Morning run with Dave!

Yesterday I was exchanging a few tweets with a friend and a plan was hatched – a morning run with Dave!

Somehow I got the wrong time in my head and I was knocking on Dave’s door at 7:00am (we live quite close to each other).  His house was all in darkness, which I tried not to be too fazed at.  While I waited I jogged up and down his road in an effort to keep warm and not look too suspicious.  After a little while Dave appeared at the front door in his dressing gown (!) commenting ever-so-politely that I’d got the time wrong and I was 30 minutes too early.

Slightly unnerved by this I accepted Dave’s invitation to wait inside while he got himself ready, after all it was only a matter of time before one of his neighbours spotted this odd bloke hanging around outside in the dark.

We set off…. using one of Dave’s C25K podcasts and Laura’s encouraging voice urging us to get ready for a 90 second run, or was it a 90 second rest?  We made our way through the pre-dawn neighbourhood to the edge of the Blows Downs, stopping for a little stretch.

Passing the slumbering cattle along the bottom of Blows Downs we chatted away, seeing the day light gradually grow brighter.  It was lovely, the air was clear, the quickly changing colours in the sky were so beautiful.

We headed out onto the Busway and had a gentle run interspersed with a brisk walk, according to what Laura was saying.  There were plenty of cyclists whizzing past, such a great thing to see.  We went as far as the Dunstable/ Luton boundary and then headed back, again a kind of run/walk routine and before too long we were back in our neighbourhood with us heading our different ways to go home.

I like Dave, I know him through our church as a fellow Christian.  He’s a clever chap and has a nice sense of fun.  I remarked how brilliant he has been in motivating so many other people to take up running, particularly in the local Parkrun.  There must be 15 folk who regularly turn up, all through Dave’s Facebook or Twitter posts.

For Dave this is all part of his healthy lifestyle regular routine.  He’s got a very methodical and disciplined streak in him, the kind of thing many people admire.  For myself this is very similar but I am having to learn a new way of keeping fit.  I can’t go dashing out and running 6 or 7 hilly miles so easily as I once did, I’m having to be patient and to avoid further problems, build things up very, very slowly.

Doing this kind of thing with someone else brings another dimension to fitness; when you’re chatting away you don’t notice the effort needed.  Instead there’s the camaraderie to enjoy and be encouraged by.

I did enjoy this little pootle with Dave, a splendid way of starting the day.  I hope it won’t be the last….