Today I ran north (ish) along the river instead of my usual southerly exploration.
It's trickier because it's through the middle of town, or, more accurately, under the central one-way system (we're not here yet). That's straightforward enough (bar the petrol fumes) heading out, but unless I want to just turn back and retrace my steps (which I don't like doing for some reason) it gets more difficult to also avoid crossing the road (waiting at traffic lights) or flights of steps which jar my knees and slow me down anyway. Such are the perils of outdoor fitness in a modern (sub)urban landscape.
So I played it by ear. I ran up almost in a straight line, along the river bank to the by-pass. The traffic lights there ease the traffic on the road I want to cross (Walnut Tree Close) and so it's easy to skip across and come back again on the other side without risking too much having to wait excessively, or a sudden blast on a van horn or having to leap out of the road. Sidebar: Walnut Tree Close sounds idyllic doesn't it? All those lovely trees bearing tasty (if impossible to crack open) nuts - opening up the possibility of a side-hustle in providing Rowntree's with the key ingredient of a Walnut Whip and nicking logs to turn into the dashboard of a classic car or two. But sadly, no. It's the location of the Royal Mail Sorting Office and several used car dealerships and bathroom emporia, though this community archive blog looks interesting. The grass is green on one side of the road, but I've not lingered long enough yet to investigate whether there are any walnut trees at all, let along any that bear fruit (nuts).
I got away from WTC as soon as I could and turned up the (not steep but prolonged) hill up to the University Campus. The bridge over the railway here used to have graffiti in the 1980s saying "Humpty's Balcony" with a cartoon picture of a broken egg to ram the idea home that this was a perfect spot for stressed students to find a short-term solution to a long-term problem.
I wasn't going to run further up-hill onto campus proper today, I was definitely ready to go down-hill for a bit through the car-park, out and round the station and then through the maze of underpasses and disabled-friendly pathways to get me back on familiar turf and returning to base to find that the total was 5.2km. Which is perfect. If I add this run (with some tweaks) to the southern route, I've got a decent 10k loop (even if some parts of the loop are a bit squashed). I don't know when I'll be mentally and physically prepared to run the whole thing, but it's nice to know it's there in my head for when I am ready.