Back to the trails!

Saturday marked exactly 9 weeks since the last time I left London. Lockdown has really changed my views about living here, and for the last few weeks I've been missing the trails so much - the open spaces, the big skies and peace and quiet, that no matter how early or late, or where you chose run here, you just can't find them. Constantly running on pavements, stopping to cross roads, jumping off pavements to avoid people, always some kind of a noise in the background; it has kind of stopped being the fun that it was back at the start, when deserted streets and stolen solitary moments with the big landmarks made it seem like the city was all your own. The slight lockdown relaxation has brought it back with a bang that it's really not, and normal life which was blurred out of all focus for a couple of months, has felt like it's come back into sharper vision. A bit like, at the opticians, when they suddenly take off your glasses so you can't see a thing, and then play that cruel game with the not quite strong enough lenses for ages, so you can sort of see that should be there, but not quite enough so you can really make it out (....it looks like H, but it might be an M, but let's go with N). Anyway, that may not make sense, but that's where I feel at the moment.  

Last week I got ill inconveniently at the exact time we were allowed to meet a person outside of the household, and also to do driving to go to exercise. So this week, it was nice to do both of those things! Great to meet up with my sister (and explore a new place - Hollow Ponds) and then Tara....and do a TRAIL run!

It's been over 3 months since doing a long run like this. I'd forgotten everything I needed to pack in a running bag, or which pockets I use for what. I even forgot I'd got a new pair of trail shoes shortly before lockdown, and put my road ones on in autopilot, and ran it in those. But no matter, it was good to be reunited with the kit in one way or another.

Started and finished at Denbies, and did a 30 mile (LDWA, Winter Tanners route) run in the Surrey Hills. It was nice to do something LDWA themed, as this weekend was meant to be the LDWA 100 in Wales, and I should have been finishing it this afternoon (so long as I hadn't got stuck in a Welsh bog somewhere on the way around). Although Coronovirus has turned the world upside down, the weather is gloriously unaffected - it was definite 100 weekend, as the weather was "mixed" - twinkling sunshine one minute, biblical rain showers the next, followed by gusts of wind, then back to sunshine again. 

What a day! I've missed this so much. The trails, the views, the air, the laughs, following a route description filled with cryptic abbreviations, hills, getting rained on then drying in the sun, ultra-runner topics of conversation, exploring new places. Even the things that I thought when running, well, I could really do without this (for example, sore feet and aching muscles, the tired feeling afterwards, insatiable hunger), actually those feelings are the ones that I realised that I'd missed too in a funny sort of way. All those things, and the runners that you are with when you experience them, are the things that I miss most about running. That, and some things that we can't have back yet - like not having all your running buddies around, and not being able to be close to each other. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to do 100 miles without a hug. But anyway, hopefully one day that will change too. And here are some memories of a lovely run.....

Only one third of the hundred, but as the furthest I've run since in the last almost three months is 13 miles, that's OK. And, I have all of my toenails and no blisters, which is most usual for this point in the running year, and sounds like an reason to celebrate.....

Lockdown Running: week 7 & week 8

Lockdown running week 7 was a good one. I was getting a bit fed up of running and people dodging in the city, it was true, and was hopeful of the upcoming BoJo announcement at the end of the week that might signal some hope and escape from the city walls. But, despite the underlying current of monotomy of the same limited routes, I did my daily 5 kms to and from work, and a fast (for me) 10km to celebrate the bank holiday Friday to St Paul's in the evening. 

On the Saturday I did my longest run of lockdown - a half marathon, and made it all the way past Buckingham Palace to Green Park and back. The joy of running somewhere (even slightly) different was almost too much, and I pushed myself to run faster and feel the joy of feeling the warm spring air across my skin, running down Birdcage Walk and pretending I was doing the last mile of the London Marathon with all those other runners and people celebrating on the streets. Oh, how I missed those days! 

Then on Sunday, the day of the anticipated announcement, I woke up feeling a bit tired and not very engaged in life. Cycled to Hyde park with Andrew and then ran home, but feeling tired, to make up 53 miles for the week. Then I got a migraine and missed the anticipated announcement (which turned out to be the only slightly good one for weeks). 

Lockdown week 8 has been a total write off, so there's not much to write about. My migraine turned into virus like symptoms, I slept for 48 hours almost solid, and had most of the the other symptoms. Thankfully it turned out not to be it. I didn't barely move for 5 days, and was a most miserable morsel of malady. Thank you all my family and friends for your kindness and support, and looking after me, and putting up with my melancholy! I just manged a slow 5 km run again, so am beginning a gradual climb up out of the doldrums. Hurrah! 

Hope everyone is keeping safe and well, missing you all 💚💛💜💙💗

Lockdown Running - Week 6

Week 6 of Lockdown was a Letdown. It wasn't my favourite week. I came to the conclusion that working in a basement office, mostly by myself, and quite often in the dark (as the lights are on timers, which seem to be getting shorter the further through Lockdown we go), talking about what seems mostly to be poo (all of my patient's seem to have diarrhoea this week), isn't great for boosting your mood. It rained a lot. So the basement office was even more gloomy than usual. Everyone else outside of the basement office it seemed was getting on and achieving amazing things during lockdown (saving lives/ keeping the country running/ smiling and being cheerful/ fighting the illnesses they had before lockdown and not complaining about it/ finding creative ways to run during the restrictions), and I was just sat in a basement in the dark feeling gloomy about it all, and at a bit of a loss.

