Today was d-day – the running commute was upon me. Much forwarding planning had been involved as well as expenses incurred and I couldn’t really think of a suitable excuse to get out of it.
Since I started working at the hospital back in September I have cycled in every single day. Most people ooh and gasp when they hear this, it is clearly a major commitment in their eyes. Of course it involves precious little commitment on my part. It actually just provides further evidence of quite how lazy I am.
On a typical day, my third alarm buzzes at 7.30 and I drag myself out of bed, potter around on the web before heading out to retrieve my bike at about 8.15. Today, because I needed to leave my bike at home, thereby freeing me to run home this evening, I had to endure the horrors of early morning public transport. This meant I had to set my alarm 50 mins early, miss the pottering around and shoot out into the dark and miserable morning streets at 7am in search of a suitable bus stop. I only needed two buses, which isn’t too bad but the length of the journey was unbearable. I didn’t arrive at work until 8.57. Taking the bus to work took 1hr 15mins longer than on my bike – and that includes the faffing time, where I have to lock my bike and get changed at the other end. Thats 1hr 15 mins longer in bed – every morning if I cycle. Surely if people realised this they would hand in their bus passes and head off to the bike shop, at the very least they wouldn’t find it so odd that I choose to cycle everyday.
When persuading myself to do this running commute, I appeased my inner slob by allowing a get out clause – I could take my oyster card and hop on a bus for part of the journey if it all felt too hellish. After the trip in this morning though I had a challenge ahead of me. Surely, even at my pace, I could beat the bus home. The race was on!
I didn’t start off particularly race-like. I approached the starting line, and then switched on the garmin and waited to lock on to the satellites. I waited and waited a bit more. All this while stood outside a psychiatric hospital in the pitch dark while it was raining, dressed in a luminous yellow t-shirt, trying desperately to look as though I wasn’t pretending to be a runner. Why does it always take so flippin long to get a signal????
It proved to be quite an acceptable run. In the end I didn’t go directly home but chose to spoil a friend with my sweaty company, which proved a good choice as I managed to run directly into a hot a foamy bath that she had prepared for me. How nice.
The garmin beeped right outside her gate to say I had completed 10k, how satisfying is that? Another perfect 10k route. It took me 1hr 20mins which isn’t a record pace but it did include numerous stops at traffic lights and more importantly beat the bus! So gold goes to cycling, silver to running and a pitiful runners up boobly prize to the bus.
Popularity: 13% [?]
