2020 was the year that saw #runnersofinstagram race through instagram feeds. Runners ran more, treadmill runners braved the great outdoors and non-runners invested in trainers and signed up to Strava. Whether to counter the baking frenzies, to escape the monotony of WFH or just a way to wile away a few more hours of the day, I'm yet to meet someone who didn't at least try one run last year!
I'm in the trying-not-to-be-too-smug camp of runners who are seeing others realise what we've been going on about for so long.
The benefits stretch far beyond the physical. For me, running is the one time my hundred mile an hour mind slows down - does that mean my mind and body can't multitask?! There's something about the rhythmic strides of running that settles stresses and opens up to a space where I can either think about nothing, or reflect on one thought over and over, and over, again.
That's why I run, but where I run?
Here are a few running views from the last eighteen months which I think, speak for themselves..
I had to start with this, though I say so myself, absolute beaut of a photo. It was 7.30am, I'd drunk so much at a wine-tasting the night before that I was hungover AF, but this made it all worthwhile. Sunrise over a frosty Cambridgeshire field.
I love running the Seven Sisters when I'm visiting my family. Nothing like a strong sea wind to wake you up and work you out! This lost-looking gate made me laugh.
What doesn't make me laugh is the absolute mud-fest of Downs running in the winter. And nothing worse than slipping over, sitting (or lying) in mud and having no-one to joke about it with.
It felt nice to pay a visit to the vines that had so kindly provided the wine that we were drinking like water on our vineyard stay in Sicily. Sometimes it doesn't matter the speed or the distance, but just getting out (soz about it Strava).
Once you start running regularly, there are very few weather conditions that put you off, and many, like this mist, that are well worth getting out for. I'm going with dramatic beautiful rather than creepy here.
Those weather conditions I was talking about? See.. it's always worth ignoring whatever is happening through the bedroom window and just getting out there!
And just like the horizon - the running routes are endless.