Luckily, I was saved from the depths of gloom, by three things: 1) the Wuhan to London virtual relay, 2) the rain, 3) my sadness that this very weekend was meant to be the Thames Path 100, and up until 6 weeks ago my training had been going well, and I was hoping to have a good run.

On the face of it, none of that makes sense. Let me explain.

1) The Wuhan to London relay. This began in week 1 of Lockdown, instigated by the Recce Gang (Alan, Tara, Andrew and me) - we always recce the LDWA 100 route over a long weekend a few weekends before the actual event. We were meant to be going (to Wales) to do the recce a couple of weekends after Lockdown began, and were in the doldrums about cancelling it. So, during a virtual tea party/checkpoint, the idea of running a virtual relay from Wuhan back to London was discovered, and we have been adding up our total mileage each week since. It's 5263 miles in total from Wuhan to London, and at the end of week 5 (786 miles done), we were still in China, but getting close to the border. So I thought this week, I'd have a push, and try to run further than my usual weekly miles, and support our journey towards a new country (although, our initial aim of getting back to London, doesn't seem like altogether such a great idea right now). Alan has made a Google Earth flight (thank you, Alan - you always keep up our spirits and keep us organised even during a global pandemic!) of our journey so far, and it's a 1.5 hour long flight to do the miles covered up until that point, which isn't too shoddy. 

2) The rain. Let me be the first to say, I didn't think a rainy week would pull me up from the depths of gloom. Yet, I am persuaded to say, that the rain this week turned out to be a positive thing, as there were less people out, so running to/from work was much quieter, so I felt able to extend my routes a bit.

3) I was gutted the Thames Path 100 was cancelled, and I'm missing all things 100 related, so I set myself the aim of running 100 km (about 60 miles) this week, just because I don't know why, but it had 100 in it, so felt about right. 

Day 35 - Monday 27th April: 3.2 miles & 4.4 miles
Normal run to work. On the way home I tried to take a new route, via an essential items shop, and got lost, so it turned out to be longer, and I ended up running around the Emirates stadium by accident. On the plus side, I got some extra weight training in having to run extra far with a heavy bag.

Day 36 - Tuesday 28th April: 4.3 miles & 3.3 miles
It was raining in the morning, so I did two laps of my local park, Haggerston Park, which is normally busy in the mornings with people exercising, but today it was almost empty in the rain. An elderly couple had lost their little white dog. This was almost too sad to bear, so I distracted myself with a fun fact I have recently discovered about the park. In 1992, Micheal Jackson, along with Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse, landed by helicopter in the park, and visited the nearby children's hospital. Who knew!

Day 37 - Wednesday 29th April: 4.1 miles, 3.9 miles
The sun was back, so I tried the park but it was too busy, so I took a detour, which ended up as another detour around some road works, and another detour around a closed road, and so it ended up being just as long, if not quite as scenic.

Day 38 - Thursday 30th April: 4.2 miles & 4.8 miles.
A repeat of yesterday, with the addition of an extra "stress busting" mile at the end of a particularly gloomy day in the basement. Oh, and in the morning, I saw the elderly couple from Tuesday walking with a small white dog, so I guessed he must have been found. Happiness!

Day 39 - Friday 1st May: 4 miles & 3.2 miles
I was a bit tired really by the end of the day, so just ran home as usual, and collected some flowers on the way to cheer things up:

Day 41 - Saturday 2nd May: 11 miles
It's the weekend, and so it is time to head back to the City. The normal route down to St Paul's, a quick pop across the river and back, and a loop up to Farringdon, and then back. We found Dr Johnson's House.

And the statue of Dr Johnson's most famous cat, Hodge. 

He has an oyster shell, which seems extravagant, but in the eighteenth century, oysters were cheap, and eaten by the poor. The more unusual thing, was that Dr Johnson would go out to buy them himself, rather than sending a servant, as he worried they may resent the errand and mistreat Hodge. 

After Dr Johnson's House, it was time to head down Shoe Lane. I have been disappointed during my research this week, to learn it was not once a lane where which you would head in order to buy any style and colour of shoe that you wished for. No, indeed, it is thought that the name dates from when this area of London was farmland, and it is hypothesised that here lay a piece of land/farm in the shape of a shoe. So there you go.

On the way back, we took in Bread Street and Milk Street, which have more easily deducible origins to their names. 

Bread Street is the site of the City's bread market - in the fourteenth century, bakers could only sell their bread from this street, not from their own homes or bakeries.  Milk Street was the site of London's medieval milk market, but was bombed badly during WW2 and none of it's original buildings survived. It also falls in the Ward of Cheap (The City of London has 25 wards - a survival of the medieval government system - so the big city was split into small areas that self-governed themselves). This does not mean the Ward of Cheap was in any way a place for bargains - rather instead that "cheap" is an old word for "market".

And herein ends today's history lesson.

Day 42 - Sunday 3rd May: 10.5 miles - pretty much the same as yesterday, minus a few diversions. Set my Garmin 10km PB today too. 

So I did just over 60 miles this week....and I guess it's back to The Basement tomorrow, to start Week 7....

...but I just remembered, there is a Bank Holiday on Friday! 

Take care and stay safe, missing you all!💙💚💛💜💗