Royal Parks Half Marathon - a blow-by-blow account!

I did it!!!

Despite all the procrastination, lack of training and abundance of excuses, last Sunday I completed the Royal Parks Foundation Half Marathon with no injuries and with a slow but steady time of 2 hours and 35 minutes. And, I reached my target for my fundraising for ActionAid. It such a gorgeous day and such a glorious course I felt incredibly lucky to be able to trot around without any dramas. Warning: this post is a bit lengthy so if you're not up for a blow-by-blow race report, feel free to skip to the end ...

My training in the weeks before was patchy to say the least. Because I was so behind I wasn’t sure if I should be tapering or trying to increase my runs or what. We also had two successive Sundays where I’d planned my long run but was defeated by rain pouring down all day (and similar excuses) … so the longest I’d run, in preparation for the race, was 1 hour 20 minutes. That went fine – in fact it was a great run – but I was well aware that it really wasn’t enough to prepare me for 13 miles. So all in all, I was a little apprehensive on the weekend of the race, but I figured I would just do my best, and aim to complete and not compete (as those runners say).

After a quick breakfast of toasted home-made brown bread and coffee, at 8 am on Sunday, I hopped on the tube at Arsenal, kitted out in my gear including my official yellow top. I saw a flash of yellow to my right and realised there was another runner sitting beside me. And one opposite, and a few standing up. The entire tube carriage was full of runners!

As we all streamed out at Knightsbridge tube and I followed the crowd to Hyde Park, the scale of the event hit me properly. Though I’ve done it before, you forget what 12,500 people gathered in one place looks like and I felt like a bit of an atom in the midst of the multitude. But it was reassuring to see that they were all shapes and sizes and conditions – from the greyhound-like figures doing the Ultra marathon (50k up and down the Thames somewhere – eek) to older women raising money for charity. When I heard on the announcement that there were 17 runners aged 70 or over, I thought, well, if they can do it …

The gun went at 9.30 but the crowd was so massive that it was 9.50 by the time I crossed the line. But I was happy to be at the back with all the charity runners. Lots of people running for cancer charities had those ‘I’m running for Dad/Mum/my sister’ signs on their backs, which were really moving and definitely helped get me in the right frame of mind for the run – putting a couple of hours of exertion and discomfort in perspective. For the first few miles I just warmed up, listened to my guilty pleasure album (it is brilliant to run to!) and enjoyed drinking in the sights as we streamed down through Hyde Park, past Buckingham Palace and along the Thames where a few bewildered-looking tourists waited for us to go by so they could cross the road. It was so exciting to see the whole of central London cleared for us runners – a bit like the film 28 Days Later (but without the zombies and plague obviously).

It was an absolutely gorgeous day – blue sky, sunny, with the trees just starting to turn golden. I was so relieved after the previous two Sundays when it had poured with rain – I just don’t think I could have hacked running in that for two and a half hours. At mile 3 I walked for about 100 yards as I drank some Lucozade and started to jog again as we turned back towards Hyde Park. I felt fine, but unfortunately my hips – always my weakest, stiffest point – began to tighten up and felt really uncomfortable, so I did some ridiculous-looking sideways strides to try and stretch them out, which helped a bit. I kept hoping they would loosen up, but – despite all the yoga and hip stretches I’ve been doing – they remained stiff and sore for the rest of the race.

Aside from that, I felt OK. I was conscious that it was a long run, but I just went as slowly and steadily as I could and tried to focus on one mile at a time. I was getting pretty tired, but I distracted myself by waving at the groups of charity supporters – they were probably getting pretty bored and they always waved back enthusiastically back which gave me a boost. It's not often you get people cheering while you're running! I had originally planned to stop and walk at mile 8, but I was feeling fine so I decided to push through to Mile 9 – which was also OK: slow, but OK.

