5 mi. I woke up at 2:45am after purposely left the curtains open in my hotel room before I slept. I know when I come to Australia that I always do a kooky middle of the night run. When you run that early, the streets are yours. I don’t encounter any delivery vehicles, cars, or people the whole time. Only the traffic lights change; they flow in perfect timing down the street in a wave of red, amber or green. I really like seeing the city I’m visiting in this manner!
I ran across the auto bridge outside my hotel (the Park Regis) to the area by the Brisbane Convention Center known as South Bank. The bridge was under construction, there was a police car with lights flashing close to my hotel, but no commotion. I ran half way across the bridge on the detour side, then I went to the city side and had no problems from the police or the “under construction” road surface. I ran down the street until I got to the Convention Center, where I went down to the path on the side of the Brisbane River. There were many things to snap pictures of with my iPhone. A pagoda and associated Asian structures. A Ferris wheel. A beach and sand bottomed pool. I kept stopping every so often to snap a photo of the CBD area across the river. I definitely remember running this route several years ago on another early am run. My goal was to get good pictures of the Cliffs area, but once I got close to the M3 bridge, I saw that the Cliffs were dark. When I drove home from the Mt Gravatt store, the Cliffs were very well lit all the way around the curve of the river to the Story Bridge. Not this year. I crossed the river at a pedestrian bridge that went under the M3 auto bridge. Then I headed south again, completely alone and now running into a breeze. I took my white cotton shirt off and ran the rest of the way home holding it in my hand. I ran back through the city, what a neat experience. As I returned back to the Park Regis, it wasn’t close to being light out. When you leave at 3am and run a staggered 5 miles, stopping frequently for pictures, it amounts to about an hour of time away. I zipped up to my room to shower and upload the pictures I took to Facebook. Ths was a GREAT run for me down under!
drun4fun 