To the 6 Boroughs

Day:         63

Distance: 29.07km

Time:       2:33:23 secs

Calories:  2,485

It's 6:45am. It's Sunday morning. This can only mean one thing - another long run. This time the training plan specifies "150 mins easy", which I estimate to be around 29km (or 18 miles for those Imperialists amongst you). As I enjoyed last Sunday's sightseeing tour I devised a similar(ish) route which takes in even more sights and takes me through six of London's 33 boroughs.

Before I get onto the actual run I'd like to briefly discuss hydration. For these longer runs I've generally been following the advice of other runners I know which says water is fine for runs up to 60 mins, but for those longer runs (which this most certainly is) you really need a sports drink. Up until this week I've been taking Lucozade Sport out with me, but my supplies had run out so I thought I'd make some bootleg sport drink mixture based on a recipe I found here:

"Marathon Moonshine" mix (makes 500ml)

125ml Orange and Mango squash (the brand is irrelevant but avoid sugar free)

375ml water

1/8 level tsp salt

It looks quite tasty up until the addition of the salt, but I guess that's in there to replace all the salts lost through sweating. I have to say, this moonshine is actually quite tasty (it dumps on Gatorade from a great height) and after the first couple of mouthfuls I can't taste the salt any more. Which is nice.

Anyway, onto the sightseeing tour. As with last week's run, I set off from home and run alongside Peckham Rye. I realised when I got to Rye Lane that I'd left a couple of landmarks out from this section of the run last week. Fans of 80s and 90s sitcoms will be pleased to know that there is both a Nags Head and a barbers called Desmonds in SE15. I'm not sure whether this is a case of life imitating art or vice versa.

My run followed the same route as last week until I reached the end of the Old Kent Road. Instead of heading through Borough towards the Millennium Bridge I instead turn towards Tower Bridge - possibly my favourite of all London's river crossings (yep, I'm sad enough to have a favourite bridge). 

Tower Bridge at 7:30am on Sunday 20th February 2011.
You don't normally see it this empty, let me tell you.

The bridge takes me from Southwark to Tower Hamlets and past the Tower of London - a favourite tourist attraction of mine when I was young (although I haven't been there in years). As I run past the Tower I enter the boundaries of the City of London head down Tower Hill and along Lower Thames Street where I catch the briefest of glimpses of the Monument on my right hand side. This flame-topped monument to the Great Fire of London was designed by Sir Christopher Wren and tourists are able to climb to the top of it and peer out over London for a mere £3. There's no time for that now though, as I've still got 21 kilometres to get through ...

I carry on past London Bridge and Southwark Bridge and then head down towards the river just before I get to the Millennium Bridge where I take this photo of the bridge and Tate Modern.

A view of the Millennium Bridge and Tate Modern from the North Bank
of the Thames. This photo captures the less than beautiful weather I
was running in.

Pretty much as soon as the photo is taken I have to take a slight diversion away from the river due to all the work that is going on at Blackfriars at the moment. I get back onto the Thames Path just past Blackfriars Bridge. I love following the Thames' meandering path through London and as I head West it takes me into the City of Westminster past the Houses of Parliament and down into Pimlico with its lovely garden squares and beautiful Regency houses. 

Around the 14km mark I stop very briefly to take another quick photo, which I'm really pleased with as it captures three iconic London images: the red telephone box, Battersea Power Station and a row of "Boris Bikes".

For the record, I'd have much preferred it if the new
bike scheme had been introduced under the former
Mayor and were known as "Ken Cycles".

I cross back over to the South Bank via Chelsea Bridge (not one of the most aesthetically pleasing of London's bridges) and find myself in Wandsworth for the briefest of moments before turning east and heading past Battersea Dogs and Cats Home towards Lambeth. I follow the curve of the Thames over to Blackfriars Bridge where I resurface from my riverside run and head for home.

With around 5 kilometres of the run left I can really feel my legs protesting and my pace slowing. Thankfully, the running playlist comes to my rescue. Now, Steve Jobs is undoubtedly a very clever man but I'm pretty sure that ipods don't yet have the capacity to judge moods and yet when I feel at my lowest ebb it rummages around the running playlist and plucks out the Vaccines' modern classic "Wreckin' Bar (Ra Ra Ra)". The song has the desired effect of reinvigorating a run which was in danger of collapse and helps me bring it all back home. 

