Following the first instalment, here’s another list of interesting running-related articles I’ve come across recently, in between overdoses of the grumpy cat and the Ikea monkey memes.
Did I miss anything good? The internet is kind of big and, in between work, bathroom breaks and a few hours of sleep, there may have been something I missed. Fill me in!
Do you ever have weekends when you feel like you can actually relax and have time to do everything you planned to do? For the longest time, I thought they were an urban myth, like blair witch or instant coffee that doesn’t make me want to puke. Turns out those weekends exist, though, and the secret to finding them seems to simply lie in getting my ass out of bed before noon.
This weekend, I decided I was not going to make any plans requiring any more than a five or ten minute advance notice. I fitted in shopping (more hours than I should have – sorry, credit card), quality time with the kitty, family skype time, coffee and magazine reading (the new issue of Runner’s World conveniently arrived in my letterbox on Saturday morning – a free issue from one of those coupons you can get in most event goodie bags), and a cookie baking extravaganza.
More importantly, I ran 3 times in the last 2 days, and 4 times in the last 3 days even, since I also ran a 5k on Friday morning before work. Out of those 4 times, two of them were morning runs. I didn’t get a super long run in like I had expected (12k was the longest distance the watch recorded this weekend, and it included a couple of kilometers of walking). It didn’t matter, though. I’m still pretty happy to have gotten some kilometers under my belt. The hardest step is the one out of the door yadda yadda kind of thing, you know. My laundry pile has never had as many running clothes but I’ve also never felt so motivated about this whole marathon training thing.
I blame the sun. And also, I blame all this getting out of bed at the crack of dawn thing I’ve been doing. It dawned on me the other day (see what I did there? Hmm? Hmm?) that I have only slept past 9:30AM once this year (last weekend), and that one time was planned. I wanted the feeling of spending the whole morning in bed back again. And you know what was weird? I didn’t like it. I felt like I had just wasted a whole lot of time doing nothing. This is the same person that up until a couple of years ago would never get out of bed before 11 on a weekend, unless there was a very good reason to do so (and there were very strict criteria to define what “a very good reason” consisted of, excluding basically everything except for the apocalypse).
This Sunday, for example, I got out of bed at 6AM to run. There was no running event with a set time at stupid o’clock or anything, just me wanting to get a run in before the sun was too high up. I got to run before a lot of people were even out of bed and so the whole day was freed up to do other stuff. Turns out “other stuff” ended up including more running and I couldn’t resist another run in the evening, as dinner simmered away.
So this is awkward. It looks like all this running may have accidentally turned me into a morning person. I still dislike getting out of bed but a bulldozer no longer has to hit the walls of the bedroom for me to actually get up – especially if there’s running to be done. See you out there before 7AM sometimes. Apparently, it won’t kill me.
I would not pick a fight with this 93 year old. But then again, I probably wouldn’t pick a fight with any 93 year old -they’re always so adorable. Just not usually this badass.
I caught bits of a TV show the other night where doctors were trying to figure out the mystery cause of some weird symptoms a lady had been displaying ever since giving birth to her son. She had put on what she described as “copious amounts of weight” following the pregnancy and had been suffering from a myriad of symptoms that doctors didn’t seem to be able to associate with any particular disease. The last doctor she visited analysed her lifestyle and realised that her extremely poor diet and absolute lack of exercise were mostly to blame. It took her a couple of months of dieting, combined with exercising three times a week, and her symptoms began to disappear.
Of course it’s not always this obvious but, more often than not, the equation really is that easy. We can try to make all the excuses we want for what we do to ourselves (“I really deserve this tenth piece of brownie because I took the stairs to that second floor instead of taking the elevator”) but the fact is that a healthy lifestyle usually leads to a healthy life. It’s not really rocket science. Of course there are diseases that can happen in spite of someone taking the best care of themselves but you are pretty much guaranteed to avoid a number of issues if you just take responsibility for your health.
It’s a harsh reality, though, and we always find a million excuses. I speak for myself here. But when I started thinking about it watching the show, it hit me how painfully obvious and in-your-face this fact actually is.
Eventually, we will all start decaying before we finally die (what an upbeat post, I know). As much as modern medicine can do for us, it’s the cycle of life and the planet would really be in trouble if we all stopped dying. No matter how many artificial limbs or organ transplants you get, eventually, your machine needs to stop moving. But does that mean the process needs to be a slow painful one?
