Saturday 27 December 2014

My #ChristmasRun everyday

For the last week I have been on holiday from work and I have been enjoying some great runs.  One of the utterly fantastic things about my holiday so far is that I have run EVERY DAY!  To date I have had eight runs.  This is something I had been looking forward to for a while because:

  • I can handle daily running for a couple of weeks
  • A great way of burning up all of those extra Christmas calories
  • Running in the winter landscape can be a magical experience
  • A way of grabbing some much needed daylight, some "me" time, so peaceful
  • Burns off the frustrations and anxieties which have built up at work in the last few weeks (things are pretty demanding and challenging right now)
  • I see it as a mini challenge which I have enjoyed before

In fact I did something pretty similar around Christmas 2012 and thoroughly enjoyed it.  Last year in 2013 I continued with the theme and cycled everyday, instead of running.  So this year it's back to running and I'm thoroughly enjoying it because:
  • Every run has been completely different: my mood, the weather, the route and the distance (shortest is just under 2 miles, longest over 10 miles).  Yesterday it was frosty and frozen early in the morning.  Today I ran in the afternoon over and this included some muddy tracks
  • I have had a mixture of long runs (my favourite!) and shorter runs
  • Running on Christmas Day, at daybreak was special.  Only a couple of cars seen; no cyclists or other runners 
  • Today's run was the best.  In fact it was my second 10+ mile run during this last week and although the weather was pretty cold (including a little snow flurry), I came back absolutely glowing and it's as if I could almost feel the blood buzzing right around my whole body: it was a wonderful run
  • It has been an excellent way of spending some time thinking about all kinds of things.  Amongst those thoughts have been about my next challenge and I still haven't quite made up my mind.  Could be a running challenge, or perhaps cycling, or both or even something new.  Either way it's a nice thing to chew over as I still haven't decided
  • I have been tweeting using the hashtag #ChristmasRun and it's been nice seeing what other people from around the world have been doing with their own Christmas running.
  • I still have quite a few more runs to do.  I'm due back at work on 5th January and I'm planning to run each day until then.
Please leave me a comment if you've been running over Christmas.  What have you done, what's been special about it?

No comments:

Post a Comment