Upon arrival my legs have turned to jelly - the first time they've felt like this in the 9 weeks in which I've been training for the marathon. I also discover, upon removing my trainers, that my left foot has been bleeding quite badly and although I'm too shattered to do anything about it I'm very lucky that Varoo steps in to help me out (and listen to me moaning about how much I ache). 

This was undoubtedly a challenging, but enjoyable, run. Being able to take in the sights of old London town is always a pleasure and to do it at such an early hour means that I have them all to myself. As well as the sightseeing I'm really pleased to see that Run Keeper has recorded my average speed as 5:17 mins/km - which is slightly quicker than the time I need to average in order to reach my goal of 3:40 mins for the London Marathon. I'm also pleased to see how many calories have been burned in pursuit of these 29 kilometres. According to Guideline Daily Amounts the average male should consume 2,500 calories per day. Seeing as I've burnt off 2,485 calories with this run does this mean I can gorge myself silly all day?

London Loves

Day:         56

Distance: 26.22km

Time:       2:20:06 secs

Calories:  1,996

Living and working in London means that you can sometimes take this wonderful city for granted. I can't remember the last time we did anything vaguely touristy, except for when friends are visiting. However, a 140 mins run provides the perfect opportunity to mix running with a spot of sight seeing.

I set out early on Sunday morning and start by running alongside Peckham Rye. Unlike the poet William Blake I don't see "a tree filled with angels, bright angelic wings bespangling every bough like stars", perhaps the angels are all long gone like the Italian POWs who were detained here during WWII? I head up through Rye Lane past the Halal butchers and fruit and vegetable stalls groaning under the weight of brightly coloured fruit and veg from around the world testament to the ethnic diversity of the area. 

At the end of Rye Lane the award winning Peckham Library comes into view and I have to weave around some stalls from the Farmers Market that is held there every Sunday. To the side of the library I follow the route of the old Grand Surrey Canal which leads me up to Trafalgar Avenue and then onto the Old Kent Road (a snip at just £60 in Monopoly!). It's true that the Old Kent Road doesn't provide much in the way of tourist interest, but running up it does provide a nice view of the Shard which is still under construction in London Bridge.

At the end of the Old Kent Road I head up through Borough and behind the Tate Modern. I go round the back of the power station turned gallery and run across the Millennium Bridge where I stop for a moment to take this photo of the bridge and St Paul's Cathedral on my phone.

The Millennium Bridge on Sunday 13th February.
The photo was taken at around 8am - hence
there's no crowds in this picture.

Once over the bridge I head West along the north bank of Old Father Thames. I run past Blackfriars Bridge onto Victoria Embankment which takes me past Waterloo Bridge and the Hungerford Bridge on towards the Palace of Westminster where I once again stop to take a photo.

Heading up towards the Palace of Westminster
(a.k.a. The Houses of Parliament). You can see
in this photo that the weather wasn't that great.

Normally, running around Westminster means weaving in and out of the tourist hordes, but the early hour and the grey, wet weather means that I can just run round and enjoy the sights. From there, I carry on alongside the Thames past Lambeth Bridge and Vauxhall Bridge passing by Battersea power station on the opposite bank and on until Chelsea Bridge. Upon reaching this railway bridge I turn round and retrace my steps back to Vauxhall Bridge and cross back over to the South Bank. Running along the South Bank takes me past even more quintessential London sights, such as the London Eye, Royal Festival Hall, the National Theatre and the Oxo Tower (where we enjoyed the best ever New Year's Eve a few years back).

A view of the London Eye, taken from the north
bank of the Thames.

The riverside run comes to an end at Blackfriars Bridge and I head for home happy to have taken in some sights. The return home follows the same route down the Old Kent Road, along the disused canal and down towards Peckham Rye. By the time I hit the top of the Rye I've covered 25km and the effects are plain to see as I feel shattered, light headed and slow. The last kilometre feels slower than the previous 25 combined and it is with pleasure that I get back to the flat almost exactly 2 hours after setting out. In a remarkable quirk of the ipod's shuffle function the last song that is played from the running playlist is "London Calling" by the Clash.

This run brings the curtain down on the 8th week of my marathon training. Which means that I'm now two thirds of the way through the Guardian's 12 week training plan. In that time I have undertaken 33 runs (and one circuits session in a gym), covered 335 kilometres (c.208 miles), run for a total of 32.5 hours and burnt off more than 26,000 calories.

