There will be sweat. (and dogs. and unicorns.)

So I've decided to take part in Juneathon, a whole month of doing exercise each day and bragging about it each day via social media.  If you've a tendency to get outraged at people bragging about mileage, sweat, etc please close your ears for approximately 30 days.  I'm sorry in advance.  I'm hoping, however, that my constant onslaught of exciting running anecdotes might possibly encourage a few of you to get involved.  You know you want to.

Anyways in an effort to keep things not entirely sweaty, I'll ensure to show you a few drawings of cats and dogs and probably a good amount of unicorns as well.  See?

(Some special badges I was asked to create a little while back, for a special lady.)

You want more? This is from my Prague sketchbook.  Recognise this chap?

So onto lesser dog-related topics, I started my June 1st with a trip to Salford Quays for a swim with my pal.  We got down there about 9am and it was pretty windy although the sun was determined to push its way through the clouds.  We've been twice before already this year and both times they only had the smaller course marked out, which is just 400m.  It was a nice surprise to see they'd marked out the 750m course and although I felt a little intimidated and just did one 400m lap to start, once I got settled I decided to go for the longer lap the second time round, and was glad I did!

I've had a love/hate relationship with swimming all my life, it's usually hate until I'm in the water for quite some time and then I remember why I like it.  My friend who I go swimming with is as much into swimming as I am into running and is training for a 5k swim next weekend - whereas I really take pleasure in the fact I'm not training for anything - and just enjoy it.  There's something about the rhythm and the space and the quiet and being away from any physical things - most specifically with open water more so than in a busy, loud pool - it's calming and really wonderful.

Anyways after 1150m I got out, dried off and changed into my running kit and finished off with a lovely 5k run around the Quays and Media City while my pal swam a bit more.  The sun kept squeezing through the clouds and there was a general waft of bacon from the USwim food tent.  A great start to the weekend and a month of activities, do you agree?