I came across this Ted talk today and it was as inspiring as it was eye-opening. Charles Eugster is right – old age has come to be synonym of a number of health problems. But does it really have to be? I mean, look at him.
The 93-year old oarsman and bodybuilder hits the nail on the head: We are over-nourished, over-medicated and physically inactive and that inactivity is a major cause of death.
“Natural healthy aging is unseen, covering by a blanket of disease. In fact, it is falsely assumed that disease is a natural consequence of aging. Lift up the blanket and there could be surprises,” he says.
He gives some good statistics and makes some great points so I highly recommend you get yourself a cup of tea and sit through the whole 16 minute video.
Eugster also goes into much deeper issues such as retirement age/ life expectancy (which has not only health but also financial consequences). I don’t fully agree with absolutely everything he says. He calls retirement a “massive health calamity” and a “future financial disaster”, I call it a lifelong dream, but I do see his point. Life doesn’t have to start ending 20 or so years before it’s actually expected to end.
His point is simple: look after yourself and those problems that we grew used to associate with aging will disappear. And if you’re going to use your age as an excuse, then quit it right there. Eugster started well into his 80s so, really, your point is invalid.
Oh damn, I feel like I’m coming across as preachy. Am I coming across as preachy? Maybe I am. Listen, I’m definitely no role model. I don’t think I’ve ever turned down a family-sized bar of mint chocolate and I have no intentions of ever doing that. But, on the other hand, I’ve made a bunch of little changes to my lifestyle in the last couple of years and, even with my regular slip-ups, it all has had an amazing impact on my health. I’m millions of midnight snacks away from an actual proper healthy life but videos like this are a great use of “inactive time”.
I’ll shut up now. The point is, let’s stop sitting around. It’s killing us.
***
photo source: Ted Blog
For further reading on Eugster’s achievements, check out his website and this article he wrote for the Guardian.
This Christmas will be my third one in the Southern Hemisphere and, therefore, my third Summer Christmas. You’d think I’d be used to it by now but… nope. Nice warm weather in December will never make sense to me and a Summer Christmas still sounds like a big paradox.
Christmas has always been my absolute favourite holiday, even though it always used to take place in my least favourite season. I initially thought that perhaps combining Christmas and Summer would make my head explode with happiness but that hasn’t happened.
It’s not that I have a bad time over Christmas in Summer. It’s just that it doesn’t feel like Christmas, at all. Words always have a variety of feelings associated with them and, to me, Christmas means warm coats, short days, the smell of pumpkin and cinnamon and all the other ingredients of the traditional Christmas food we have back home.
Instead, for the last three years, I’ve been wearing shorts and going for walks on the beach. I know it sounds like a massive first world problem – poor wee Vera has to go to the beach over Christmas, boo hoo, yadda yadda yadda. I know. But, as nice as it is, it doesn’t feel the way it should.
Some things, however, make it all a bit better. I intend to fill the house with the smell of anything pumpkin-related, decorate the hell out of it (and spend December vacuuming pine needles off the rug or chasing the cat to make sure she doesn’t swallow the tiny ornaments she grabs from the tree), eat as many pieces of french toast as my body can handle (in Portugal we call them “rabanadas” and they’re a traditional Christmas dish), crank out the Mariah Carey (don’t be hater, nothing says Christmas like All I Want for Christmas is You) and take part in as many Christmas-related activities as I can.
Like yesterday. For the first time, I was happy to be going out for a run in the rain. It was time for another Auckland Santa Run. Last year, we’d had good weather for it but, this time, even though the temperature was warm, I had the rain to make it feel a little bit Christmassier (yes, that’s totally a word).
About 1400 people dressed up as Santa and ran the ~3k course in Auckland central in the rain (at the same time as other thousands of Santa runners did the same in different cities and towns across the country), all for a good cause. It was a short run but you should never underestimate the added difficulty of running in a santa suit (there was nothing breathable about that material, I tell you) – so, by the end of it, I definitely felt like I had worked enough for some french toast. I mean, rabanada.
I post an awful lot of running-related stuff on my Facebook, often forgetting that my non-running friends and relatives might not actually give a crap about it.
Before I alienate them all and suddenly stop getting invited to birthday parties (and start missing out on free cake), I thought it’d be a good idea to link to those other sites here and then link to this post on Facebook, thus decreasing the number of running-related updates on my Facebook profile and creating the illusion that I actually do have a life beyond running (hahaha, fools).
