Run home from work - 27th Jan

For ages I've thought about running home from work one night. Its about 11.5-12 miles from Altens in Aberdeen to Stonehaven and apart from a few big long hills, is relatively level. So in my new found running buzz I decided to go for it. Before I've prevaricated - always to busy, too cold, too windy, too wet etc etc. Tonight no real excuses. Strong NW breeze [i.e. behind me], warmish at 4-5degC.

So left work at 5:50 and headed out. I'd looked at the route before and new most of the important bits. From Altens, head south along the path beside the dual carridgeway to the south turn off for Cove. From there for a mile or so it was on unlit back roads with the head torch on [and red torch on my backpack] taking care to assume the cars had not seen me. Noticed a couple of potential paths I could use next time to keep me off the road. For some reason the Garmin lost about a mile at this point - perhaps I pressed the wrong button by accident. Anyway I was soon out beside the main A90 motorway and ran along on the well lit path that runs beside it. I knew I had a couple of bail out points and it was not long before Iwas at the first, Asda at Portlethen, but I was going strong and plodded on past it. Next bail out point was the new Tesco Express at Newtonhill, after the long long climb up the hill to get there that is!

Once again no need to even think about escaping. Tescos marks a big change in the route. It stays beside the motorway, but heads out into the dark countryside, but remains lit for a couple of miles. All I needed to do was run down to Muchalls, then back up the long long hill on the otherside before the next chage of route style. At the top of the hill, the lights stop and the path becomes a simple mud/grass/stone track. Back on with the headtorch then! This lasts for 2miles before I eventually reached the turn off for Stoney. What a great feeling it was to turn off down the hill [which incidently felt like running uphill for some reason???].

Running down into Stoney I was smiling and loving it. I could easily have gone on for a fair bit, legs were good, breathing easy and spirits high. Compared to the Glen Clova half this was bliss and reminded me of just how much I love running long and running from place to place. Speed is not important for me, though it would be nice to be faster in short events, and it seems i can cruise at 10-11 min/mile for ages and ages.

I think I will be doing this every week now!