Cadging a lift

Erina Valley this morning.

Running the same courses each week, month in month out, can get boring.  Of course, it's always possible to drive to another location to run, but that can be time-consuming.  I have written before about alleviating the boredom by doing some exploring (see posts titled "Getting out the door" and "Small explorations").

Climbing Kincumba Mt this morning.

Another method I have employed is to cadge a lift from a family member who is driving somewhere, get dropped off and then run home.  The distance can be varied according to taste, and of course, you don't have to take the most direct route home.  I've also done it when dropping the car off for a service, or similar, and there are other ways to work in a run somewhere different minimising the time cost.

Starting the technical descent from
Kincumba Mt this morning.

This morning, I asked Sharon to give me a lift to the school where she teaches near Erina so I could run home through Erina Valley and over Kincumba Mountain.  These are areas I know quite well, but I don't get to run through them that frequently.

It was a beautiful morning, yet again, and a number of times I reminded myself how lucky I was to have such great places to run, largely to myself, and to just be running again.  There were a few long climbs, and some technical descents, but the 14km passed easily, if slowly.  I'm starting to feel like a runner again.