Runday Splash

 

At a time when every day STILL seems like Sunday, it took me a while to realise that today actually was Sunday but still not Sunday as we used to know it. With dawn already arriving an hour later than the summer solstice, it is a time with a hint of sorrow for us summer born people who may take the fading of the light as the sun starts its journey south a bit personally.

So I for one I am not at all thankful for the extra half hour in bed. I have never found any pleasure in staying in bed longer than the basic time that my mind and body needs which is roughly 7 hours max. That attitude does not include my husband who is one of those people who likes to bank an hour or two now and again just in case he needs it. On the days when I wake up early, I do so quietly out of consideration for his preferences.

We ran eight miles through the woods this morning taking a slightly different route and being rewarded with a lovely lot of wildlife spotting including two pretty little groups of a doe with two young. They were different varieties of deer since the first were quite dark with black on their backs and the second group were bright rusty gold all over.  There were the big usual big birds about and a couple, right it the woods through the trees rather than circling their lazy patterns in the open. Squirrels galore and baby bunnies all over the place.

 I tend not to count the cage-reared pheasants but our way to where we park up, one started to dash across in front of us and then did the typical dopey pheasant game of stopping in the middle of the road, panicking and then turning and head back the way it came, which at least made us laugh.

Our run was good and turned out to be our second fastest eight-miler, according to the Garmin forerunner, that is so entertaining to us athletes.

After we got in, we quickly changed into our swim suits, grabbed our scruffy old towelling dressing gowns and headed for the beach to catch the tide because the surf report said the conditions would be close to ‘glass’ and the temperature 21 degrees. Of course, we were still hot from our run, so it did not seem that warm at first. We had a lovely casual splash about swim about playing with all our strokes, to freshen up after a hard run and a chance to say hello to a few friends on the beach.