Whoop whoop! No hangover to speak of, the usual body tweaks and pains here and there but nothing out of the ordinary. I looked in the bathroom mirror and said, looking myself straight in the eye “You are going to run 8km”. The gremlins didn’t even bother wake up.
I plodded down the road in what I thought was my slow gear, checked the watch, oops, 6’20”, went down a notch and then another until I was running at the 7’30” ish I had planned. Dougie Maclean has become my go-to music for these longer runs. It isn’t music I would tend to listen to usually, but the tempo, lyrics, melodies somehow work on the road. I felt lulled and soothed and relaxed.
To be honest, the first 5km went by painlessly. Breathing under control, keep it slow, keep it slow. I unzipped the jacket and tied it round my waist, still running.
It was a bit harder at the 6k mark. After a U-turn I found myself into the wind on a slight incline. I had this image of my lungs filling up with cold gusts of air, acting like parachute breaks. Head down, plod on. I turned a corner out of the wind into another uphill where cars suddenly appeared front and back. I had to run on the spot - it probably resembled marching - to let the traffic by before cresting the hill and recover into the easy breathing running of before.
It was tempting to carry on running for a few minutes to reach the hour, but I decided to heed the advice and instead walked home (with a little photo shoot!), enjoying the sunshine.
Then mow the lawn, first cut of the year, dig a hole and make a headstone for Thunder, my son’s little hamster, ready for a little ceremony tonight.
