Sightseeing Run of London

Tuesday 4^th September 2012

Running
10.36 Miles / 01:38:21 / 00:09:29 per Mile

Having to spend time away from home on business is never going to be the thing that floats my boat, but this trip wasn’t too bad in so much as it was to London and with the Paralympics on at the moment, there was bound to be a bit of a buzz about the place.

When in London I usually stay by Tower Bridge, which always looks fantastic.

Having failed miserably in trying to get tickets for the Paralympics events scheduled for that night, I thought the best thing to do would be to go for a bit of a run.

When I have run in London in the past, I always kick myself that I didn’t take my camera with me as everywhere I go there are amazing landmarks.

This time I went prepared and wanted to get a bit of a longer run than the usual 4 miles or so.  Partly because I wanted to kill some time rather than just sit in a hotel room but also because I have my eye on a fairly tough Duathlon in October which will require me to have a decent amount of run fitness under my belt.

I mapped out a decent route, mostly based around the Thames Path in Central London and a bit of a loop around by Victoria, The Mall, Westminster and back towards Tower Bridge.

It was a beautiful night for a run and the outward leg along across Tower Bridge and along the South Bank was absolutely brilliant.  Such a vibrant atmosphere and great tourist spots like, The Golden Hind, The Globe Theatre, The London Eye, Parliament and quite a few Paralympians around in their National tracksuits..

Once I got to Vauxhall Bridge I headed up towards Victoria and the back of Buckingham Palace at the Wellington Memorial and then down to The Mall and up past Trafalgar Square and back down past Downing Street to Westminster Palace again.

The last leg was back along the Embankment past St Pauls to Tower Bridge.

About a mile or so from the Hotel I started to run against the flow of runners in fairly decent sized groups coming the other way, many wearing vests with London City Runners on it.  There must have been close on 80 of them all at varying paces but taking advantage of the Embankment and Thames Path for a club run.  It was great to see.

As for my run, I was pleased to have averaged just under 9.30 per mile given that this is the longest run I have done since Ironman and also that it was hot, I kept stopping for photos and it was difficult to get running at a consistent pace due to the sheer volume of people around.

I have to say that I would rate this as perhaps one of my favourite runs and look forward to doing it (or a variant) of it again.