39 Days of Running: Halfway

Yesterday marked my 18th day of running and the run took place in Cape Town, where I am for the next few days. While these three weekdays are for meetings and seeing people, the weekend is for an orienteering camp that I'm coaching for our young orienteers.

While most of the runs have been fairly easy to fit in, some have been challenging. As always, this pre-birthday challenge teaches me over and over how easy it really can be to fit in a 30 minute run, even if it is late in the evening and the run is done in the dark.

Monday was a case in point.

My mom's uncle passed away last week (following a big stroke the week before) and so the memorial was set for Monday noon in Centurion. Off we went.

I'd made an arrangement to visit dear friends at 16h00 in Rivonia; I got home with a bit of time to spare before heading out again. Shortly after arriving at my friends' place, loadshedding kicked in. Arrggghhh - traffic was sure to be crazy!

I left them at 18h00 and hit traffic most of the way home. What was fun was coming up with routes from my 'head map' to get me home through some unfamiliar areas. I did pretty well. What does puzzle me is that most of the traffic lights (or all of them?) were on (solar powered?) so I'm not quite sure whether this was normal 6pm traffic or whether it was traffic affected by loadshedding? I have a feeling it was the former!

I got home after 19h00 and started getting changed to go run. And then another friend called so I chatted for a bit and got out of the door at 19h45. I wasn't completely in the mood for a run but aiming to get in only 30 mins, it wasn't a biggie.

It always seems that those runs I'm least in the mood for turn out to be some of the best. I felt relaxed and ran very easy and comfortably. The 30 minutes passed in a flash and if I didn't have to finish prepping maps for the O camp to print the next morning (which I finished after 2am!), I would have enjoyed putting in another 30 minutes.

For the next few days - until Sunday - I'll be putting in runs down here in the Cape - different venues each day which should make for some scenic runs.