Early morning long run

Today - 15k
Month - 69k
YTD - 938k


These early morning starts are tough, not so much getting up but around 10am Im buggered. Lucky I have this week off, I usually grab Sam and lay down and have a nana nap for an hour or so.

5.30am this morning I arrived at the Regatta to run with Clairie and Mark. As I said yesterday the usual group starts at 6am but we ran a little loop before heading off with them just to add a few extra k's.

The weather is perfect for running this time of year and it is amazing that just a month ago I would have not even considered getting out for a run in the morning due to the cold.

The 3 of us headed off at a casual pace, I had no idea where we were but was happy to be running somewhere new. We basically followed bike paths and side streets that were at times hilly, I was also suprised as to how many people kick about in the city doing exercise. Im usually an afternoon person and dont usually venture far away from my home and generally see no-one, it was a pleasing site.

We arrived back at the Regatta around 27 minutes later and 5.37k down. We waited around for a few minutes for the last people to arrive which gave me the opportunity to grab the hat and sunnies before heading off again.

Amongst others Tesso had joined us at 6am, she is heading to Sydney for a holiday and is running a 1/2 of Sunday so this was her easy mid sized run. We headed on to the river path and ran until the 5k turn around which is in the Botanical gardens. The pace was very consistent clocking slightly over 5 min/k's for the majority of the run.

It was great to have some company, and run at a casual pace. Whenever I do my long runs it is generally alone and I tend to get bored. When this happens I increase the pace making it more of a tempo run. This is why I think I have been getting injured more often this year.

Anyway on the way back the pace started to lift slightly and with about 500m to go Clairie unleashed and took off, she was setting a great pace to finish so I just stuck with her. Overall we ran 15.37k in a little over 77 minutes.

After finishing I did somewhat of a stretch but just got chatting before heading off. Clairie and Tesso also told me about Fridays run, an 8k differential run followed by a nice greasy breakfast which sounds awesome.