The Joys of Farting

Well I'm feeling much better now. My elbows aren't so chaffed and the medicine seems to be working. We've also be out quite a bit which helps. The master has discovered something called Fartlek, which is less worthy of a schoolboy snigger than first imagined. Apparently it is Swedish for a training technique which consists of intense bursts of running, followed by slow, gently paced activity. Well he's got half of it down to a fine art. All he needs to do is concentrate on the intense piece. Actually it is apparently quite useful.
So the Master was reading the Daily Telegraph spread out on the floor the other day (that is, the paper was spread out rather than the Master) and whilst I was standing on it (supremely irritating apparently) I noticed a picture of a runner or two. Being a clever dog I can obviously read so I took a deeper interest and perused the article. it was by a Mr John Inverdale, a sports journalist, who had just completed the Great North Run (a half marathon) and the main tenant of his article was that there ought to be a similar race for owners together with their dogs. Well regular readers of this dog-blog will know that the Master and I suggested this to be a good idea many, many months ago. I can only assume therefore that Mr Inverdale is a reader of it as well. So welcome John. Congratulations on your sub-2hr.
See ya. Woof Tom

One border collie - stressed

Hi all, here's the latest update from my world. I've been confined to barracks with a severe skin complaint apparently picked up last time I went to my other home (the kennels). This is particularly grim as it is in my elbows and restricts my movement. According to the Vet (is it just me or does he look like Anthony Perkins in Psycho?) it could well be stress related. Well knock me down with a feather but I don't recall too much contention going on in my life. Boredom yes, stress no. Wake up, go for walk, eat, sleep, sleep some more, walk or if lucky run, eat, sleep. It's a predictable cycle but one I've grown used to. Admittedly I don't like loud noises and that can, according to Psycho, be a contributing factor. However the principle initiator of it, the other male in the household, has left, so it can't even be that. And anyway, I sort of like Megadeath and Rammstein: all that tuetonic chanting is very disciplined and suits me. So, I am going to have to get better otherwise the running stops. The Master seems to think it is an excuse for him to stop as well. He's such a lightweight. Anyway, I'll fill you in on the progress of my illness over the next couple of weeks or so. So long.

For whom the Fells toll

Well one swallow doesn't make a summer so I'm not going to get over excited, but the master has again put one foot in front of another at more than a walking pace recently. We've been out twice for the requisite jog around the block. Apparently his calves hurt again. So what's new.
He's just finished a book that I would rather like to have read if I could read of course. I know all about it because he has been boring all his friends rigid eulogising its charms. I overhear these things you see. Anyway it was recommended to him recently by another mate who clearly has the same disease of incessant wittering and obsession. But, it did sound interesting nonetheless. It even contained a couple of photos of some border collies like me, so it can't be bad. It tells the story of a journalist who becomes obsessed with fell running in the lake district and who gets such a bad dose of it that he gives up weekend after weekend to drive from the home counties all the way to the Lakes in order to compete in the trials. Though it is a book about one man's obsession, it is also a great rendering of the life and times of the hardy stock of the North who put themselves masochistically through hell and high water to run up and down fells with the energy and grace of antelope. We get to see (or I got to hear actually) of the quintessential hard men of the dales and the fells, who think nothing of setting out for 24 hour runs with little more than a ham sandwich and a pair of old trainers. These are characters, mostly eccentric and some bordering on clinical madness. One doesn't need to be a fell runner, like fells or even running, to appreciate this classic of sports writing. Indeed it is as much a social commentary of the running folk of the Lakes as it is about the art of conquering fells very quickly by foot. My master thoroughly recommends it. Here's the link to it on Amazon. Feet in the Clouds by Richard Askwith

Breaking News......

I can't believe it, but the Master has once again signed up for the London. This time in 2007. He better be more successful in his training than last year. Since he abandoned his attempt (incidently, his second but also my second as I did all the training for the first but wasn't actually allowed to run in it, which was a bummer after all the training, - and I would have shaved at least 3 hours off his time), I put on a little weight. It's all his fault. So I can't wait for the training to restart mid-September. I'll try and write faithfully from then. Over the summer the Master has been concentrating on his squash, whatever that is (at least that is what I think I overheard) and doing the odd bit of cycling. Now this is very interesting because he has found this cool piece of iron mongery which means I can go with him on his bike runs. Check it out, it is wicked. It is called the Springer and it lets me run along side his bike and yet not get in his way or collide with the wheels http://www.bikeyourdog.co.uk/ourshop_68825_5392.html. It restains me pretty well, although I have managed to pull him off once, when I saw this lady border collie in a drive way. I never knew he could use language like that. Shocking. Anyway I'll write again as soon as the training starts. Bye!

