Getting The Needle

Back at the physio this morning. Although I’ve all but ruled out running on Sunday, L has completely ruled me out of running on Sunday but that’s another story. The physio thinks I’ll be fine to start running in around 10 days time at 50% effort, whatever that means.

I tell her what a good, restful boy I’ve been but do confess to my attempted (mini) fell walking at the weekend. I forget to mention the squash.

This morning she offers me a course of acupuncture. Isn’t this something to do with flows of your inner Qi and all that malarkey; balancing your Yin with your Yang or something like that but I figure she ought to do something for her not inconsiderable fee.

She tells me that, mumbo jumbo aside, there is medical evidence that people can gain pain relief from it, due to the needles causing the release of endorphs into the body during the acupuncture process. Yeah whatever; just give me the needle.



It’s a bit like being under interrogation as she asks me all sorts of stuff, being chatty basically, whilst sticking pins in my legs. I try not to look but I’m sure she was at one stage using a hammer to impale them in my muscles.

A runner herself, she lives just around the corner from us, so we’ve probably bumped into her but not known it. It also means I can’t go out for a sneaky test run in case she catches me. At least I managed to interrogate her back and from the information obtained, I have worked out that her 10k time must be over the hour, so she’s not a rival.

I’ve just received our house insurance renewal forms in the post. Posted on the 4th November, our renewal date was 12th November, today is the 17th. That’s our wonderful postal service and yes I know they’ve been on strike but that’s the kind of service we’ve got used to anyhow. At least round our way.

I get an email inviting me to a special ‘contacts’ training session tonight. ‘Contacts’ being a dog agility term. It’s just what MD needs so we take up the offer and drive over to Derby for it. As I’m in the car it means I can still fit in a quick swim beforehand. L’s in the gym and I meet her for a quick one in the coffee room afterwards.

Whilst I take MD over to Derby, she takes Doggo out for a jog, something she’s not done for some time. She sensibly waits until we’ve left before she goes, to avoid the floods of tears from MD that would occur if Doggo left the house without him. He hates being left. I don’t think Doggo minds as much and certainly doesn’t take it so personally. In fact once I go through the door with MD I can visualise him high-fiving the rest of the family in glee.

At training, they present us with a nightmare scenario. They have the equipment set up in four rows with four dogs all training on equipment at the same time. This is not an ideal set of circumstances for a dog with a close to zero attention span when another dog is anywhere near his eye line. When it’s his turn MD covers the equipment in what is probably something approaching world record time but fails to stop at the end, which is what we in the trade call a ‘fault’, well five of them to be precise. So we have the embarrassing situation of the trainer telling everyone else to give their dogs a short break whilst MD has a go. So that he can do so with no distractions. Once he has centre stage with no one else training, he is brilliant.

He comes to me afterwards and looks at me with a look that I’m sure is saying that he wishes he was a bit lighter under his tail. I will discuss it with L later.