Excalibur marathon

Stef,  Tuss and I ran the Excalibur marathon in Wales on Sunday. Stef ran well and Tuss breezed round getting compliments galore. Hewas awarded a medal and t-shirt by race organisers (and our friends) Pat and Nigel from Runnershub plus a huge sausage from the caterers. I finished with a sore hamstring having been reasonsbly okay if very slow until the last three miles or so. The only other dog / human team in the race finished an hour or so ahead of us but I think Stef and Tussock could have probably matched them without me if I'm honest

The race was fantastically well organised with a lovely route starting beneath Moel Famau. Support from NE Wales search and rescue was outstanding too. We will definitely be doing the event again next year

More from Pembrokeshire

We managed to visit eight beaches in six days away in Wales. Tussock has always loved the seaside and enjoyed meeting another vizsla Wilson on our first full day away. He wouldn't know but the meet-up had been pre-arranged online. What hadn't been sorted beforehand was the other vizslas (and their humans) we met in the following days: I lost track but around six more smooths and two lovely wires, Ted and Sunny. I'd never been to Pembrokeshire before partly because of the distance from either the East Midlands, or the West Riding, but loved it

Easter in Pembrokeshire

Stef, Tussock and I got home from Pembrokeshire last night. We were away for nearly a week and had a great time. More to follow

Wales and dales

We managed three runs over the extended weekend (we'd booked Friday off work for Stef's postponed BG). On Friday we had a relatively fast run over our favourite 'four climbs' route between Upper Wharfedale and Littondale. We did our best ever time for this and celebrated with soup and a sandwich afterwards in Zarina's. On Saturday we had a steady run / walk around the LDWA Walden route with Martyn and Helen (23 miles / 4,500 feet climb) in 'mixed' weather conditions, and on Sunday we went over to Liverpool to meet Yiannis for a run out near Llangollen in North Wales.This was the first time I'd been in the area for far too long and as me and Stef were approaching the car after a really good outing we spotted a male hen harrier! A further treat was the wonderful roast beef dinner followed by apple pie and ice-cream that Yiannis' wife Cath provided for us on our return. All in all a most splendid weekend and a good return to some proper training after a few lazy weeks on my part. Totals for weekend were approaching 45 miles and 11,000 feet climb