Today's run started yesterday morning when I woke to find a text from Dave: "In Harpenden tomorrow for a rugby tournament. Want to meet for a run?"
Now Dave hasn't had a blog mention for many a month now. And there's a good reason for this: a year ago he quit the City for the far, far tougher career of teaching. I've only seen him the once since then and so was more than happy to swap Saturday's tempo with Sunday’s easy in order to meet-up.
Further texts were exchanged and agreement was quickly reached on 9:30 start (excellent – lie in territory) for a seven to eight mile run. The distance worked particularly well for me as my schedule had me down for 12 miles and it's just over two miles either way to the rugby club.
I hummed and harred a bit regarding route but finally decided to go for a loop round Harpenden taking in the pleasantries of West and East Common, the High Street (wow so many estate agents and building societies), The Avenues and the Nickey Line. Well Harpenden is nice so why not show it off?
The rain kept off as I filled Dave in with all the coming and goings (mainly goings) at work. And he gave me an update and what it's like being a bone-idle teacher-training student!
Seven and a half miles covered at a relaxed easy pace got us back to the rugby club in time to catch Dave’s daughter in action (did I mention it was a girls' rugby tournament?) and then it started to rain.
Two and a quarter miles home gave me a total of 12.04 for the day. Spot on. Couldn't have planned it better myself.
