1k Up: 1k Down: Repeat

Wednesday 14th January
Run #14
6k of Long Local Hill Roads

As I'd needed to be in work early I planned to grab the extra hour back at the end of the work day and beat the rush-hour home to fit today's run in when I'd usually be still commuting. I sort of managed it, though I somehow never manage to leave work as early as planned. But I was still hopeful that I might actually make it home in the light and manage to run in the Park: an unheard of luxury for a winter weekday.

As it was, I didn't quite make it out before dark. And given that the Park has no street lighting and one is liable to fall over a deer or two, that plan had to be abandoned. Which left me in a quandry as to where to run. I settled on a street-lit road route from home that, roughly, goes downhill for a k, up another hill for a k, down a different hill for a k and back up, with a couple of flat k chunked between to the tops and bottoms.

The downhills were a gift, as downhills are, and a generous down makes for a good warm up. I expected the uphills to be killer soul-sappers on account of being a k long each. Especially the second one. But the pavements were clear and the dusk sky was a delicious velvety petrol-plum blanket to run under.

The second down is a road I don't know and have never gone the full length of before. By 2/3rds of the way down - still letting gravity help me fly along - I was sure I must be on a totally different road to the one I thought: how had it not reached the crossroads at the end yet?! But eventually I did and I sent a silent prayer to the God of traffic lights for the slight reprieve before tackling the long return up.

Which, as it turned out, was over before I knew it! As a natural pessimist I was girding myself for teeth-gritting push to get to the top, but it loomed large far sooner than I was expecting and I kept good pace throughout.

It struck me on the run that I have now completed my first fortnight of Run Streak, and it hasn't been nearly as challenging, motivation-struggling or arduous as I was mentally preparing for. But more on that in the next post.