poor excuse but you'll have to buy it

Well firstly the Master has an apology to make. It's been three weeks nearly since the last post and, dear reader, if you are still logging in to read the latest, we can only thank you for your persistence. We are not worthy! So, where have we been. Well I've still be running around, chasing rabbits and barking at my canine bretheren. For the Master though, it is a different, and altogether sadder story. Having steeled himself to the rigours of training for the London, the depressing news is that he isn't gonna make it. A week ago he sustained a torn calf muscle playing squash (he never warms up properly) and is still hobbling. Even with physio I can't see him making a return to the highways and by-ways of Berkshire until at least April. Slightly too late for a mid-April race. Pathetic really. Do I warm up before we go out? Am I suffering with strains, tears and twists? No, and I'm the same age in human years as him. Now granted, some of the more delicate breeds that pass themselves off as dogs, do slow down as they advance in years. But a border collie? never. The day I can't run after vermin or lose my will to bark at horses and other dogs, big or small, is the day to take me to the vets and give me a shot of the Baxter-juice (or whichever big pharma is mkaing money out of me these days). I'm sorry, but I am bred for the hills and dales of the border country between Scotland and England, and if the best that is on offer is a run in the flat country, then I'll go with that - but anything less and you may as well lie me on a slab and say 'hasta la vista, doggo. you won't be back'.
So back to the Master. Pathetic really. Whilst he's not running I don't have a lot to report so I may hand over the lead to him and let him pontificate forth on subject innumerable, whilst I take a back-seat (not my usual position, you realise) and as soon as he's back on track, I'll be reporting again on life on the roads. However, if you want me to continue, please send a comment or two and I'll keep putting paw to keyboard for your delictation.
Woof!

Calf Muscles? More like Aged Cow Muscles

Well it's been several days since the Master put fingers to keyboard and a lot has happened in his running world since then. A long 13.5 training run was executed successfully at point of delivery. Two days later the calf muscles felt they'd been gripped by Mike Tyson and squeezed with his animal ferocity. Unable to walk properly without considerable pain, the likelihood of running anywhere with him was almost non-existent. I think it was probably a little exaggerated, as he did manage to play a squash game a day later, but he claimed it uses different msucles. I think he just didn't want to take me out again. I have to admit I was a bit of a bad boy on the long run. There was one of my enemies (i.e. a dog I don't know) virtually every 30 metres or so and whilst my behaviour doesn't allow me to be off the lead, I can still make it quite awkward for the Master. I think I actually make him faster though - he seems to speed up when we approach another dog. So I am doing him a service really.
Anyway, he didn't take me out all week so I guess I was in the dog house. Then to cap it all he disappeared on Sunday for over three hours without a bye or a leave to me. Apparently he did a half-marathon - whatever one of those is, in a local town. I have to say, he didn't look very happy when he came back, so I guess he must have missed me. Apparently he was "well outside" his PB, whatever a PB is, and he could hardly walk. I guess he doesn't train enough and of course he was missing one vital ingredient, Me. When is someone going to organise a race for dogs and their owners? I am sure we'd be pretty good as a combination. I certainly can pull him along at a fair old clip and I am sure he'd have a chance to beat his PB.

Are you going? Are you going to the Boston Tea Party?

Yesterday's run was pretty standard and uneventful - a plodding 5 miles - but the backdrop was pretty interesting. Listening to The Sensational Alex Harvey Band one was reminded of that party piece anthem The Boston tea Party which is obviously about the infamous dumping of British tea into Boston harbour in protest about the taxation that George III's government was placing on the US colony in 1773. Of course this was a contributory factor in the eventual independence of the US from British rule and makes an excellent story. It was instigated by Samuel Adams, he of the constitution and excellent beer fame. many great accounts of the Tea Party can be found on the internet. Here's a good one. One thing that you may not be aware of is that actually the amount of tax that HM Government was demanding on tea from the colonists was actually less than the tax paid by Londoners for the same goods. The protest and eventually destruction of 342 chests of tea, was not really aimed at tea but at the British Government's desire to punitively tax the colonists at every opportunity. As Alex Harvey's lyrics go

"The King has said he's gonna put a tax on tea,
and that's the reason you all Americans drink coffee"