Campaign of Canicross Training

Still too young to do much with bikejoring.  I have however, recently launched a fresh campaign of light canicross training with him.  He's young, and I was really out of condition, having not run much for the past two years.  a series of injuries acting perhaps as excuses not to train.  We started short - just a run of 1.25 miles, but we are building up distance, as he grows, and my VO2 max increases.  We have so far completed nine sessions of canicross run training, and we are now up to a distance of 2.3 miles. It's the best running campaign that I've had for a few years, since I use to run with a lurcher and a whippet.  I feel that we've cracked it again.  Looking forward to some longer distances.

Here's Byker on Run 9 at Holt Country Park, I'm taking a breather, while he surveys the horses.  He's looking good!

Spirit of Wolfy

Above video.  11 years ago with Wolfy in Thetford Forest.

Below video, today, training Byker.

A pair of staffie crosses (and their human)

Tracey, Dixie, and Dollar

I ran away from the Fens, and I ran back to my beloved home county of Norfolk. For a year I was once again, dogless.  I couldn't keep up the running.  I realised that I can't run without dogs.  I had to join a gym, but it's really not the same.  You see, I consider myself a biophilliac.  I really get a kick being outside, out in Nature, with dogs.


I met Tracey.  Two dogs lived with Tracey.  Two Staffordshire Bull Terrier crosses.  They wanted another human and got me.

Look at them sitting there.  I could give these dogs some new experiences.  Take them out of the ball park so to speak.  And I have.  I moved in.  Okay, I wasn't really a Staffie person.  But I am a Dog person, very much so.  I introduced them, and Tracey, to canicross.


Now ... as I said in my last post, although I had been training canicross on and in recent years, I hadn't really been free to explore the organised canicross world since 2010.

Me and Wolfy at Cannock Cross meet in 2008

Back then, almost all of the Canicross meets / races were being organised by a business based in Western England.  Some independents groups were just emerging, but there were NO meets or races for Canicross anywhere near East Anglia.  It was still very much a new sport and recreation.  A little better known and more popular than bikejoring, but not well known.


Now, ten years later .... as Tracey was to find out when she looked on Facebook, there were runs, training sessions, groups, park runs, for canicross ALL OVER EAST ANGLIA!  I really didn't know how Canicross had taken off in the UK over the past ten years.  Result.  There were even regular winter fun runs organised in a woods a few miles from where our pack lives, wow!  I use to have to travel to Staffordshire, Wales, Kent, and Yorkshire for the closest organised canicross competitions with Wolfy and Belle.

Wolfy and myself at Paws in the Park, Kent, 2008

So, in 2017, I entered my first organised cani-cross run in many years, and only had a ten minute car drive to get there.  I ran with Dollar, and Tracey with Dixie.

Horsford Woods, Norwich 2017

Only problem was that I wasn't ready.  I sustained a knee injury that took me out the rest of the season.  Tracey carried on for another three canicross meets across Norfolk.  But then she also suffered an injury.  Much worse than mine - she broke a bone.  This cani-cross lark needs preparation and training or can be a bit dangerous.


Next post - returning to recreational bikejoring, first with the staffs...

Fen Runner

Video of my Fenland companion, Flint - fitted with Go Pro.

Wolfy suffered a nasty, and permanent limb injury.  He received surgery, but he was never going to run again.  My personal life also took a sharp turn, that left me separated from my dogs - Wolfy (Siberian Husky), and Belle (Dalmatian).  I left the Thetford Forest area in 2010, shortly after declaring on that post, that I was going to revive this Bikejoring Blog.  I apologise for my sudden departure from this blog, all those years ago, but I'm back now.  I appreciate the comments on that 2010 post.  Thank you.
I moved from the Thetford Forest area, to the English Fens of Cambridgeshire.  At first, I had a sibe in the house, that I could sometimes run with.  Then she went.  For a few years I was dogless.  Then I got this chap:

His name was Flint, and he was a Saluki Lurcher cross. Fantastic dog to run off line - he would leap over wide Fenland ditches as though they weren't there. Hence the above video.


My life at that time prevented me from re-engaging with the national scene, or from attending any canicross meets.  However, once he was mature enough, we started canicross training in the Fens for fitness only.  I think that kept my sanity at that time - just.


In time, the team was joined by a second dog:

This fellah, a whippet named Loki.  So now we were a pack of three again.  We had a regular running route - but as usual, tried to break it up with changes in pattern, and the occasional getting lost on Fenland farmland, trying to find a way out before a farmer saw us.

Bike-joring was kind of out of the question. Life was very restrictive during this period of my life, and I really didn't have easy access to any land where I could comfortably bike out to with dogs on line.  So we ran.  Flint the lurcher was to be honest, an awful cani-cross dog.  He wanted to sniff and scent every post, every stone, every tree (not that there were many of them in the Cambridgeshire Fens.  However, Loki the whippet loved the activity, a natural.  I got really fit again.  Shed a lot of poundage.  It was time for me to run and rediscover my freedoms.  Unfortunately ... this meant leaving yet another pair of dogs behind me.  But I had to go.

So endeth my six year period in the wilderness of the North Cambridgeshire Fens.