Finally, the planets aligned and I had a spare couple of hours with good weather. The sun peeked out of clear-ish skies so I donned running garb, dropped off son with his dad and drove to a brand new location - a flatly meandering sandy walk/cycle path beside a river.
My graduation run was on Tuesday afternoon and to my frustration, I haven’t been able to run since. I really needed this run. I had chosen Nike Run Club’s ‘Run with Headspace’, a 30 minute mindfulness recovery run as my accompaniment. Tranquil music and a conversation between Coach Bennett and an ex-Buddhist monk. Yes. The scene was set.
I pulled into the car park, did a lovely reverse park, pulled on the handbrake and... snap. The handbrake was now pointing at the roof of the car. Clearly the cable had snapped clean in two.
I put the car into gear, switched off the engine and considered my options. Not running wasn’t one of them.
The wind chill factor was significant. I felt cold and wanted to get going so decided to start the meditation and jog very slowly to warm up, rather than walk.
I was asked at one point to think about and relax various body parts. I gradually unclenched brain, jaw, neck, shoulders, etc, etc. I was asked to be ‘in the moment’ and managed to forget about micro-managing managers, job hunting and broken handbrakes. It was lovely. The sun was glinting on the water and the track looked inviting, not at all daunting. I saw a few other runners and we said hello and I felt quite at home.
15 minutes was called and I kept going for a couple of minutes, before turning back. It was a bit more uphill and the wind felt more of a factor. I had to work a bit harder and began to overheat. Whilst rearranging clothes, I somehow managed to lose my hat and had to do a little about turn to find it. At the same time, I somehow managed to stop the guided run but didn’t realise until several minutes later when no one came back to have a chat. I felt a little fraught at this point and my breathing was more laboured than it should have been.
I gave up on mindfulness, pressed play and carried on running, all the way back to the car, thinking about handbrakes, hill starts and the stop/start system on my car.
After a ring round of garages and establishing there is nothing to be done until Monday, and figuring out where the button was to disable the start/stop, I checked the stats, which of course are inaccurate, which is annoying given this was definitely my first 5k run run.
FitBit recognised I had been for a 45 minute run, of which no more than 5 was walked; NRC recorded 30 minutes, 4.25km at 7’03” km pace. Since I ran at least 3.1km along a linear path (and had to retrieve a hat!) before turning back, that ain’t right. Ah well. I am running again, and that is the important thing.
Have a great weekend chaps.
As for parking car in gear, I always do, habit round here! If you're pointing uphill you want it in first, downhill in reverse (basically opposite to what the car wants to do with no brake)
Week 3, run 1
First Run Without Laura - Run Forrest Run.
Week 1 Run 2
Postgrad week 1 - park run 🌳 🏃🏼♀️ 🌳 
Red leaves and Berries - Week 8 Run 1
