3. The One Where My Feet Got Wet

26 July 2015

This was my first ever back to back run!  In honor of the same, I decided that it would be sensible to do a 10 kilometre run, a little shorter than I have been doing.  I had to meet my lovely friend Sarah and her GORGEOUS nine-month-old twins for lunch, so I was restricted to running in London, and I thought it would be sensible to use my second home gym to shower in so that I could get up a little later, but the only problem was that my gym is on Strand which is flat as a pancake and full of people to boot.  

However, a little visit to GoogleMaps soon sorted that out - I could run to Primrose Hill and run back and it was exactly 10 kilometres, plus it was uphill on the way there and downhill on the way back.  Perfect!

One thing I hadn't banked on was the weather - it was POURING.  Real, proper, horrible, cold, wet rain ... however, on the basis that there is a chance that in October in England it might, in fact, rain on me on the ultra, I set off anyway (I'm so hench).

All I can say about this run route is NEVER AGAIN!!  The route looks fabulous on paper - basically straight up and then straight down - but in practice it's horrendous.  Even at 10:00 on a Sunday morning the roads were rammed full of people (and in the rain, all of them had umbrellas up so they took up the entire footpath and I couldn't avoid them).  Worse though is the enormous number of cross-streets - London is full of them!  This meant that I couldn't get a good rhythm going because I couldn't run more than 200 metres without stopping to cross a road (which had it's benefits, I must say, but still ...).  Once I got over Marylebone Road it was better, but I still wouldn't do that route again.  I didn't take any pictures because the weather was too horrific, but this is what my feet looked like afterwards - bloody soaking!



On the upside, it was exactly the distance I wanted to run (once I'd looped Strand a little bit at the end) and it served its purpose.  So not all bad!  Plus I got to eat a delicious Pad Thai with Sarah in the Selfridges food court and not feel guilty and that is definitely the right thing on a Sunday afternoon!