Sunday 2 January 2011

We're going on a bear hunt...

Today I woke up and thought: 'Let's go and hunt some bears'. This required the help of my faithful friend, and running partner Paula. So at around 12.15pm, fuelled with porridge and blueberries, we headed out the door taking the camera with us.

Our intention was to run the 10 miles on my Magathon training plan. Usually we'd have had a plan of where we were running to but we set off with no idea of where our run would take us; it may have been something to do with the new year or maybe something in the frosty January air, but our run today was going to be one of spontaneity and surprise.

First up on our jaunt through the unknown was the blue painted road; who knew where this strange and mysterious path would take us...
Well actually, it took us about 1/4 mile through the park and out the other side. On the way we did see Dorothy (on a little pink push bike), Totoe (who looked a little like a bull-terrier) and the tin man (who I think was maybe just a guy dressed from head to toe in a grey tracksuit), but that's what you get on spontaneous runs along strange and mysterious blue painted lines.

From this point, we decided to run through every park we came across. This was very exciting and we ran through two more parks; we did see some more, but by this point, we'd done 5 miles and were needing to head in the opposite direction. But hey! Spontaneity was on our side; no rules! So we scrapped the 'park run' idea and headed off into another world of the unknown.

Passing what used to be called 'Strangeways', but I think is now known by the much more mundane title of 'Manchester Prison', we questioned how easy / hard it would be to break in / out and noticed some liquidised beds for sale at the end of the road. I did take a picture of the liquidised beds... well, the sign, rather than the beds themselves, but it seems my camera has hidden them from me... or liquidised them!
I know... disappointing!

As we were now over half way, the rest of the run lost something of its earlier spontaneity, suspense (there had been suspense!) and mystery, as we were just heading back home... so I shan't bore you with the details (although today I only burped twice!). Needless to say we completed the 10 miles (plus an extra 0.3 for good measure) and came up with a plan for the day which involved shopping for bikes, watching another friend's wedding video and going to the cinema (hence this post being written very close to the stroke of midnight).

So, day 2 of Janathon is complete and despite the initial intention of heading out to hunt for bears, we failed to find any; I have since googled bears, and discovered that the reason for this is that they don't tend to inhabit this neck of the 'woods'. So tomorrow, I will hunt for squirrels instead.

Distance: 10.35 miles
Weather: about 4 degrees and quite pleasant for running
Feeling: spontaneous!
See my run here.

12 comments:

  1. You are nuts but I like it!!

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  2. Thanks for the follow! Love your blog! I must confess, I wish my name was Maggie so that my half marathon could be a half magathon, too. :) I'm doing my first half on 4/2/11. Keep on running, girl!

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  3. wow well done !! Sounds like you had an action packed day, I can tell that I'm going to be looking forward to reading your posts...

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  4. i'm convinced the only thing worse than not finding a bear while on a bear hunt is actually finding one.

    i like the blue road. inviting.

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  5. I'm all for spontaneous runs too this year. Looking forward to reading about the squirrel hunt.

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  6. You should look for something more interesting than bears and squirrels. Imagine finding a Duck Billed Platypus during your run. That would be a story to tell!

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  7. Hey, thanks for your comments everyone...

    d'RC - You are more than welcome... I have to admit that it was my other half, Mik, that came up with the name, as soon as I said I was going to start a blog he was like 'well you've got to call it the magathon'! brilliant! Good luck with your first half, Janathon will be fantastic training!

    Guy - it was a very enjoyable day, just right for the end of the holidays... I'm just musing over what today will bring and

    Chris - you're right, I'm quite glad I didn't find any bears however,

    Jogaglog and Richard - I will be looking out for squirrels, but now a duck billed platypus has been mentioned, one of those would be AMAZING... I've seen many squirrels, but NEVER one of those...

    I'll keep you updated on what I find!! :-)

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  8. i live 5000 miles from you and i could have told you you weren't gonna find no bears!! isn't the boddington's brewery somewhere near strangeways? if so, could you pick me up some free samples the next time you're in the area?

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  9. Sounds like a great run! Shame about not seeing any bears.. Hope you see some squirrels today!

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  10. The Boddington's brewery has gone! It's now a car park and I presume, much like most other places in Manchester, soon to be a block of flats! The tower is still there but no tasty beer samples!! :-)

    Going to running club in a bit... fingers crossed for squirrels!

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  11. Love the idea of just going out for a run with no fixed plan, well, other than hunting bear!! Now, if you lived in Canada (where I'm originally from) that might be a remote possibility of coming across bears!

    Good luck with your squirrel hunting, and keep us posted!

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Thanks for reading... feel free to leave me a message. Maggiee x