Sometimes I don’t dare get excited about what’s to come. Sometimes it’s too much to hope for future joys. But in the case of the Flora London Marathon, on April 26, 2009, I can’t help myself. I’ve barely recovered from NYC and already I’m having visions of myself jetting across the ocean, getting ready to dash through the London suburbs and city streets, an impetuous American girl cheekily beating the Brits on their own course. This is the first in a series of posts about London, and running in London, and the 2009 Flora London Marathon, as I slowly acclimate towards my next 26.2-mile endeavor over the next half-dozen months.
My friend, runner, and fellow follower of the elites TS moved to London (her job shipped her off, lucky lady) several months ago. She blogs about her efforts to unwrap the place at Tea Knee Goes to the UK (added to my blog roll a few weeks ago), and has generously allowed me to excerpt one of her posts, about a recent run through the royal city. I’ve been begging her for details about her London runs, as one of my all-time favorite runs was while on vacation there with Mom a few years ago. For the four or five days we were there, every morning I’d head out along the south side of the Thames, from Borough Market all the way past the London Eye, Shakespeare’s Globe Theater, up to Big Ben and Parliament, then turn around and head back to our hotel.
So. Here is TS’s narration of her first foray as a runner on the streets of London. Take it away, TS!
October 21, 2008: On Wednesday, on the suggestion of my director, I decided to venture off the treadmill and run in the open air. The idea was to run along the embankment up to Westminster and then cut across into the city and run through St. James Park up to Hyde Park around the Serpentine and back to the office. “Idea” being the operative word. I started out on the wrong tone, taking a left when I was supposed to take a right, so I ended up taking the round-a-bout way to the embankment path. From there I paced myself off an attractive Brit gentlemen (his Englishness being an assumption here, since the only things I knew about him were that he was attractive and we ran at the same relative pace). I ended up following my new friend until he stopped to tie his shoe (which was awkward ’cause I could not pretend that I just happened to be on the same course as him and had to continue). Note to anyone who is thinking of following this course of action: DON’T!!! I wound up discovering that he did not have the same route idea as me and as such I was completely off course. Rather than running towards St. James Park, I ended up running towards The Victoria Tower Gardens. Realising [Note fancy British spelling. -PF] this, I started to make my way into the city stopping every so often to ask the kind people of London how to make my way to St. James Park. Oh let me tell you, they were NOT HELPFUL! Just like NYC, no one working in London is actually from London. I did manage to find my way to Buckingham Palace (approaching it from the west rather than the east) and ran around Green Park, through St James Park and back to the gym. It was quite the adventure, but it was enjoyable. I am going to start adding outdoor runs to my training schedule. Hopefully next time around I won’t get lost, but I truly like the idea of being able to run by Big Ben, the Thames, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, etc on a normal afternoon training run. I don’t even have to go far, within a 9K loop I can immerse myself in loads of London attractions and history. If the future runs are anything like today, then I definitely am going to need to start running outside-9K on a treadmill is simply awful regardless of how fast you try to run it.
TK, I’m excited for you to run this marathon. And I’m totally jealous of TS for her escapades in London…it reminds me of my runs through Budapest this summer.
Ha… sounds like the run I took a few summers back. It was a cool time since Blair was on his way out and there was all kinds of political rally people all around town. How fun. I’m glad TS is enjoying it over there!
How cool, you get to run NYC and then London in back to back years! I’m jealous!