So, we’re well into our training regime for the Moonwalk 2013. So far, John and I have done three training walks through the local area. The first one was about 7Km (I can’t quite remember: it seems such a long time ago.) Last week we braved the falling snow for 14km. It was fun walking in the snow, actually, lovely and quiet. John was wearing his heavy dog-walking boots and had to cope with Oscar pulling him all the way so I think he was more tired than me. It probably didn’t help that he fell over once. As we neared home last week, we had to negotiate the sledges and tobaganners in Shortlands Rec. The snow was already compacted hard when we arrived there, and very slippery, so I decided what the hell, it was quicker and easier to go down the hill on my derrière!

Yesterday was much milder and sunny for most of our walk. John bought new walking trainers on Saturday and he wasn’t keen on wearing them in case they got dirty. The snow thawed rapidly towards the end of last week here, leaving huge pools of mud and muddy water. This is how my trainers look this morning:

Yuck!

I thought I could just stick them in the washing machine but it looks like this might misshape them, so I’m just going to have to clean them by hand. Yuck. John’s new trainers are in a similar state.

The mud seeped through our socks and is still caught in my toenails after two showers. Oscar the dog has no such qualms about mud, of course. Lucky for him, he could sleep for the rest of the afternoon but we still had chores to do. I was so happy when it was bed time and I could massage some foot cream into my hot, aching soles.

Our walk yesterday was 17.76Km and it really was quite tiring. Most frustrating was having to tackle all that mud. We also had to tackle great piles of dog poo left all over the place. It’s as if some people think that snow and ice will freeze dry their rottweiler’s excretions like instant coffee (does anyone else think back to that old Nescafe ad with Gareth Hunt and his handful of beans that change magically to Gold Blend?) and carry it away harmlessly when they melt. Well, they don’t. Ugh. We were slipping and sliding all over the place and the slimy, muddy goo slowed our pace down to about 10.32  minutes per kilometre.We’re going to have to pick up that pace a bit in order to complete the walk in our target time of between 6 and 7 hours. Next week we’re planning 20Km. Hope it’s less muddy.

If you would like to donate to Walk the Walk, the charity that co-ordinates the Moonwalks and awards grants to all sorts of organisations engaged in the fight against breast cancer, please click on this link for my Moonwalk 2013 fundraising page. You can donate there by credit or debit card, anonymously if you like, and even the smallest amount all helps in the fight against this traumatic disease.