Day 34 - New running route!

Next up on our running plan today was a 40-50 minute easy jog, and me and Fiona headed out together, so that we could chat on the phone while running. I really wasn’t sure where to go for this run, as I’m getting sick of the routes I’ve been doing so far, and the flat path on the south side of the river Lee is always quite busy with people. Really wanting to avoid the hills, I headed off to the river. However, this time, I started running along the road on the north side of the river. I haven’t run along here before as I had never known whether there was a path. I’ve driven it a few times and I had it in my head that it would be a bad place to run. How wrong was I?!

The road has a completely flat path that continues for 2km. There is almost nobody on it, and the road is very quiet of cars too! I think the reason that there are very few people on this road is because there are very few houses within 2km of it. There are almost no houses on the road itself, and I was in the countryside quite quickly. I cheated a bit, because I jogged down the hill from my house, and then started running for 2km our to the end of the path and back. At the furthest point, I could have been 2.5km from home. A Garda car passed me on the way back though and didn’t stop. As Leo said, they’re not in the business of trying to catch people who stray slightly beyond their 2km radius.

I’m so overjoyed to have found a new running route, especially one that is flat and reasonably empty of people. It will make a change from all of the hills I’ve been running on recently. Poor Fiona had to listen to me on the phone for half the run talking about how excited I was to find this new route! I finished my run with an extended walk, to prolong my time out in the sunshine. On the walk, I spotted a bag outside someone’s house offering free homegrown herbs, and also a windowsill offering free Italian pasta and tinned food. I love seeing nice gestures from people! I’ve also started saying hello to anyone I pass on my walk. It’s a nice little way to brighten up my, and their, day! I’ve noticed a few elderly people on Blarney Road standing in their doorways recently. It seems that they like the company of seeing people, even strangers passing by, so I’m going to smile and say hello any time I can.

I spent most of the afternoon working on the Crusaders table quiz that I’m hosting next week. Then, in the evening, Mum was quizmaster for our Sheehan family quiz. It was great, and also lovely to see all the family again. I particularly liked the picture round that Mum had made, where we had to name each member of the family from about sixteen baby photos! Someone thought Mia was Peter, and a few confused Vincent and Grandad. What I couldn’t get over was how like Fiona Granny was when she was a child!Weiterlesen