It’s been a weird day where I spent most of the morning sure that I was brewing a migraine which never came. Most unexpected. Perhaps the epic two hour nap after lunch saw it off. First thing this morning, I’d decided I was running today and got dressed in my kit. I hadn’t actually made it out and was beginning to think I’d probably wasted the effort putting a sports bra on. At least the Runderwear Easy On lives up to its name and is more comfy than most. After realising I needed to buy, write and post a birthday card so it was only a little bit late, I headed off for the post office in my gear just intending to walk there and back in the drizzle. Too tired to run today…maybe. I found a lovely card (teen boys are tricky) and chatted to the lady behind the counter about our blighted build ups to half marathons this weekend and then realised I’d forgotten the address. Doh 😫
Power waking home again, I realised I wouldn’t make the post unless I ran. Through the door, Clark Kent style whip off of my overcoat, on with the run jacket and off I went.
I rarely run straight from my front door and I didn’t expect the road down to the village to feel so steep at speed. I had to concentrate not to slip on a drain cover. That’s not an injury I want to repeat! I reached the post box a couple of minutes later and decided that now I was moving, I might as well carry on. But where? Since this was such an unexpected run, I hadn’t considered where I might go! I’m on a taper so I only wanted a short run of maximum half an hour. What appealed? Straight up a steep hill, I’ve done this route before and the gradient is really tough. I thought I might run walk but unexpectedly, my legs were up for it. Slow but strong. Maybe there’s more training in them than I’d thought.
Then, halfway up the hill the heavens opened and it started absolutely pelting down. Luckily, my phone was in a highly technical waterproof case (sandwich bag!) because of the drizzle so that wasn’t a problem. In thirty seconds flat, it was as if I’d been swimming. I actually love a run like this and instead of turning and running straight back, I carried on up the hill to reach almost-the-top. Some very soggy horses looked at me as if to say “what are you doing out? You must be mad”. To be fair, only runners are usually bonkers enough to brave this sort of weather. The pic is from a dry day!
Along a gentle incline that unexpectedly felt tougher than the steep section, maybe because I was mentally prepared for the hard gradient. Then into a river cascading down the road to run back down to the village. My legs felt like they wanted to run away with me but I kept them in check.
This was a run that wasn’t going to happen but was unexpectedly great in many ways. Somehow or other I was two whole minutes faster than when I did this route before, even though it really felt comfortable (allowing for the hill) all the way around. That was a real confidence boost. Some entirely expected things happened too-hills are super for producing negative splits and if you’ve got cheesecake in the fridge when you are on a mega high from a wet run, it will be consumed immediately on return,
Hope your runs have some unexpected moments of joy everyone!🏃♀️🏃♀️🏃♀️
