The original idea was to organise a continuous journey from John O'Groats to Land's End, with a relay team of dog runners. The logistics and organisation would be phenomenal, requiring a huge amount of time and effort. Shortage of time is the reason why I am moving onto Plan B (Plan A can be placed “on hold” for now...).
“I” is also going to become “we” as alone I could not make this work!
Plan B: Helping Britain to Glow, in so many ways.
Running is good for humans, running is good for dogs, combine the two and you have happy healthy and glowing human and canine. Next year is a very special year, an Olympic year where all the World's best athletes are coming to the United Kingdom of Great Britain. Coming to our very land that we walk and run on every day.
I find this thought very inspirational, and remember the dreams I had as a child. I still believe in dreams and will never give up on the ones that are truly important.
Helping more and more people to enjoy the benefits of running and enjoy the great British countryside is something that many of us strive to do. Every day at least one of you speaks to another person about running or about your dog. How many of them have gone on to try running themselves and then in return spread the word to others. Just like a little happy virus, it spreads quickly and easily, although for some it does prove more of a challenge than others.
Whether you are an accomplished runner, or someone about to start running for the first ever time, you can all help realise the challenge that is Plan B of the Doggie JOGLE.
The challenge would commence on the 1st January 20XX. The primary objective is to run 868 miles between John O'Groats and Land's end. However, it does not need to be one continuous, unbroken journey, it will be an accumulation of everyone's miles, metres or centimetres, run all over Great Britain. Ideally at least one run will be done in every county or region of the UK.
Thanks to the assistance of some very smart IT people (who are also runners), there will be a special programme where people can log the miles that they run. This programme will be linked to a map of the UK and every time a distance is logged, the map will light up in the region where the run was done.
The second objective of this challenge will be to have all areas on the map lit - Britain will be glowing!
There are already many dedicated groups of canicross runners all around the country – those miles must add up....
If you go on holiday, you can pop out for a little run – great opportunity for planning some really interesting holidays in obscure locations.....
Even people that do not own dogs can participate – you can borrow a friend's dog, or perhaps even visit your local dog rescue centre and take a resident for a little walk. You only have to jog a little bit to include it in this challenge.
Families can participate. School children can take part, encouraging sport amongst the future generation, help inspire those that will one day shape our nation in so many ways.
Huskies Running can also go on tour – we have 5 dogs that can all be made available to visit and to run in most parts of the UK. We will happily share them with anyone that would like to try canicross with a fully trained husky (with the exception of the puppy who we cannot claim to be “fully trained”).
So how about it? All you have to do is put your trainers on, pop out the door with your dog and then share your run with a nation...... I wonder which county will glow most....
What is my motivation for doing this? Simple, making dreams happen. This is a free event open to everyone. Yes, I would like to raise money for charity and think there are opportunities here to do that. My reward will be knowing that all over the UK, happy humans and dogs are having fun :-)
If any of you are non UK resident and would like to take part in a similar challenge, let us know and we can include your country/ area of preference – no limits (although we might be struggling a little to make the moon glow...)
(photo courtesy of Wikipaedia)