One
The Badass of the Week website this week features one of the nicest badasses of all time – Cliff Young, a “toothless 61 year-old potato farmer from Beech Forest, Victoria, who’d lived in a one-room bark hut with six brother and sisters during the Great Depression and showed up to the starting line of the [Westfield Sydney to Melbourne Ultra Marathon] race in overalls and rain boots”. We’re talking 875km, people.
So you think “whatever, old dude thought he’d have a go and then realised it wasn’t for him”. Wrong. Try “had a go at it, beat all elite athletes and smashed the record by two entire freaking days”. Head over to the Badass of the Week site for the whole story. It’s a great read, simultaneously inspiring and hilarious.
Two
Running naked (and I mean birthday-suit-type-of-naked, not “naked running” to refer to running without a tracking device or music, like some runners do) has been deemed legal in New Zealand. I’m all for personal freedom and all that stuff but I’m also hoping this doesn’t become a thing.
Three
The Hairpin nailed my usual half marathon training plan. Mine usually has more beer and less trips to Brazil but the rest is pretty much the same.
Four
The T-Rex Runner found and interviewed Thomas, the man in the “50, fat, diabetic, ahead of you” that has been doing the rounds on the internet. You can read all about it here.
Five
Holy muddy shoes, New Zealand has a new magazine dedicated to trail running! Can you tell I’m excited? I’d be happy even if the magazine was a little bit shit because, who cares, it’s about trail running! But not even! It’s really well written, super interesting and with a great design. It wins all around.
I got a copy with my subscription of Wilderness magazine (published by the same company) and headed online for the digital issue. The full digital version is available online for free (!!!) until December 24, by which time you’ll have to be smart enough to realise you really ought to fork out the mere NZ$30 for the yearly subscription.
Righto, that should keep you out of trouble for a while.
The face may say “I’m excited so let’s run” but the reality was more like “it’s cold so let’s run!”
A couple of months ago, I watched the video shot by Andrew Evans (National Geographic Traveler’s Digital Nomad) of his run across Liechtenstein. Coincidentally, I watched it just days after I had driven across Liechtenstein (during an amazing European road trip I really should tell you more about one of these days) and had one of those I-wish-I-had-thought-of-that-myself moments. Liechtenstein is a tiny country and one of the few where someone like me can actually run the length of it in one go so I was a bit bummed about not having thought of that.
But never mind. On Sunday, S. and I sort of did that. Well, not really. Let me explain. New Zealand can get really narrow in some points. Conveniently enough, one of those points is right near where we live which means we got to run from one side of the country to the other, technically, in what was only a 16k run.
I made a sweet, sweet illustration in MS Paint to scientifically prove we ran from one side of the country to the other.
The Auckland Coast to Coast Walkway is an official walk established and maintained by the city council, that takes walkers (or, in our case, runners) from the Manukau Harbour (Onehunga) to the Waitemata Harbour (Viaduct), on the other side of the city (and the island). Along those 16k, whether you’re walking or running, you get a really good taste for what Auckland really is all about. Boring suburbs, yes, some of that. But also an amazing range of great parks and reserves, extinct volcanoes, historic buildings, etc.
Then realised the thick pink lines in that image covered evidence of water on both sides so used all my skills to create yet another masterpiece, this time zooming in on the map a bit more. SO MUCH TALENT.
The course itself is fairly well marked by blue signs with arrows (if you’re going from Onehunga to the Viaduct, which is the way we went) or yellow arrows if you choose to start from the Waitemata Harbour side. There were only two or three occasions when there wasn’t a sign telling us which way to turn so we sort of had to take a guess. Luckily, the signs were not far apart and, surprisingly, we never got lost along the way. The arrows also tell you where you should cross the streets but I’m not entirely sure you should take their advice every single time (some of them seemed to have been placed in random spots, away from traffic lights or crossings). Other than that, the route was really well chosen, leading us through reserves whenever there was one nearby, and up and down special places like One Tree Hill, Mount Eden and the Auckland Domain.
Not being great fans of routes that loop around and force us to see us the same things twice, we were pretty pleased with this run. There was always something nice to look at and 16k was an easy enough distance, only made slightly more difficult by the elevation of the terrain in certain areas (but that’s only a worry if you have enough will-power to run every single hill, which we don’t).
