Darwin running and fire alarms

So I am still up in the beautiful city of Darwin in the Northern Territory this week following the Alice Springs Running Festival on the weekend.

 Knowing that I was going to be up here for most of the week and that I have the Perth City to Surf Half this weekend coming I planned to get a couple of runs in. I had given myself Monday as a rest day and set the alarm for 05:15 (and the second alarm for 05:17!). It gets really hot and humid here in Darwin. Yesterday the temps hit the mid 30’s (degrees C) and humidity was in the high 90%’s hence the desire to run in the morning. Pretty different to my usual stomping grounds in Perth.

02:57 I found myself being jolted awake to the insistent ringing of the fire alarm! As I scrabbled about to find my trousers and a shirt the siren stopped!  I poked my head out of the bedroom door to see no movement in the halls and decided that I would go back to bed! But also changed my alarms as the morning run was out! Guilt racked my mind all day in the office so at 1830 after work I donned the runners and set out on a familiar run from the hotel up into the park and back. I planned to go a little further than prior runs and reach the very end of the park before looping back to the hotel.

 

The only map I could find - an OLD one but you get the gist

 Well I forgot how hard it is to run in the heat and humidity up here. It was about 26 degrees when I set out and humidity must have been high as I was panting and sweating generously by the first km! As an added treat there is a little staircase about 2.5kms from the hotel...

 

The staircase to....the park!

...and of course (cause I am a dork) I take the challenge to continue to bound up the stairs, taking them in my stride…by the time I hit the top step I was blowing pretty hard and had a little walk for 20 – 30 meters. I continued my way through the park at a more reasonable pace (by feeling at least) admiring the panoramic views of the ocean as I pass each of the various memorial points along the way. Overall the run was pretty uneventful, I saw a few fruit bats (urrgh!) and swallowed a couple of mosquitos (really messes with your stride that does!). I was so disappointed when I got back to the hotel on two counts:

1)      The distance was only 7.25kms – I was really hoping (and feeling) like it was closed to 8/9kms.

2)      The pace! 5:42 per km! I mean really!!

The lack of pace is not that much of a surprise to me. I consistently run 20 – 30 secs a km slower when I am in Darwin but it does make me feel a little down that I was putting in what felt like good effort to keep going and the reward was not as planned. That said – I am grateful that I was able to get out and get a few more kms into the legs before the weekend and I am certain that a run in this heat/humidity would be about 3 kms longer at home ;). Another run tonight before the flight home tomorrow and then a sneaky short run on Friday morning and I should be good to go for Sunday!

Oh and a side note – the alarm went off again last night (thankfully at about 2030) and I turns out that I have a faulty alarm in my room! As the nice manager lady said to me….”hopefully it won’t go off in the night and I can get maintenance to look at it in the morning!” Well it didn’t go off in the night and for that I am grateful too!

As always, thanks for reading.