Just run until the sun comes up...

As I rolled over and cracked my eyes open to look at the alarm clock, a bright red 5:33 shone back at me. Not bad I thought, 5 more minutes until the alarm goes off. I might as well get up now. In actuality, the 5:33 on my clock is about 5:15 or so in real time. I always set my clock ahead by 15-20mins. I don’t know why, it just makes me feel better to think I’m getting up later than I really am. So I rolled out of bed, stretched a little, let out a sigh and made my way across the dark bedroom to the washroom to brush my teeth and throw on my swim gear.

My usual pool (JdF) is closed for maintenance for the next two weeks, so my plan was to head into Crystal Pool for 6am. I figured I had enough time to get a solid 3k swim in and then bang off a 45’ tempo workout on the treadmill before work. Usually, when I have two workouts in a day I split them up, but I knew today was going to be jam packed as I need to go to the blood lab at lunch and then have a long overdue movie date with one of my favourite peeps (and her ever growing fetus) tonight.

I chipped the ice off the car, slammed back some water and o.j. and began the drive into the city. About 40min later I pulled into the vacant parking lot at the Crystal Pool. It looked like a ghost town. I guess I should have checked the schedule – Crystal is also closed for maintenance for the next 4 weeks! Le sigh.

So, even though in my last post, I talked about how I enjoy a rigid schedule, today called for flexibility and adaptation – and I actually didn’t mind. (That said, thank goodness I had my run gear or I would have been pissed!)

I had about 2.5 hours before I needed to be to work, so I drove down to my office, popped inside just quick enough to use the washroom and change out of my swim suit and into my run gear and off I went. I figured I would just head out and run as long as I felt like going or until I ran out of time.

The city was dark and still very much asleep. It was peaceful and quiet, cold, but not icy. My mind wandered a few times and my imagination got the best of me when I saw a couple of Victoria’s homeless population shuffling along. They looked eerily like ‘walkers’ from “The Walking Dead.” Considering my sleep the other night was filled with zombie nightmares, I have obviously been watching too much of that show.

I need to keep reminding myself: Zombies are not real. Zombies are not real. (yet)

Shaking the zombie thoughts from my mind I carried on. I started to see a few other runners out and about and some walkers (of the human variety) with their dogs. I made my way along Cook Street and out to the waterfront on Dallas Road before winding through the big houses near Ross Bay Cemetery and into the Fairfield area. Slowly, the city was coming to life... About 45-50’ in I was still feeling great, so decided I would head back to the waterfront and just run in the general direction of work until the sun came up.

I didn’t run at a hard pace, just comfortably aerobic, but it was nice. After about 85’ and just over 15k I decided that was good enough for the day - a spontaneous and unexpected “long run” in the books.