When Hable and I first started getting to know each other, we made a bucket list on a paper napkin in an Indiranagar jazz bar. As one does. It made us feel profound on one of our first dates, and cringe on our 10th wedding anniversary—which we celebrated this week. Sunrise on Kilimanjaro. Snorkelling in the Canary Islands. Kayaking through Norwegian fjords. Big ideas confidently handwritten.
Bucket lists are limited in a warm, comforting way. However long your napkin is, they can, in theory, be completed within one lifetime. This list of 10km+ runs is not that organised but one I’ve grown proud of (sort of).
It started accidentally, on holiday in Croatia. I went for a long run, got a little lost, and ended up seeing more of the city than I would’ve over multiple visits.
Work travel, that was intense for a couple of years, had begun to blur in a very predictable way. The well-worn cliché of airport, hotel room and meeting room.
Running changed things, mostly because it forces you to pay attention. Over 10km you pass through enough streets to stop romanticising a place and start noticing it instead. And if it is early in the morning—when almost all my runs happen—cities haven’t quite decided who they’re performing for yet. The streets are half-awake. Shops are opening reluctantly. And you feel both present and entirely irrelevant.
Running an unfamiliar route focuses you on the present, clears your head, and occasionally untangles the knots of everyday issues. It’s also the rare stretch of time that isn’t devoted to the constant buzz of work or keeping up with an energetic preschooler.
This blogpost might sound like I’m disciplined and athletic -I’m neither. But I love this little tradition because the distance is just enough to turn a new urban maze into something slightly personal.
So I started keeping a list. Not a goal. Not a challenge. Just a record of places where I have technically been awake and moving. There is no finish line. Just a growing Strava collection of early mornings, wrong turns, quiet stretches of asphalt (interrupted by the occasional barking dog), and the soft satisfaction of having seen the breadth of a new city, one stride at a time.
My 10k list so far (EOY25):-
1. Amsterdam, NED
2. Barcelona, ESP
3. Bengaluru, IND
4. Berlin, GER
5. Betws-y-Coed, WAL
6. Cannes, FRA
7. Coorg, IND
8. Crete, GRE
9. Dresden, GER
10. Dublin, IRL
11. Eastbourne, ENG
12. Edinburgh, SCO
13. Fuerteventura, ESP
14. Ibiza, ESP
15. Inverness, SCO
16. Kolkata, IND
17. Lagos, POR
18. Lanzarote, ESP
19. London, ENG
20. Livingston (NJ), USA
21. Madrid, ESP
22. Malaga, ESP
23. Marseille, FRA
24. Milan, ITA
25. Mumbai, IND
26. Munich, GER
27. New Delhi, IND
28. New York City, USA
29. Palermo, ITA
30. Paris, FRA
31. Porto, POR
32. Portree, SCO
33. Reykjavik, ISL
34. San Francisco, USA
35. Split, CRO
36. Spreewald, GER
37. St Ives, ENG
38. Tenerife, ESP
39. Tokyo, JPN
40. Weymouth, ENG
