Midweek: running to work

Smug mode: engaged. 😁

Yesterday, the opportunity arose to travel into work today without having to carry anything in. Immediately, my mind sprang to the possibility of running in. Back when Daughter the First was still junior parkrunning, I'd suggested to her that I should aim to run to work by the end of the year. That was 2022 and it didn't happen. (Not sure how I forgot about that in my retrospective. Maybe I'll go back and fix it.) Now though? Here was my chance!

I knew it was about 4½ miles, but I didn't bother to convert that to km until I was actually into the run (mental gymnastics ahoy!). I also knew there was a decent hill — Matthew Bank — to contend with, but I told myself it would be ok to walk that bit if necessary. And I knew I'd be up late the night before, but I planned to make full use of the fact I didn't have to start work till 10 o'clock. And so I just did it. 💪

SEVEN kilometre markers. You love to see it.

In the end, I actually ran all the way up Matthew Bank — if you can call the pace I adopted "running". The only places where I truly caught a breather were caused by having to wait a few seconds for traffic as I crossed busy roads and I'm not going to feel bad about that.

Thinking back to how the run went, I knew early on that I was going to need to take it easy. No crazy 5-minute kilometres. In fact, I reckoned that if I kept the pace around 6-minutes per km, that would give me the best chance of getting to work without ruining myself.

After 1km, I felt fine, but I had it in mind that that's usually as long as that feeling lasts. After 2km, however, I still felt fine. This was new. And it kind of just continued from there, never really feeling on the edge. In fact, my mind was more on the fact it felt like it was going to take ages to get to work and I'd set off half an hour later than intended.

It was probably around 3km when I had my first slight delay; maybe 3 or 4 seconds stood still waiting for cars at the Haddrick's Mill roundabouts. That probably helped refresh me a little, at least mentally. Shortly after that was the rise up Matthew Bank, which I started trying to maintain my regular pace. Immediately, I realised it was a bad idea and purposely slowed my pace to take what felt like baby steps up the hill. And it worked! I got all the way up, no trouble at all. It didn't actually feel as steep as I'd expected.

Once around the top, I got a major breather as I found myself running out of pavement and having to wait for traffic lights to get me across the road. That was easily the longest pause, at about 20 seconds. Another 5-10 second pause a hundred metres or so later (at the top of Osborne Road) and from there it was non-stop till Market Street in the centre of town.

I'm not sure I heard the 5km announcement from my phone, but by the Blue House Roundabout, I figured I must've hit it. Right then, it felt great. Despite being well over a mile from work, I felt close and every step I kept going felt like pure WIN. It wouldn't be too long before I reached the point where I was on my longest ever run.

Notching up 6km, I felt genuinely good, with the breathing easy. It felt the way that Mark Lewis described it in one of his YouTube videos where he talks about having "settled into" a run. It was a totally new experience for me and, looking back, it's really exciting to think I've got there. I feel like I've just levelled up (add one to stamina).

Anyway, there was just one last uphill ahead, so I steeled myself for the rise up to the Robinson Library, just after Brandling Park. Again, I purposely dropped my pace and just eased up the hill. And from there it was all flat or downhill to work, past the Civic Centre and down Northumberland Street. As the 7km mark was announced, my mental gymnastics deserted me for once and I (wrongly) figured I'd just done a 6-minute kilometre, which I wasn't very happy about. To that point, I'd been comfortably inside 6 minutes (except for that stop after Matthew Bank). So, I upped the pace for the section down Northumberland Street and Pilgrim Street. And even with a little pause for the lights at Market Street, the final 0.7km saw me dip under 5:00/km.

So... that was epic. I'm delighted that I've done something I'd previously thought was beyond me, or at least more aspirational than realistic. Not only that, but on reflection, if I'd not had to start work, I swear I could've kept on going to 10k. That gives me MASSIVE hope — nay, belief — that I can achieve that goal this year. Let's make it happen! 💪