down in one

Friday is usually a to and from work day but Sal had the day off and that offered me the opportunity to leave home early and get my miles down in one. I'd very roughly mapped a route to work on Thursday night that would have got me at least a half marathon before breakfast by heading inland, across Roseville Bridge and then back to North Sydney. A little hilly, but plenty of it downhill with a few climbs.

However, I woke up sometime after 3am and managed to doze until 4am at which time I renewed my membership of the Wide Awake Club. A bit of Facebook and reading some news did nothing to help me get back to sleep. I bimbled about until 5:20 then headed out to give Rowlf his morning walk: I don't leave until I know I can get a coffee at the local bakery.

Guess what? Yes, it was humid. This made me doubt the wisdom of running the planned route. I didn't want to run with a water bottle and the inland route was water bubbler-lite so I decided to hug the Harbour shore and try to get as many of my miles done before I got to the Bridge. Then I could stagger the final couple of km in without arsing about in the city.

FJ Holden Special with the Opera House in the background

And that was pretty much it, with a bit of arsing about. I avoided the Galipoli steps to add a few humdred metres before Spit Bridge, then when I got to Military Road I veered off towards Mosman, then Cremorne Point...you can look it up on the map if you're interested. I stopped under the north side of the bridge to take a few pictures of a Holden FJ Special, a car that is at least 58years old. It was a bit tatty, but bloody good for its age considering it looked completely standard.

I wasn't feeling particularly good for my age as I squelched my way back up and over the bridge. Still a little short on distance I looped back under the bridge and kept hugging the harbour foreshore. Time seemed to slow down, as often happens when the end is in sight. I became a little fixated with my Garmin but eventually if clicked over 21.2km and I went from almost-stopped to stop.  I walked the last little bit in to the office, not really cooling down and not beating myself up too much for missing the opportunity to add an extra few hundred metres. Getting a decent slab of time off felt far more appealing than another few hundred metres.