beige_alert | Running

About two years ago I jokingly asked just how much running someone can do without having to admit to being one of those runners. I think it's safe to say that whatever the limit is, I'm past it now that I've taken to occasionally running to work. 14.14km each way (8.8 miles for any Americans in the audience.) It's only 7km more than a half marathon but with a long break in the middle, so no problem, right? For some reason the trip home always feels longer, though each time I do this it's faster and feels easier than the last. It does make one appreciate the invention of the wheel. By bicycle this is an easy, routine trip, easily made every day, generally in something between 34 and 40 minutes. Running it's been between 1:16 and 1:25, so I do have to get up early. It's fun, though. Cyclists (which is always what I've primarily thought of myself as) get to cycle to work or to other actual destinations. Runners mostly just exercise in irregularly-shaped loops (or sometimes regularly-shaped loops). Actually going somewhere is a special treat. The last trip to work I ended up running along with someone for about 1.25km, having a nice chat with her. Driving a car you never get to chat with your fellow motorists, mostly you are limited to the "you're number one!" hand gesture (as they call it in auto racing), or shouting something like [bad word] you! You [bad word]! That's just not the same social experience. It's possible to have a conversation while cycling, too, and I've done that a few times as well.

The other people at work do think I'm kind of special, not that they didn't before anyway. I work at a medical school, however, so this sort of thing may be weird but it's the good kind of conspicuously physically fit weird.