Early Morning Surprises

The kids woke up this morning at 5:20am; the eldest wanted to announce that he had done a wee in the pottie and the youngest had done a wee in his bed. After offering sincere congratulations for the pottie-wee, changing the sheets of the bed-wee and strongly encouraging both of them to go back to sleep, I went back to bed. The first surprise of the day.

After about two minutes I decided that my time might be better spent doing something other than laying wide awake staring at the ceiling, So I got out of bed and got dressed to go out for a run.

After the initial surprise at not having a pulse (the second surprise of the day), I picked my Mio ALPHA up from the desk and put it on my arm. Once on my arm, it confirmed that my heart was actually beating.

I set my zone to ‘easy’ (below 156bpm for me at the moment), put on my new Altra Intuition shoes, plugged in earphones and left the house for my first run since shaking off a cough-cold and smashing the end of my big toe. By the time I was on my way to the beach park, it was 5:45am. The weather was gorgeous. It was warm but breezy and not too humid. There was a surprising number of people already up and about - other runners, dog walkers, cyclists, couples strolling - and I felt very safe even though  it was still dark.

Once I entered the beach park and was running parallel to the beach, there was even more breeze... so nice! I was anticipating keeping the run short as I was wearing new shoes and I thought the Altras may take some breaking in and be a bit uncomfortable in the meantime. I need not have worried. I can say with absolute confidence that they are the most comfortable running shoes I have ever worn. The inside felt pretty much seamless, no hot spots or chafing, my toes were having a great time in the wide toe box, there was just the right amount of support and just the right amount of cushioning. The third surprise of the day.

The fourth surprise was not a good one. A row of about 10 of the path lights weren’t working – which would usually be fine. There were plenty of people around and I could still see where I was going from the lights further along the path. However, this morning the light was not quite good enough for me to see where a tree root had pushed up a lump of the path. Suddenly – with Survivor singing, ‘”Face to face, out in the hee-eat, hanging tough’ stayin’ hungreeee!” into my ear– I was on the floor!

If anybody saw me fall, they pretended they didn’t, so I brushed off my knees and my hands (which were smarting a bit), got up on my feet again and continued my run.  I continued out for another 20 minutes or so then turned back to head home in time for when the boys should have been waking up again.

The sky was turning from black to pink to orange as the sun came up behind the ships out at sea. It was the perfect end to a lovely run and - although the sun rises in the morning every day - the last surprise before I arrived home just after 7am was how beautiful the sunrise at the beach was.

I had breakfast with my family before I went off to the office, looking forward to some more surprises for the rest of my day!