On the road again

*** From Friday 23rd but found in my drafts, whoops! ***

A post for yesterday, a Friday evening run after another rare on-time finish from work.

I decided again to stick to the 2.25 mile loop, so that I could hopefully again experience a run outdoors but give myself a good chance of achieving it this time. Once again, it just feels every bit as hard half a mile in as it does an hour or so into the treadmill, or at least a different kind of exhaustion.

It certainly seemed like the whole loop was uphill and into an icy headwind. You've probably seen the flaw in that description, unless I was running on an Escher-designed landscape. I wasn't, I was dodging the chavs in Bicester.

Although it's physically harder outside I'm sure it can't be that much more difficult, so I'm happy to be getting mentally better at this. The advantages of running outside rather than pounding the treadmill are that it's less boring - the landmarks and targets are more tangible. In this case, once passing the one mile mark just after the doctor's surgery, then it's the traffic calming device, the ring road roundabout, the bollards at the end of the cycle path, the dog turd bin, the gate at the other end of the cycle path, the cut-through field and then home. And imagining the end of the path to home as the final 385 yards of the marathon probably helps too.