I'm back!!
So after an absolutely incredible month away in beautiful Australia it has been a bit of a crash back to reality. It is COLD here- and dark- and wet…. Oh how the other half live!
I wanted to write a little post about some of the runs I did while I was away- as proof that I didn’t just drink beer and eat frozen yoghurt the ENTIRE time I was away.
In fact- I ran within 12 hours of landing in Sydney. Jet lag was not my friend and after a couple of hours of broken sleep I had had enough, so I creeped around our room as quietly as possible to gather together my running gear (not that much was needed in 25 degree heat… oh beautiful beautiful heat…) and then I was out that door! Thankfully there was not much chance of me getting lost as we were staying on a street that if followed in one of two directions one of them will lead all the way down to Sydney Harbour. Thankfully I picked the correct direction to head off in and within 20 minutes - I was there! At one of the most photographed and celebrated views this little planet has to offer. It really did not disappoint. I felt so lucky to have it all to myself at silly o'clock in the morning. I barely saw anyone else- just one passer by who told me he liked my socks. (bright purple running socks probably pulled up a little too high).
I managed to get another run under my belt during our week in Sydney- but this time we were over on the north side staying in South Mosman. We woke up early one morning- threw on our running things on and headed to the other side of Mosman to Balmoral Beach. It was a very hilly run with plenty of beautiful houses to lust after. Once we had reached the beach of Balmoral it became clear what a lovely neighborhood this was. There were loads of people around despite it being before 8am - plenty of swimmers and runners and coffee drinkers. Very nice indeed.
One of the more notable runs that we did was during our (too) short stay in Byron Bay. Rather than do the lighthouse ‘walk’ we decided to do the lighthouse run. We probably set off a little too late in the morning (after 9am) as there were plenty of people around and it was already starting to get very hot indeed. It was a beautiful and tough run- with varying terrain which we were happy to see. (I think we were both starting to miss the trails). The views were very rewarding indeed! After reaching the lighthouse we decided to follow the road down as it appeared to be curling towards a beautiful empty beach. Our running trail became shaded by mangroves and there appeared to be an increase in sand underfoot- we must be inches away from that beautiful secluded and sprawling dream beach…. Nope…. We never made it to the ‘dream’ beach instead we made it back to where we had started- oh well- that’s better than nothing I suppose!
Our final run was up in Cairns- now as you can probably imagine- Cairns is HOT! In order to beat the heat of the day we had to be out of the house before 7am- which we made a real effort to ensure we were (hello holiday mode). Cairns is a small city and we were staying a stone's throw from Cairn’s celebrated Esplanade. We were able to run the entire length of the esplanade- looking out to sea- it was a wonderful way to start the day. The best thing about Cairns esplanade is the lagoon. A beautiful outdoor pool that is open 24 hours a day to the public for free. At the halfway point of our run- we waded in and cooled off with a swim before running back to the apartment to dry off.
Ok so I probably didn’t do as many runs as I should have during our month away but this is proof that I at least did a few. It’s a good thing too as the next month of running is a very scary prospect right now…… I’ll write another post about that soon.