But then came Mile 10, and I hit a little wall. It felt like an achievement to reach double figures but my legs were so tired and the finish line felt so, so far away. The hips were protesting loudly at this stage but all I could do was jog on grass as much as I could to avoid the jarring of the hard surfaces. And to add insult to injury, my favourite sports bra was chafing my back in quite a painful way. I managed to coax myself on by doing all the mental tricks I could think of – including imagining all the people who’d sponsored me cheering me on, and a big thread pulling me from lamp-post to lamp-post – but eventually I just had to stop and walk. Between Mile 10 and 12 I walked for much longer than I would have liked – maybe a mile in total. But I had to. I just had no more running in me. Until this song came on …



And I got a second wind. From Mile 12 I jogged steadily, passed a few people out and even picked up some speed as I approached the finish. Which made me think that maybe if I’d pushed myself harder I could have avoided walking earlier –but what the hell. The Finish was looming and within a few minutes I was there! I staggered over to get my wooden medal, heard someone call my name, looked up and there was my support team – he’d been tracking my progress on the Royal Parks app (!!) and knew exactly where to find me.

I put on my sweatshirt and we began to trail around collecting my goodies, including my bag of treats from ActionAid, my charity, before queueing up for a burger, as part of the big Food Festival that was taking place there. The entire event was so fantastic and so incredibly well run, and everyone taking part was so brilliant, from the race volunteers to the charity fundraisers – it was really great to be able to just drink it all in for a bit before getting the tube home for a hot bath, a takeaway and a DVD …

I was so happy: I had done it, slowly but with no injuries and no major torment. I saw about 7 people along the way being tended by medics for various foot/leg injuries, and I also saw the awful sight of someone going by on a stretcher. It reminded me that a race this length really is a big strain on your body, and I’m so lucky that I was able to cope with it without having trained properly.

But it also made me realise I really want to run properly, this winter, instead of slacking off now that I’ve reached my goal. Today I did a little recovery run – it wasn’t great, but I’ll be out again tomorrow. And I’ve already entered the ballot for next year …

Meltdown/hot in the ciy

It's suddenly summer!

This time last week, I was wearing scarves and wellies and asking if we could put the heating on at work. Today it's properly hot - in fact (don't kill me) almost TOO hot. I never cease to be amazed at how unpredictable the weather is in London. Yesterday everyone else seemed to have got the memo: suddenly everyone was in tiny summer dresses with sunglasses. Meanwhile I was in winter trousers and a blouse that I now regret buying. I was meeting friends in Hyde Park and rather than get the tube there, I made my maiden voyage on a Boris Bike. I've never tried one of these but I highly recommend it - I just paid £1 for a day's access and £1 for an hour's use, so it was cheaper than the tube. And cycling along through Green Park and Hyde Park was a lot nicer than being packed onto the Central Line.

On days like these I really appreciate how lucky I am to work from home. I can have a shower in the middle of the day or go for a swim if I need to cool off, or sit out on the balcony, and wear whatever I like. However, there are sometimes drawbacks. Our balcony door is very very temperamental - I've just had a fifteen-minute battle with it and been unable to shift it - and also someone on the estate is playing unbelievably loud techno music which is giving me quite the headache, so I might have to go and write in a cafe. It's amazing how you long for summer to come and then when it does come, it presents a whole host of niggles all of its own.

Anyone else tried a Boris Bike? Or have any other summer strategies to share?

Huh? Hm

Dear Queen of Parks

I am a young professional (male) working as a structural engineer just of _____ street. The flat looks great but was wondering how long it would take to get to ____ street from the flat?

Hope to hear from you soon.

___________

I mean, he has my postcode ... wouldn't his engineering skills help him operate an A-Z or Transport for London website, and figure it out himself?

As you'll gather, the search continues. Met another nice girl today but she said she had to think about it. In my experience, thinking about it is not good.

Six Degrees of Separation

I have written here earlier about coincidences and how they seem to abound in London. Here's another one for you. Recently we went to see the play Six Degrees of Separation at the Old Vic. As I waited for the others I got chatting to an American woman who was there by herself. She had flown over from New York to see the play because Obi Abili, who plays one of the main characters, was a friend of her daughter's. While he was preparing for the part, the daughter had sent him along to their apartment on the Upper East Side and asked her parents to show him around.

