Well, That Was Easier Than I Thought It Would Be

Wow! I just ran up Bridge Valley Road.

Well, I say “ran”; actual runners might take issue. But it was a definite jog, at least. I’d dug around for advice on teh intarwebs, and basically just started off the hill nice and slowly, with a shorter pace than my on-the-flat running. And I kept it slow and steady, and I just kept on going. All the way up Bridge Valley Road, from the Portway by the river to the height of the Suspension Bridge.

And then I just kept on going. The path I chose initially turned out not to be lit, damn it, so I plugged carefully away on that until I saw a chance to turn and head for the glowier Clifton residential area, which turned out to be about my halfway point anyway.

Then I jogged through Clifton, back down to Hotwells, and home. I stopped to take this photo of the Suspension Bridge (forgive the blurriness; the iPhone did a valiant job, but this was handheld in the dark), but apart from that I just kept on jogging. Given the warm-up at the beginning and a shorter warm-down at the end, I’d guess I ran a tad under 5km.

And I could have carried on. This is quite gratifying; it’s going to be a lot easier to get better at hills if I can actually run all the way up a decent one right now, albeit slowly. And it puts the Downs within my reach, with enough energy to do a half-decent loop while I’m up there.

Now all I’ve got to do is figure out which paths are actually lit at night! Might do a bit of digging with Google Streetview before I head out again…