day 4

Hurray! We have finally established a route that covers 4 miles! It's taken half a week and several tweaks but we've finally got our treck settled. I daren't tell the others but after 6 weeks we're supposed to up our efforts to 6 miles a day, although we do get an hour and a half for that. We're all suited and booted, and had officially decided to abandon the dog and all the burdens the brings, it finally feels like we're ready to rock and roll. We even managed to get Dad out of bed, dressed and stretched (even "LUNGE" only brought on a few minor titters) by 9am, nothing could go wrong, today is our day....
14 minutes in Dad had to retire due to a sock related error - thin socks plus walking boots plus our speedy(ish) pace equals blisters "Go on without me," he gasped, "I believe in you!" he cried after us as we vanished over the horizon, leaving him to limp home. I can only assume his sock malfunction was a genuine mistake, and not some attempt to spite the 9am start. So we'd dropped the dead weight, now was the time for us to power forwards and show what we could really do; when the make the movie of this journey of self discovery (I imagine with Scarlett Johansson playing me) epic music will play at this point, as it reaches the crescendo, the clouds will part and a shaft of heavenly light will illuminate us, the wind will cause my hair to tumble from its ponytail and flow out behind me like a sheet of golden silk... And then Eddie set off, like a royal marine, on steroids, with a rocket up his backside, and I realised that the movie would be more of a comedy./horror, with Jo Brand (can't even have Dawn French now she's lost all that weight) playing me. Eddie strode out ahead, me scurrying along in his wake, I must have looked like roadrunner, my tiny legs taking 3 steps to each of his giant paces. I realsied I'd been using poor old Dad as an excuse, I'm not slow, I'm just keeping pace with the old duffer, I soothed myself, but now I'm sadly sure that I too could do with all the help I could get. There's not much else to say about today, it passed in a huffy puffy blur, I can't speak for Ed but I didnt have enough breath to do anything other than concentrate on staying alive, we did make it home only 3 minutes outside the hour, which I think is pretty impressive considering we had sock realted dramas to deal with. On our return we were berated by Mam for leaving the dog, who had whined and howled the whole time we were gone, so I may have won todays battle to go without him, but it would seem he's going to win the war on being included, no matter how much trouble he makes or how many civilians he savages.
We have the additional excitement of a trip to Go Outdoors, as we have now proved ourselves serious enough about the mission to require equipment, by which I mean extra fluffy walking socks, to give Dad 1 less excuse to duck out of training. Hopefully I can get some pink ones! And i might just give the troops a treat and let them have the day off tomorrow, so that blisters can be popped and muscles rested in time to pwer into the new year.

P.s Didn't even have the energy to contemplate pushing Ed off a mountain today, so much effort was I putting into our might pace, so maybe we are improving.