Anyway today turned out to be really rather hot. Humidity was down by midday, but it was a little over 27degrees in the shade. As I was starting at an airport, there wasn't any shade from the direct-overhead sunshine. Ah well.
I've run home from the airport a couple of times before and quite like it. You get to run through the seedier parts of Sydney and the light industrial stuff you find near most airports. I think it appeals to me that little bit more because it is the very antithesis of everything you see on the tele. Sydney rests upon it's four laurels; Bridge, Harbour, Opera House, beaches (mainly Bondi.) So my run is ant-touristy. Well, until I get to the Bridge.
I had a bottle of Gatorade for company and by the end of the run I'd refilled it twice from bubblers and then bought another. So I tipped back about 2.5litres. I had to ask for directions to get out of the airport, which I didn't get. I used the force and ended up on a bike path to 'City.' The path was not my usual escape route from Sydney Kingsford Smith, but it was a simple matter of just following the signs.
Which I did until I ran out of signs at a crossroads, maybe 3km in. Sydney is ferociously hostile to any form of transport that isn't a car, and as you move down the motive food chain you get less and less help. Luckily I knew the road I was crossing and simply ran in the opposite direction to the fucking great 'AIRPORT' sign.
The first part of the run is through the sort of home-depot warehouse-direct factory-outletville that I must keep Sal and her credit card away from. It then gets a bit seedy as you hit Alexandria and Redfern. Redfern is the last place in Sydney where the politicians/developers/crooks have yet to relocate the entire aboriginal population. It is a chunk of prime real estate, a couple of km from the CBD. But it looks like downtown Mogadishu. You are unlikely to read about Redfern in the glossies, but it makes the news every so often for all the wrong reasons.
A bit of an epic post in the making. Sal is filling in the gaps I left when I went shopping yesterday, Darren and Ellie are out touristing and the girls are both asleep. Now where was I?
OK, through Redfern and I cut across a few streets to avoid the shopping thoroughfares. Bottle refilled at Hyde Park and then straight down to the Bridge. The heat coming off of the tarmac on the Cahill Expressway was particularly unpleasant and I was glad to get to the Bridge, which I usually time and today wish I hadn't. Land speed record in no danger.
Another refill as I came off of the bridge and then it was the slog up to North Sydney, from where things flatten out. And then drop down to sea level at Spit Bridge. Which would not be so bad if I did not live atop the sodding great hill just the other side of the bridge. I crept up the Galipolli Steps, pausing at the top to take a look out over the Harbour and get my respiration rate under 300 or whatever the hell it was.
And then I did the last bit home to bring up a total of 24km, or 15miles in old money, in 2hrs and something. To be honest, I live just under 15miles from the airport. I ran about 100m past my house and then back to get the Garmin to click over to a nice round figure.
Two done and I think I'll have a beer tonight.
4 comments:
Great work -- (though I suppose you could always have measured it on a map :)). Weather here going in the opposite direction. Happy Tanathon!
Nice reading your blog again, i've missed all this since #Juneathon.
It must be bloody hard for you what with all that hot weather, hammocks and beer, I feel so sorry for you...NOT! It even hail stoned during #Juneathon here in NW England, so goodness knows what #Janathon will bring.Good luck mate.
Yay! for the New Garmin. Don't blame you for rounding up - Great run in that heat! And here's me complaining about over warm 12 degrees!
Yeh, but I bet the heat gets boring in the end and you'll be jealous when we're all heading out in the snow iin a few weeks... You will be jealous won't you??
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