......and days when I'd rather be home

      It's been a lean week as far as running is concerned. Leaden skies and bitterly cold gale force winds

From my window - the first snows arriving....

brought the first snows of winter sweeping across the valley. From the warmth of my study I watched the wuthering whiteness hurtling towards me, obliterating everything in its path, and decided it was time to turn up the central heating, make myself a bowl of warm soup, then go into semi-hibernation until this perishing cold front passes over and drowns itself in the North Sea.  It could be a long snooze....       

      

This is a path....

   My running diary contains just two entries for last week. The other five days are all zeros. Of those two runs, one was rubbish as I sloshed through waterlogged fields unable to find any purchase or momentum in the oozing quagmire. By the time I got onto Castle Hill, where there are reasonably good paths to run on, I felt too knackered and exhausted to raise enthusiasm for anything quicker. I jogged home after a miserable four miles, made a large mug of strong coffee, sat down and questioned my sanity.
       

      On Saturday we drove to the Dales in

Water, water, everywhere I run....

glorious sunshine with the thermometer registering 5ºC.  Good running weather, we thought. Unfortunately, by the time we'd lit the stove to warm the cottage, had a coffee and got changed, it had clouded over just as the forecast said it would, and by the time we'd jogged down to the riverbank it was spitting with rain. Undaunted we launched into our planned interval session which actually exceeded expectations. Quite by accident, of course. My 4 sets of (6 x 100m) somehow worked out at 31 x 100m - but I wasn't complaining. It doubled my mileage for the week and with a bit of quality there too.

     

My mind is fine, it's my body that says 'sod off'....

    Sunday teemed with rain and sleet from the word 'go'. The lane turned into a fast running torrent and little

lakes of water flooded the main road through the village. People trying to reach Hebden from Wensleydale were turned back at roads blocked with snow. A 150m journey as far as Chapel for our annual Methodist Covenant service was epic enough, sleet soaking my trouser bottoms, wind blowing my brolly inside out and water intent on leaking into my shoes. Even my Bible got wet and it seemed appropriate I should be reading from Jeremiah - the prophet of doom! But the Word failed to get watered down, our minister made sure of that, and I left Chapel refreshed in mind and spirit - though the bread and wine did little for my old body which refused to be spurred into any form of action but remained within spitting distance of the fire for the rest of the day. Come to think of it, I did twiddle my toes and stretch my legs occasionally, but that's hardly enough to cancel the zero in my diary.  Ah well, there's always next week....