Janathon Day 8 – Ditch jumping with Bassets

The sun was shining, the kids were coughing so I decided to take the delinquent hounds out for a run. The forest is great if I can get parked in between the trees because then I can get their leads of and get cracking straight away. There were a lot of cars in the car park but surprisingly few people out that I could see. Even so I decided on a sort of ‘off road’ route to minimize doggy distractions. As soon as I started It was obvious that this was not going to be a fast one as the mud made it really slippery, however on the up side it meant a bit of extra work for my core so slow but effective – all good! It was all going rather well when my runkeeper app thingy informed me that I had gone 0.12 km… hmmm – so I stopped to check and it wasn’t picking me up in the forest – grrr! Never mind, I carried on – bassets trailing behind til I came to the bit where I cross the stream but it was completely flooded so I carried on along the path hoping there would be another place to cross. I soon realised that I was heading for a main road so I had to get the dogs leads on on account of them having no road sense at all. Just before we got to the road there was a bit of stream narrow enough to jump over, though very muddy – one slip and I’d be up to my backside in cold muddy water – ugh. Anyway I got across ok and Rosie just followed like she always does but Bones was having none of it – the water being at least Basset chest depth and cold. So i’m trying to get him to come across and he’s pulling me back and I am trying not to get dragged into the stream. It was a dog/owner stand off. Then with one big tug I dragged the poor hound into the water and it must have been freezing because he scrambled out the other side really quickly! (Please don’t call the RSPCA!)
Water obstacle successfully navigated I waited until we were a safe distance from the road, got their leads off and carried on with my Janathon. As I was passing the lake I thought how lucky I am to have somewhere like this to Janathon. The rest of the run was pretty uneventful. I am going to have to guestimate my distance at about 2.8km and that took about 25 minutes.

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