David and Katherine Goodwin

On Sunday I entered the first Knill - Nash dash, which was an 8 mile cross country run organised by the local running group - The Presteigne Pacers.

Despite the wet weather, which meant my road-running-shoes slid everywhere, I had a great time, and managed to come 24th (I think) out of 42 with a time of 1 hour 11mins 18s. My legs ache, and my body is generally sore nearly 24 hours afterwards - presumably because I normally run on the flat - or near flat - and the start and end sections of this race were both relatively hilly,

I've finally uploaded a few pictures to our website.

See :

• Rowan on his tummy
• Our new office
• Rachel's birthday cake (cake-pod anyone?)
• Emily's photos of us camping near Bromyard

This year, again I entered the Bromsgrove LRF charity fun run, and despite the horrible temperature, managed to finish 26th with a time of 44 minutes and a few seconds.

Last year, I did it in nearly the same time - although it was somewhat cooler and I hadn't been off-colour for the preceeding week.

Today, I ran to Redditch and back. It took me 2 hours and 20 mins which isn't too bad for just over 15 miles of running. Bob, who was dragged along for the journey, seemed to cope quite well in his normal dogged manner.

If you're bored the route is here

Perhaps I'm getting close to doing a marathon sometime soon.

Today, I hit 29. This is nearly old (30).

To celebrate, I ran for 11 miles, ate a large bar of Galaxy chocolate (well nearly) and had chilli for tea.

Present wise: Frisbee, Ordnance survey map, Inflatable football set, air powered rocket thing, bottle opener, Metroid 3 (for the Wii), another Wii game when I decide what and money. Oddly I seemed to have more presents this year than last. I'm not sure why - I thought the quantity and quality of birthday (and Xmas) presents was inversely proportional to age.

This morning, I woke up early, and feeling somewhat supercharged, I thought I'd go on a long-ish run, somewhere new.

Armed with a scant amount of knowledge about an upcoming run along Timberhonger lane (Bromsgrove Carnivcal), I thought I might as well go up there, cut across to Dodford and then go home. Unfortunately, I failed to take the correct right turning so it ended up being 1/3 of a marathon (that sounds good doesn't it!)

Running around (most of) Bromsgrove

Yesterday, Kat went to Tesco (the nasty, monstrous one in Redditch), and obviously had taken pity on my poor neglected state, so bought me a man sized yorkie - remember kids, it's not for girls. (interestingly, Kat couldn't break a single chunk off it, so there is some truth to that).

- but bigger!

Today, I ran the 10k Bromsgrove Leukaemia Research Fund race. The good news is that I finished 32nd, with a time of 44ish minutes.

While its not strange for me to get exited about new shoes, its rare that I'm excited about new trainers, and even rarer that I spend so much money on them (unless they're leather and knee-high!).

However, at the weekend David and I finally dragged ourselves over to Up and Running in Wolverhampton as we both needed new trainers. I hadn't had any in over a year, and was starting to feel they were not really springy when I was running. For David, as he runs pretty much every day, it was his 3-4 month change.

After my attempt to run with my fat fighters group, I decided to be brave and try out a proper (beginners) running club. I ran this route in around 40 minutes, running more than half of it, maybe as much as 2/3

The best thing is that I only ached for a day or so, and was back in the gym yesterday, making myself ache again.

Of course this weekend I'm making myself ache some more, painting the bedroom at last.