As it was in the beginning, is now….

 Ironman Austria finish

Another day that seems like a Sunday, there have been so many of them. Not that I am complaining because I like Sundays. In an old life not long ago, it more often than not meant that Steve and I would start the day casually and after our morning hit of the evil caffeine, we would drive out for our Sunday run. We would leave the car at 8.10 am and start off on the standard 10 km route. Provided that she had not been late arriving, our friend Birgit would start her run of the same route ten minutes later than us and she would catch us somewhere along the route. Whether it was sooner or later depended on a number of things; one of those things would be how tired any of us were or more rarely and less likely, how full of energy we were. Other things that factored it to the possibilities would be, if any of us stopped to look at an animal/ bird/scene to take a photo.

Birgit is much more green minded than we are, although we do what we can. She carries a soft draw string bag on her back and should she see a discarded beer can on the route she would pick it up and pop it into her little back pack. She more than likely would stop at the end of the metaled pathway and take her trainers off, then to run barefoot for the mud and grass miles. She will also be reciting the Rime of the Ancient Mariner that she has been trying to learn by heart. Meanwhile, Steve and I would be jogging along enjoying the gift of nature or chatting to each other at any time we walked up a hill section somewhere.

We don’t concentrate totally as we run, because the session as much about enjoying our surroundings and being with our best friend as it is about fitness, though a need to keep our race fitness is another thing we share.

By the time we get to the finish point of the run, Birgit will be enjoying a good stretch, with her leg up on a fence somewhere. We do slightly different post run moves. We have a brief chat about how the run went and did you see this and did you see that, (bird /hare/flower/ beetle) along the way. Then we take a vote as to which tea room in Arundel we will grace with our company and meet there for coffee and cake and a more in depth talk about our own lives, what we have read, what we have seen and any plans for the coming week and anything of note in the news.

There would nearly always be an argument about whose turn it was to pay. We would then pop into the Co-op before saying “See you soon”, and returning to our homes. It’s strange how much more time we had then. Now we do three of four different types of exercise and have many more things on the go or in the pipeline.

It will be Stephen’s 70^th birthday next Sunday and we have talked about how we will spend the day, since birthdays have traditionally been well celebrated and a special age like 70 would have involved at least a night out somewhere. We spoke of it this only this morning and agreed; Fancy dinner out in a nice restaurant? No. Night at the theatre? No. Off on a mini holiday for a few days? Definitely no.  Hand stitched, self thought up, little triathlon event is a maybe, maybe early.