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!💙💚💛💜💗
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