Dumgoyne conquered non-stop at last!

Then today I finally did it. I finally pulled off the feat I’d been aiming for, for years. I managed to run the whole hill without stopping once. It was very hard on my calf muscles and at times I thought my lungs would burst but I kept on jogging upwards. There could easily have been times when I was simply slow jogging on the spot but I was still moving. And I did this with a warm-up run of three miles from Strathblane along the pipe track followed by a rather tired run back the same way after summitting the hill.

I am very pleased with myself! To say the least. (I did this in my trusty Inov-8 off-road runinng shoes.)

But I’m not sure I would ever have pushed myself to achieve this feat. This is a feat I’d long ago decided was almost impossible. Then two things happened. The first time I took the G-Force to Dumgoyne he managed to pull off a jog all the way to the top stopping only a few times to catch his breath. I’d always imagined that walking was a necessary part of this oh-so-steep ascent. And then I got chatting to Super-Fit Dave at Little Miss Outdoors’ running club and he questioned why I ever needed to stop for a a rest. “Just keep on jogging, even if you feel like you’re going nowhere,” was his advice. “You can surely keep on going up Dumgoyne,” he added. Like a red rag to a bull… And that was what it took to push me to push myself to get to the top of that tough old ascent without stopping once. As I said, I’m really pleased with myself.

If you’ve no idea what I’m talking about then why not go and take a look for yourself.