So there you have it. From one side of the country to the other. Another training run down, about a bazillion to go.
***
Not completely unrelated, there’s a guy who’s not cutting any corners and can actually claim to be running the length of the entire country, top to bottom, rather than across one of its narrowest parts. Dan Burgess is just about finished with his epic running adventure from Bluff (down the far South) to Cape Reinga (right at the very top). He is raising money to aid Parkinson’s UK and Cystic Fibrosis NZ and if you’d like to help his fundraising efforts, you can do so through here or here.
Back in the day, I started running because I thought it’d be the cheapest possible way to exercise. All I needed was any pair of old shorts and an old tshirt, some sneakers (and, with the size of my shoe collection, I had a few to choose from already) and the willingness to get my butt out of the door. No membership fees, no monthly payments, no big expenses.
*pause so we can all stop laughing at how wrong I was*
Like anything else, if you get really into it (and one can say writing a blog almost solely dedicated to running qualifies as being “really into it”), it gets really expensive really quickly. At first, I think, came the dri-fit shirts. I got posh and decided running in cotton shirts was too gross. Then, with the first knee pain, came the doctor’s appointment (another $40) and the medical advice to buy proper running shoes. Hello, $300 receipt. Then, since I had the fancy shoes, I got a little more excited about taking them out. And so came the receipt for the first ever running event (Wharf to Wharf on Waiheke Island), which got me completely hooked onto crossing finish lines. Since then, I’ve been averaging about one official event per month. Some are fairly cheap, others do make me think I’ll have to resort to instant noodles for the rest of the month (mostly because some of these events are out of town and involve travel expenses). Fast forward a few months and I got hooked on trail running. This means mandatory equipment for races, in some cases. Hi, expensive hydration pack with all sorts of stuff inside.
Anyway, you get the point. This stuff’s not cheap. So I’m always on the look out for good deals on running-related stuff. I’ve got a list. I’m pretty sure it’s filled with stuff all runners want to have. So, if you have a runner in your Christmas gift list (or some extra money floating around that you might want to use to start the Super Generic Girl Running Fund), this is a good time to take notes.
1. Gu energy gels are the perfect stocking fillers a runner can ask for. At about $3 a pop, these little things don’t come cheap.
2. Garmin Forerunner 10. Or any Forerunner. Or, whatever, any GPS watch. I’ve been using the Nike+ watch (powered by TomTom) and we have sort of become best buddies.
3. Running shorts. Or any running apparel, as long as it’s cute. Oh and the right material. I suppose that’s important too.
4. Camelbak hydration pack. Especially useful for trail runs or long road runs, especially if you enter events and like avoiding the water stations.
6. My Cep compression socks are simultaneously my most expensive and my most amazing pair of socks. Don’t think a runner can have too many of these but, for the price, I think one pair is pretty much enough. Has to be.
7. Spi belt. I bought a hydration belt a couple of months ago and it sucked because there was no ideal way of adjusting it to my waist without it ending up jumping up and down while I ran. I heard these are quite good in that aspect. All I want is a way of not carrying my phone in my hand the whole time.
8. Running necklaces. Down here in Kiwiland, they aren’t too keen on giving out medals at running events. You’ll probably get a medal for a full marathon (and, even then, not all full marathons), but you are very unlikely to get one for anything below that. Some achievements, though, deserve to be celebrated with something long lasting. When we ran our 35k trail run, I headed to The Run Home on Etsy and got S. a customised necklace with her name and the distance and location of that race. Beats a medal, I think… but I still wish we’d gotten medals.
9. These running nutters sometimes decide that darkness isn’t a good enough excuse to stay home. I pack my head torch every time we head out for the trails, just in case. Also good for after work runs in Winter, when it’s pitch black by 6pm.
10. Tech gloves. Because surely I’m not the only one who checks Facebook while waiting for the pedestrian lights to turn green, amirite?
11. Road ID bracelet. If I happen to run my way to afterlife, there are a few things people need to know like: my name, my emergency contact details and that under no circumstances should my obituary refer to me as a “jogger”. Just the basic important stuff.
12. Running-related literature. I’ve got an Amazon wishlist the length of an ultramarathon. Lisa Tamati‘s Running to Extremes is just one of them, among a long list of practical marathon training guides. Basically, anything that’ll make a runner want to keep reading while, at the same time, put the book down and head out for a run.
A sunrise. I don’t witness these things often but I’m told they happen every day and not just on race days.
