In today’s Y10 lesson, with only two weeks until their English Language exam, we were revising ‘writing to explain’. I was going over the best way to plan and structure the piece of writing, including answering the who, what, where, when, why and how. Then we developed this early planning into a structured answer. We looked at the following rather boring question:

‘What is your hobby? Explain why you enjoy this hobby.’

To engage the class and try to inject some comedy into the classroom I modelled the task by explaining to the class that my hobby was Latin dancing. We went through the planning process and as a class we created a really engaging and interesting piece of informative writing.

This task then got me thinking. Whilst running round the woods late this afternoon I decided to write a blog post about one of my hobbies: running. Recently my blog entries have been a bit heavy or even slightly boring. Partly because of monthly projects I have been completing. So I thought a slightly more light-hearted piece of writing, in an explain style, is just what we need.

Running

I have a number of activities and interests: I like listening to music, attending gigs, blogging and I even play the ukulele, but the hobby that takes up most of my time is running. I am a member of the local running club: Bourne Town Harriers, a small friendly running club that encourages runners of all abilities. I run around three or four times a week, sometimes on my own, sometimes with others and sometimes with the dog.

Late this afternoon, was a nice gentle run around Bourne Woods with the dog, or should I say dogs. We are currently looking after the mother-in-law’s dog while she recovers from a heart bypass operation. Her dog is the one on the right, the divvy looking one with the gormless expression, a lump of a dog, incredibly clumsy with some kind of dog psychological disorder.

There are a number of reasons why I run, especially with the dog. Firstly, the obvious one, to keep fit. It is an easy activity to do, requires very little ‘special’ kit and I can do it whenever I want. I’m not tied to gym opening hours or paying a ridiculous charge for the pleasure. Secondly, the dog needs walking, so I might as well kill two birds with one stone and go for a run with the boy. Thirdly, running gives me a chance to listen to some music. I always run with my iPod, today was no different, and with the new ‘Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly’ album on its way I took the opportunity to listen to one of the older albums in preparation. Lastly, running allows me to clear my mind and relax, or do some thinking. I often plan lessons in my head, go over the days lessons in my head or think about what I have to do over the next few weeks. Today was no different, it was the thinking about today’s lessons that have lead to this blog post.

As you’re probably well aware, until recently we have had bucket loads of rain, therefore the woods have been pretty muddy. However, I quite like running in the mud, it brings a whole new series of challenges. One of which is actually remaining upright. I had a couple of close shaves, one due to a particularly muddy part, and one due to the divvy dog deciding to stop right in front of me. The advantage of running round the woods is that you can decide the sort of terrain you want to run on, from thick mud and grass to solid tracks and even Tarmac paths.

What with all the recent rain there are lots of deep water puddles around, and the dogs, for some unknown reason, actually like jumping in them and rolling around. Now this is ok if the puddles are reasonably clean, but does become a problem when they are of the black smelly variety. So any run around the woods with the dogs usually takes in the ponds at some stage so the dogs can have a swim and wash down. The ponds at Bourne Woods are around 1 1/2 miles from the entrance, so the dogs get plenty of time to dry off before going home.

We did have one incident as a result of the dogs going in the ponds. As we were nearing the end of the run we came across a couple sitting on a bench. At this point the divvy dog decided to go say hello, he approached the couple and just as they lent over to stroke him he began shaking excess water from his coat. Unsurprising the fella wasn’t particularly happy, I smiled, apologised, and continued running…..fast!

By the time we had finished the run it was early evening, the weather had been great, sunny and reasonably warm. It had been a really nice gentle run, just over 5 miles in about 50 mins, including some stops for photos and swimming dogs. Can’t wait until Juneathon starts!