In an interesting coincidence, I'm also about two thirds of the way towards my target of £1,000 in sponsorship. Thanks again to everyone who has already sponsored me, if you haven't already sponsored me but would like to help me towards my goal please visit my JustGiving page. 

A run round the park and a trip down memory lane

Day:         28
Distance: 16.82km
Calories:  1,278

So it turns out that it is possible to fit five runs into one week. The last run of the week was a repeat of last Sunday with Jim and I again tackling the "3 Parks Run". After the disappointment which shrouded the conclusion of Wednesday's run we were both pleased to have shaved a couple of minutes off of our time from last week, no mean feat considering that Jim was carrying a cold and had, to quote, a "head full of snot".

The wind was against us for much of the time as well. It's been a pretty blustery (always wanted to use that word) couple of days and as we ran along the flat, exposed top of Peckham Rye Park a Southerly wind buffeted us from the side. In Brockwell Park the wind changed tack and decided to meet us head on as we were running uphill. At least the views over London's skyline that you get at the top of the park made the fight against the wind worthwhile. We finally began to feel some benefit from the weather conditions towards the end of the run when the wind helped to propel us along the bottom of Peckham Rye Park.

This run concludes week four of my marathon training. There's eight more weeks left on the Guardian's training plan and after that I have a few weeks of 'tapering' when I need to reduce the time and distances that I'm running for. Obviously, there's still a long way to go but I'm really enjoying the training and am feeling good (I've not needed to apply any deep heat in ages!).

Maintaining this blog means that I can easily keep track of the progress I've made in terms of distance (I ran 29km in week 1 and have just run more than 49km this week) and time (I'm up from 2:48 mins in week 1 to 4:45 mins this week). The audit of the last four weeks combined shows that, in all, I have been running for 14:44:29 secs and that I have covered 151 km.

As you may have noticed, much of the time that I've spent blogging has been devoted to music and the running playlist that I'm compiling. Today sees the introduction of the Foo Fighters. Although I was a fan of their early efforts a lot of what they've done in recent years has passed me by and I hadn't listened to them in many years until my Dad asked if he could borrow a couple of albums to put on his ipod. At this point, I should note that my Dad has fantastic music taste (which is to say that he likes much of the same stuff that I do) and his request meant that I drove back to Essex on Friday night with the Foo Fighters' debut album blaring out of the car speakers. I'd forgotten about the winning combination of hook-laden melody and monstrous riffing that the album contains - from the nonsensical singalong of "This is a call" to the hardcore of "Wattershed" this is a cracking debut album.

I've added a couple of songs from that album to my playlist, but the real gem that this trip down memory lane unearthed isn't actually on their first album. I can't believe that I didn't think about adding this song until now, but that oversight has now been rectified. Enjoy.

Early dawning, Sunday morning

Day:         21
Distance: 16.82 km
Time:       1:44:31 secs
Calories:  1,278

What are the first things that come to mind when one thinks of Sundays? Lie ins? Check. Recovering from hangovers? Check. A roast dinner? Check. A 17 km run? Er ... not normally, but then this is turning out to be anything but a normal January.

I again went running with my mate Jim on a route that he had devised called the "3 Parks Run", so called because it takes advantage of the expanses of greenery that can be found in our corner of London; Peckham Rye Park, Brockwell Park and Dulwich Park. The route made for a really picturesque run and it was a real pleasure to run on a lovely, sunny January morning. It became less of a pleasure around the 14 kilometre mark as my legs were on fire when they realised they hadn't run this far since the half marathon I ran in March 2010. I'm hoping they feel OK tomorrow as I'm meant to be going for a 35 minute jog after work and I don't fancy slapping the Vindaloo strength Deep Heat on again.

This is now the end of my third week of training, so it's worth doing a quick audit. In this week I have covered more than 39 kilometres, run for just over 4 hours and burnt off 3,076 calories. It all sounds good until I remember that on April 17th I'll need to cover a longer distance (42.195 km) in a similar amount of time and I won't have the benefit of being able to stretch it over an entire week. Oh yeah, and I read in a timely supplement that came with the Guardian yesterday that "To lose one pound of weight in a week, the body must burn 3,500 calories more than it consumes" so all this effort won't even have resulted in any weight loss ...

To leave on a happier note and to return to the Sunday theme where this post started, I'd like to leave you with a couple of songs inspired by Sundays. Neither of these are on my running playlist, but both came to mind whilst out running today.