Collect £200 salary as you pass Go

Day:         76

Distance: 33.88km

Time:       2:57:10 secs

Calories:  2,581

Week 11 of the training plan ends with the instruction to complete a "165 mins" run. Seeing as I ran for 162 minutes last Sunday I decided to come up with a longer route. As in the past couple of weeks I thought I'd take the opportunity to go on another sightseeing tour round London. After plotting the route last night I realised that, without designing it that way, the run includes 13 of the 22 'street' squares which feature on the classic Monopoly board.

A map of the run I did on 5th March 2011.

The run starts off in much the same fashion as other recent long runs, which means that the very first street from the Monopoly board that I come to is Old Kent Road. By a happy coincidence, this is also the very first square on the Monopoly board and was also where our legendary Monopoly Pub Crawl started a few years back. Such happy, drunken memories. 

After the Old Kent Road I could have gone across Tower Bridge and turned right to go down Whitechapel Road thereby completing my haul of brown squares, but instead I cross the river at London Bridge and find myself in the City. As in previous weeks I head West following the route of the Thames for a short while until I turn up Northumberland Avenue - the second road on my Monopoly sightseeing tour. At the end of this road I briefly set foot on the Strand, run round Trafalgar Square (both of which feature on the Monopoly board) and up Charing Cross Road.

This route takes me past the tourist hell that is Leicester Square and past the offices of Capital Radio. Although I've got the running playlist on for the duration of the run I couldn't tell you what song was playing at this point, there was only one song running through my head. In the words of the legendary Joe Strummer: "Don't touch that dial!".

When plotting the route I'd forgotten all about the work which is currently going on at Tottenham Court Road as part of the Crossrail project. This means that at the end of Charing Cross Road I have to negotiate the building site where the tube station is and turn left onto Oxford Street. Interestingly, this is the 2nd time that I've run down "Europe's largest high street". The first time occurred a couple of years ago when I had a romantic evening planned which included dinner at Claridges. The tube we were on broke down at Holborn and as we were unable to hail a cab I was worried we'd lose our dinner reservations so Varoo and I both ran from Holborn, along Oxford Street and down to Brook Street to get there in time. We arrived at the restaurant somewhat dishevelled but, crucially, were still able to get the table I had booked. It wasn't the entrance I had planned, but the rest of the evening went very well as Varoo said Yes when I asked her to marry me during dessert.

Anyway, enough of that. Following Oxford Street means that I run across Regent Street and past Bond Street tube and New Bond Street. Although there is no Bond Street in London I'm still counting this as another Monopoly square - it's not my fault they made a game with places that don't actually exist. I turn left at Marble Arch and head down Park Lane, which takes me down the Eastern side of Hyde Park. At £350 this is the 2nd most expensive square in the game - and it shows. The most expensive square in the game - Mayfair - isn't actually a street but as I'm now in the area of London known as "Mayfair" I think it's fair to say that another square has been crossed off the list.

At the bottom of Park Lane I turn left onto Piccadilly and run alongside Green Park before turning right on St James's Street and then left onto Pall Mall which takes me back to Trafalgar Square. As with last week's run I turn down Whitehall, which I really enjoy running down as it gives you a good view of the Houses of Parliament and takes you past the Cenotaph and Downing Street. As I'm coming up to Downing Street the gates open and I think for a moment I might catch a glimpse of an important political figure, or even George Osborne, but it actually looks like a removal van. Less than a year into this government I fear it's too early for that, but there is a pleasing moment when I imagine David Cameron's furniture being moved out of Downing Street.

From there the run takes me through Westminster, along the Thames and up to Chelsea Bridge where I turn back and begin the journey home via Vauxhall Bridge.

Obviously, there was more to this run (11 kilometres more in fact) but I've already written about my route home and as I don't set foot on any of the remaining Monopoly squares I won't dwell on it. One thing I did notice with this long run was that I felt far more tired out than I did last week. This was despite eating the Lucozade cereal bar beforehand and consuming the Carbohydrate gels whilst running. The only real difference I can see (other than the increase in distance and time) is that I've done far fewer runs during the week. Last week I managed to fit five runs in, this week I've only been able to fit in three. It's been a busy week, but I think there's a lesson in there for me.

Anyway, to conclude this post I thought I'd note that completing this run means that I have now covered more than 500 kilometres in my marathon training. It's also the first time that I've run more than 20 miles in one go (33.88km = 21miles). Both of those feel like landmarks, which is fitting given how many actual landmarks I've run past over the last 76 days.