in King John's Castle.

Poor little thing was starting to feel it now as we made our way on to the fields and the way back in the direction of home. It was here that she started to notice the rubbing of her little toe on the side of her trainer and asked if she could take it off to run. Explaining why this was not such a good idea with what she was running over I tried the old trick of misdirection and started talking to her about how we were going to have the chicken nuggets we had bought as soon as we returned to the house, which seemed to work, although I could tell she was being genuine about the pain.

Returning over the motorway.

Working within her energy levels we ran and walked our way back across the woods, the motorway and the common to the last stretch home that was thankfully downhill she found her second wind and hared-off at the speed she started the run so I had to up my pace to keep up with her! After 1h23 we were back at the house with a very hot and rosy-cheeked young lady panting like a steam engine from her terrific achievement!

She was really made-up with the fact she'd managed to complete a 10k XC and quite rightly so! At 9 years old I am incredibly proud of her in running further than most adults ever will at such a young age, and hopefully now she has proved to herself what she is capable of doing already and who knows, it may encourage her to push-on to bigger and better things now she has this under her belt!

On a different note I've managed to get a wait-list place in the Portsmouth Coastal Marathon at the end of December as I realised that I was going to have 6 weeks between the Dorset next week and the Anglesey in January, so squeezing this one in at the mid-point seemed a sensible option and will also mean I would have clocked-up 15 in the space of a year! I have also entered a Brutal 20k and the Winter Gut Buster 10M as back-to-back runs on the 29th and 30th of December so as to not let my fitness levels drop too much over the Christmas period.