Our walk, swim, walk day

The girls are now sleeping peacefully after a busy, active day with me. We’re on a mission to get everyone in the household fit during the coming year. There’s the obvious and general reasons for this, as in aren’t we always being told that exercise is good for us? But there’s some added motivations that are a little special.    Firstly, Renae has so much energy, she’s turning out to be a very fit young lady and we love to see her so athletic and active. Since we switched over to the raw diet, her activity levels have noticeably increased, we don’t see this as a downside, but it does mean if we are to ensure she’s fulfilled and happy, we have to exercise her a lot.

So far, we haven’t managed to really tire her out, she rests up for a while and then, before we know it she’s zipping about again looking for something to do. We love to see her like this. The spin-off is that Susie-Belle has steadily got fitter and fitter too. We’ve been gradually increasing her exercise regime, letting her walk at her own pace, entertaining Renae with balls, tugs etc when she’s buzzing and Susie-Belle’s plodding. It’s so nice to see though that in recent weeks, Susie-Belle’s pace has picked up and she’s comfortably keeping up with us.

We have some nice local walks, but we’re keen to explore the country more this year. We’ve had a few weekends away in Dorset, in fact the first time we let Susie-Belle off-lead was on the beach at Weymouth. So, we want us all to get fit enough to enjoy lots of long walks around the country, from the beaches of the West Country to the tarns and hills of the Peak District, to the Lakes, all are on the plans for the year. There is also a common theme in all these plans – water. The other big motivation is that I have a major swimming challenge planned for April 2013, the 24 hour swim event known as the “2 Swim 4 Life” challenge. In a nutshell, I’ll be swimming one mile, on the hour for 24 hours – yep, 24 miles in 24 hours.  Last year I took part as one of a team of 3, so swam 8 miles in 24 hours, getting 2 hours rest in between my mile swims. But my plan for 2013 is to do the whole thing solo. It’s a major challenge and I need to be fit, so I’m busily planning weekends of walking and swimming, hoping the girls are going to be joining me in the water as well as the walking when the weather warms up. Swimming hasn’t seemed that appealing yet to either of them, but Susie-Belle did stride into a flooded stream in France in December, so there’s hope she may take to the swimming I have planned. Our first trip to the coast with her in October though wasn’t very promising, whilst I swam, the girls stood on the shoreline looking at me like I was crazy.

For now, I’m pool-based for my swim-training, so today we did an early morning 3k round the fields, then I went off to the pool – leaving the girls to snooze the morning away – where I clocked up 3k (120 lengths) – then after lunch I took the girls off out for a 7.6k walk through the local countryside. Both were brilliant, full of energy despite the gloomy dull afternoon. Their little 7inch legs have trotted round 10.6k of Surrey countryside so I thought they could have a slightly heftier than usual supper – mixed veg puree with ground walnuts, pheasant offal and chopped rare roast beef. Now they’re snoozing and I’m aching, time for a hot bath and early night.