Commuter Runner

Another day, another line to cross! For years I'd looked on commuter runners with half envy, half how on earth do you manage that? You know the people. The ones who strap their backpacks to their back, slip some running shoes on their feet, and off they jog to/from work. Double bonus points for the commuter runners at the end of the day who couldn't be bothered with changing their fancy shirts or ties and just thought "the heck with this! I'm going straight home to shower and throw my clothes in the laundry anyway".

Well, on Monday of this week I joined The Ranks.
Yep. I changed my clothes (really, I don't think I'll EVER run home in my work clothes, but you never know!), strapped my yellow backpack to my back, and off I ran into the semi-unknown. The trip was a lovely jaunt along the river.
And do you know my favourite part? My favourite part was how I was taking it easy, chilling out as I ran. And at the 9k mark I noticed that I was at 54minutes. I thought to myself, hmmm. The hmmm thought came because I was doing some mental calculations. 54min/9km = 6min/km. I have a 10k race coming up the 1st of June and my goal (since I haven't run such a distance in a LONG time) was a sub-60min. So then on top of the hmmm, I thought, I wonder if I still have it? I wonder if - despite not making this a 'race' per-se - I can still run a sub-60min 10k just to prove to myself I can do it.
And so I picked up the pace a touch more, to make sure I didn't get 60.05min, or something along those lines.
Okay, I might have picked up the pace a lot more.
And I finished with a sub-60min! Yep, I still got it.
The total distance was about 10.5k. That's a pretty good distance for running home. And it only took me about 10minutes longer than the bus takes.
You know what? I might frequent the commuting paths in my running shoes more often. Maybe I'll become one of those constant commuter runners.
Oh, how times have changed!