YOU GUYS! I think I’ve got it. The secret to running a really good race can sometimes be a lot less to do with preparation, training and tapering and a lot more to do with just chilling the heck out and heading into it without much planning.
Well, maybe. Don’t listen to me, ok? My only doctorate is in kitty cuddles and even that one is just honorary. But the fact is that the experience from last weekend showed me exactly that and I’m going with empirical knowledge here. So let’s recap, shall we?
I headed over to the Auckland Domain on Saturday to walk with Kim Allan (an experience I will hopefully be posting about in the next few days, once I can come up with the right adjectives to describe her epic feat). I wasn’t the only one there. Kim had the support of lots of other people, runners and non-runners, and, for a few hours, we all became our own little group of friends. One of the guys I was talking to mentioned the ADRA half marathon that was going to be on the following day in Mission Bay. I had read about it but decided against it a couple of weeks before. However, as he started telling me more about how nice a course it was and how the weather looked like it’d be perfect for it, I started feeling the bug bite. Knowing I absolutely had to get out of the house for a long run on Sunday anyway, as part of my less than stellar marathon training, I figured having some extra motivation wouldn’t be a bad idea.
Living in Auckland sometimes makes you forget not everyone can run alongside views like this one. Volcanoes are awesome.
On paper, it wasn’t a brilliant idea but that’s never stopped me before. I’d run 4 times that week and ended up walking 16km that Saturday (and getting sunburnt in the process). Tapering was non-existent. The only thing I had time to do, as far as preparation for a race goes, was a pasta meal for dinner on Saturday night, just in case. I didn’t even know for sure whether I’d be able to run it. Registrations had closed online so my only chance was to drive there at OMG o’clock on Sunday morning and check if I could register on the day. So I inhaled my pasta, used the potential half marathon as an excuse to have a bucket load of ice cream and set my alarm for 5AM (when 5AM was only about 5 hours away).
I thought to myself that if the alarm went off and I didn’t feel up for it, there’d be plenty of other half marathons to run and I could still go for a long run later on in the day. But then 5AM came around and I jumped out of bed with the usual race-day excitement. I left home while it was still dark and crossed fingers that they’d still take my registration. Of course the title of this post alone tells you they did and, at 7AM, I had my bib pinned on my shirt and was lining up at the start line with a bunch of other runners. My kind of sunday morning!
The route followed Auckland’s waterfront from Mission Bay to St Heliers and back to the Port (where we looped around back to Mission Bay) and was similar to the Cathay Pacific half marathon I ran earlier this year. There were only a couple of hills at the start (Cliff Road and I have a love-hate relationship but only in the sense that I love to hate it) but most of the course was nice and flat. The stunning weather was a welcome gift too, especially since Auckland has this habit of giving us a good week only to then present us with a stupidly wet weekend.
There were some times when I felt the tiredness that comes with not tapering but I was feeling strong enough to know I could finish. When I got close to the 16km mark, I realised I had a chance to get a personal record on this one. I got a little too excited about it and considered my chances of a sub-2h but quickly dismissed it. As nice as the course was, my legs felt heavy and tired (handy tip: do not walk 16km in the sun the day before running 21km) and I was not doing my best at pacing myself either. I was just happy with the possibility of beating the 2:05 I had been sitting on since the Whenuapai half marathon back in April.
I swear not all photos of myself have me in running clothes soaked in sweat. No, really.
And I did beat it. 2:03:06 is not quite the sub-2h I keep chasing but I am now 2 minutes closer to it then I was before this last minute decision to run this race. It was also a pretty good little confidence boost for marathon training. I celebrated the best possible way, by having a nap, and now I’m preaching the benefits of not over-thinking (or even thinking) running events and just going for it on the day. Maybe there is some truth to Nike’s slogan after all.
You know how sometimes you get home and you’re tired and feel like crap and head straight to the cupboard for one of those pre-cooked meals in a packet that you just need to add water to or heat up in the microwave? And then you eat them watching some equally cheap show on TV and feel sorry for yourself and resolve to not be so lazy from then on, except the next day comes around and work is stressful so you go home and do the same thing all over again except this time with more tears and maybe you forgot to turn the dishwasher on and doing dishes by hand is too much work so you reach for the old paper plates from that last barbecue from years ago before all your friends had babies and stopped having time for barbecues?
