It must the stress of work or the fact that I'm figuratively tied to the desk 10,11,12 hours a day just to keep my head above water, or both most likely, that I went out tonight and smashed 8k. 7k had been my new go-to target, which I set myself just few days ago when I achieved it; that will do for a while I said, but ohhh no.
I took a different route(ish) tonight. I say 'ish' because once outside the village, there are not many route options.
I thought it would help with setting a new 7k route, one that I would become familiar and comfortable with. However, at 7k, I was quite far from home. It was getting late, was very dark (have a great running light now) was wet, not cold though. I didn't fancy a long walk though.
I felt good, was in a good rythm, so carried on toward home thinking another 0.5k I'll be done and I'll have my 5 minute brisk cool down walk to my front door, perfect!
7.5k done, still a way from home, still felt ok, so plodded on. 8k came up, I was close enough to home so slowed to my brisk walk, stopping Strava first of course.
I'll say it now, like I said it a couple of days ago on achieving 7k, I'll stick to this 8k route now, for a week or so. That said, the way I'm feeling when running, the joy of it, the lifting of the day's burdens, I wouldn't put it past me if after the next couple of runs I'm calling in a 9k run, then before I know it, the big 10! Exciting.