Hubby is on holiday from today until a week after Easter so I'm glad the secret will be out soon. The sun looked good from behind glass this morning so it could be a good time to run before breakfast, we had a busy day ahead, but it was cold outside. How to sneak out without being suspected? Eldest daughter bounced out of bed to join me, youngest snuggled deeper under the duvet. Hubby was up early ironing his shirts (yes, he's almost perfect), "Just taking the dog for a walk dear, we'll be about half an hour". We'd wrapped up warm against the cold to look as if we were walking but once out of the door and around the corner we stripped off coats and jumpers to reveal our running kit and then crept back to the driveway to stuff them into the car. What must the neighbours think?
"I'm not rushing my warm up walk" I told my daughter as she raced ahead blowing patterns in the cold air. Poppy looked reluctant as she bounced along the path trying to keep her paws off the frost - "It's all very well you taking your coats off, did neither of you think to put my coat on?". I was a bit dubious, could I do the run again? A whole 25 minutes non stop and with company this time? We got to the fields and Poppy raced ahead with my daughter. I felt abandoned and left out. "Come on, Mum". Talking and running was a lot harder than I expected, and Laura didn't seem to be talking as much either. I really wasn't sure I could do this one. As I plodded along the edge of the field my daughter was doing the run backwards - "try it this way, it's easy". Easy wasn't the word, even when running forwards. It was tough going, my nose was running faster than me in the cold, but I really didn't want to give up at this stage so gritted my teeth and carried on. It's at times like this I like to think of other things when admiring the scenery isn't enough. I thought back to Good Friday a couple of years back when our hamster died. It took a lot of explaining to get our younger daughter to understand that it wouldn't rise again on Easter Sunday - that was just once with one very special person. We even had to hide the spade to stop her digging her pet up again. At last Laura said it was time to run a bit faster for the last minute, our fit young offspring streaked ahead but I really couldn't do it and panted along behind with Poppy who had rejoined me by now, but I did manage to do the whole 25 minutes and I was pleased.
We got home and crept past the car to put back on our winter clothes before calmly going back inside for our hot cross bun breakfast and out again in time for church. What I didn't expect was to see the person there who'd seen us running and giggling round the block way back in w1r3. Nor did I expect him to go up to hubby and ask about how the dog was settling in and was it good for keeping fit? I silently squirmed, surely the secret wasn't going to come out now? Fortunately both got distracted and the conversation moved on. I heaved a sigh of relief, roll on Sunday. This is all about my wanting to get fit enough for, and to enjoy being with, my family. I know there's other C25K programmes out there, but Laura is just what I need. Thanks for all your encouragement to keep going, I wouldn't have got this far without you - and I hope I can encourage others to keep going too.
so as to be fit for his next marathon 
W7R1- a positive day :)
W7R1 isn't it supposed to get easier?
W7R1 - running on a Saturday morning!
W7R1 ✅ Next stop Munich
W7R1 the Buttermere bound