Okay, me neither. That was a slight exaggeration. But the point is that sometimes I’m tired. Really tired. And lazy. But mostly tired. And I want some dessert. But I also don’t want to move too many muscles.
Enter the perfect fudge recipe for the tired full time worker and runner in need of a sugar fix.
You need: one microwaveable bowl, cake mix (I used vanilla but I suppose any cake mix will do), icing sugar, butter and milk (and sprinkles, if you’re feeling festive). THAT’S IT! The instructions are here, complete with photos and everything. Follow those steps and eat until your stomach cries of happiness. Seriously, this paragraph alone took longer to write than it takes to make this fudge.
When it comes to stuff like cake mix, I’m a pretty vocal supporter of the making it from scratch movement. It’s therapeutic, easy, and extra delicious. I don’t think I’d ever bought a packet of the thing before until I came across this recipe and decided that the future of humanity depended on me figuring out whether this was as amazing as it sounded. Plus, if I make cake batter from scratch and I don’t put it in the oven, there’s something to do with its magnetic field and laws of gravity somethingsomething that just makes it go straight into my belly. Because screw you, salmonella). So now I’m a convert. I might just have to have a packet of cake mix at home at all times, just in case I need to make good use of 3 minutes and get me some more of this fudge.
Cheesecake for lunch. Not the healthiest option but definitely one of the prettiest.
I started the week off on the right foot, running both of Monday and on Tuesday. No long runs, just a couple of post-work 5k, but enough to make me feel on top of things.
I was all on track for a three for three on Wednesday but then, instead, I got home from work and ate a mini Whittaker’s chocolate bar, nearly a whole bag of Coles pigs lollies, some salt & vinegar chips (I don’t even like salt & vinegar chips) and drank a glass of chocolate milk. Then after that, I went out to dinner with friends and tried on a few tapas, including chips and fried chicken, before moving to a different restaurant for Tiramisu. I don’t often report on my meals but this binge eating session was a little too crazy not to share, especially if you consider it was an alternative to running. Life – I’m doing it wrong.
Anyway, I digress. While out with my friends last night, one of them pointed out that I’m always agreeing to things and end up double and triple-booking myself and running out of time to do the things I actually really want to be doing (sometimes what I really want is to be out running, other times it’s simply to go home and play dead on the couch until the cat starts to worry). Basically, my friend worries that I’m a bit of a doormat and says I need to learn to say no. He’s right. Establishing priorities is not one of my strongest skills (unless you’re reading this because you want to hire me to help you establish priorities and you want to pay me quadruple figures in which case disregard what I just wrote, I’m awesome at it).
My marathon training plan has been sitting in the background waiting for me to have time for it. I’ve been squeezing in runs in between other commitments when, sometimes, I should be squeezing those other commitments in between runs. Running can’t become my number one priority (unless someone wants to pay all my bills for me), but from now until marathon day, it needs to be pretty damn close to that.
Training your body for something it is not yet ready to do is not something you can put off and then cram into a week or two at the last minute. I ran a shameful 7.5km last week. In the entire seven days of the week combined. I am now one week closer to that marathon and that is time I will not be able to recover.
So I’m sorry if I can’t make your breakfast/lunch/afternoon snack/dinner/drinks thingy. I’m sure it’ll be super lovely and I’ll totally miss out but I need to be out clocking up those kilometers, if I’m going to survive this thing in March. I may have to just catch the tail end of your meal (I’m very helpful with those few bites of dessert you couldn’t force yourself to finish) but if you are reading this, there’s a big chance you know how important this is and so you’ll understand.
But enough feeling sorry for myself. This morning, mainly driven by guilt over last night’s food antics, I got out of bed with 40 minutes to spare and decided to go for a run before work. I can’t explain to early risers how hard this is for me but suffice to say it’s only happened 3 or 4 times in the last couple of years.
Free fitness equipment along the path near home. Everyone’s excuses are now gone.
I ran my usual route close to home, with a couple of laps of the nearest reserve. The city council has recently installed some fitness equipment along the path which had the side benefit of making the park feel safer even after dark, with more people staying there to use the equipment after hours. I noticed last week during an evening run that I felt much safer running a couple of extra laps after sunset while people were still hanging around the area. So yay for tax money being put to good use.
So, to sum up, cheesecake is awesome, running in the morning won’t kill me, and I need to learn to sometimes say no and go for a run instead. Noted.
super generic girl 