Maria's Running Blog

First run from my new home. Ran through Primrose Hill towards Regents Park and around the park. This was an exploration run, I tried to measure the perimeter of the park, but I don't think I took the most outer path possible - there are so many paths there. I tried to always stay as far to the right as possible, but I think I missed some. I was looking for a running track, as it is marked on the map, but the first time round, I ran past it and didn't see it. Second time, I found it. It's interesting - a packed gravel track without lane markings. Not a standard track for sure, in fact it looked like a sausage, long and narrow! The infield looked too narrow to me, and I remembered reading somewhere that this track is less than 440 yds, so I decided to measure it. I ran it twice, once in the first lane, and once in the second (approximately, since there are no lanes!). Both times my Garmin showed 0.24mi. Pretty close. I decided to run stride workout since I was at the track anyway. Did 8x30 sec. at a fast, but relaxed pace. I ran the straightaway and barely started to turn when 30sec. were up. Garmin showed 0.1mi on the fastest repeat, so that means the straightaway is almost 160m, and that makes turns very tight, only about 50m - not good for speedwork. There is a real, standard, athletics track in Hampstead Heath, but it's further away and I have to go through busy streets to get there. I'll explore it too soon and see how bad the run there is. It's pretty annoying to stop for lights all the time, but on the other hands I don't want to risk an injury running tight turns. For strides though, Regents Park track is just fine. Strides splits:

0.33 - 491 ft

0.34 - 498 ft

0.33 - 511 ft

0.32 - 520 ft

0.31 - 491 ft

0.31 - 498 ft

0.31 - 504 ft

0.31 - 0.1 mi

Went home back through Primrose Hill. It's also a park, although much smaller than Regents Park. It does have a very steep hill in the middle, and from the top, there are some nice views over London. The main path is way too steep, but there are many on the sides with various degrees of incline, and they would be good for hill workouts.

Another exploration run, this time to Hampstead Heath, another park a little over a mile from my house. I found it okay, althought it was a bit too many street crossings and stopping for cars, but not too bad. The Heath is great for running, it's very large with many paths criss crossing it, including some dirt paths. I ran on the main paved path for fear of getting lost, but in time I'll try others as well. Saw the track there - nice, full regulation track with 8 lanes, but there was a sign that it costs 2.40/day. Not too happy about that. Not sure it's if you want to use their locker rooms, or even if you just want to run on the track. Saw few people, both kids and adults jump the fence, and then saw one gate open as I ran around, so I got in and did one lap. So, I'm not sure about this payment situation. Then ran back home. Couple of times my left glute locked up for about a minute and hurt on every step. This is something new, I never had problems with this before. I hope it's not piriformis or something like that. The pain wasn't shooting down my leg, so I have no clue what it is and why would bother me on a really easy run. Anyway, I backed off the pace and it went away both times. Time was 57:00 (9:11 pace).

Today was the first day of "typical" London weather. Overcast and light rain, and forecast says the same or worse till Monday. Since I didn't run yesterday due to having to sit home all day waiting for BT engineer to come and fix our faulty phone line (turned out, there was nothing wrong with the line, just some idiot in customer service put the wrong apartment number in our address, so they activated phone line in the wrong apartment!!), not running today was out of the question.

I couldn't get a signal on my Garmin, not surprisingly in this weather. So the total distance is estimated. I ran in Regents Park. Once I did a loop of the park, I saw that my Garmin finally kicked in, so I did 0.73mi on the track in 5:07 (7:04 pace). It felt good, around 5K race pace. Then jogged home. By that time it was raining pretty hard, and I got soaked. It didn't bother me much, I can run in the rain as long as my shoes don't fill with water.

Very tough run on Hampstead Heath. Hilly, mostly off road on narrow dirt paths. I managed to get lost a little, so I had to stop couple of times and figure out what direction I need to go. I tried to run some miles at marathon pace, but it was very hard to get into a rhythm due to hills. I did 4.5mi in 37:00 (8:12 pace). Total run time was 1:53:36.