Now, considering that the play is about a young man who inveigles his way into the apartment of wealthy New Yorkers on the Upper East Side by pretending to be a friend of their son's (among other things), I think that's a coincidence.

Not blown away? Here's another for you. Recently my friend the Lovely Writer put me in touch with his friend M so that I could ask her some questions about what she does. (It's a long story). Relevant to this is that M used to be a PA to A Famous Person. I was telling this to my friend K who lives in New York (I know this is tedious, sorry) and K said that he had heard of M, because M used to live in his apartment ie was there before he moved in. Bear in mind that K and the Lovely Writer don't know each other -they've met a couple of times though me - and you will understand the bogglingness of the coincidence.

Come to think of it maybe these are not London coincidences but New York coincidences. The play, by the way, was only ok. The best thing about it is the title. The playwright starts off with one of the oldest and potentially most gripping stories in the world - a stranger comes to town: is he who he says he is? - and fails to make it dramatic. Firstly he gives away right from the beginning that no, he's not who he says he is, and then instead of exploiting the emotional potential of the story he uses his characters as mouthpieces for a lot of theories and opinions. It's not a bad play - there is a lot of interesting stuff going on there - but it's not great. Top marks to the Old Vic, though, who not only provide £10 tickets on a Monday but also upgraded us to stalls.

Also it all went towards my resolution to see more theatre, which I'm amply doing. So far this year I've seen three plays - Three Sisters at the Hammersmith Theatre (excellent, and has Romola Garai in it who I think is fab), Greta Garbo Comes to Donegal and Six Degrees of Separation, with two more (Jerusalem and Enron) to come. Unfortunately because I've spent most of February being sick, I've become completely unfit, but hey, Rome (nor New York) wasn't built in a day.

Flossing and other acts of continuing resolve

Email from R: ' ... Will explain over flossing some time (resolution is to drink less in the week so I thought we could substitute flossing for drinking as a social engagement)'

I can imagine 'flossing' becoming a code word for all sorts of illicit activity. The flossing habit, which was previously a sporadic stop-start affair, is now firmly ingrained as a nightly ritual. If I don't do it, it feels wrong. It might seem incredible to any North Americans reading, but flossing is not big on this side of the Atlantic. I am trying to spread the trend though (aided by terrifying facts like these). Coincidentally, I am reading White Teeth at the moment for the first time. It is very good, though I preferred On Beauty which is a wonderful novel. I wonder if I subconsciously chose to read it this week because of the title, as an added flossing aid?

In terms of other resolutions, it's all go: I had my first cookery class yesterday (will write a separate post on that) and am busy spamming my friends about theatre trips. This has not begun brilliantly as I've managed to book four tickets to La Boheme in the Kilburn Cock Tavern (yes, really) on 2 April, which turns out to be Good Friday when everyone, including me, is away. My diary shows all public holidays as a row of suns and country acronyms, so I just thought it was Martin Luther King day or something. Oh well. I think doing cultural things is probably a lot like buying vegetables and salad; from time to time, despite your best organisational efforts, something will turn to mush in the salad crisper, but it remains a good idea.

Vignettes from snowy London

This morning I saw the woman who lives opposite emerge from her house dressed up like a Michelin man, calmly scrape all the snow from her bike saddle and handlebars, and cycle away. That's hard core.

In the newsagents', a man with a Liverpool accent rolled inside and told us all excitedly, 'It's colder outside than it is in your freezer!' It was 9 am but by the smell of him, he had already been celebrating something that morning. Maybe the snow.

The pavements are all icy, and no sign of grit except mysteriously, beside the council bins around the corner, where there is a big pile. Are we supposed to help ourselves?

Scrooges of the week are the Norfolk Arms pub in Bloomsbury. On Wednesday, the radiator wasn't on and several people including me were in their coats. We were going to eat there, but decided to go instead to Chilli Cool across the road to warm up with some Szechuan food. It was very good - pig's intestine and other offal featured heavily on the menu but I wasn't intrepid enough to try it.

And finally, I was too cold to go to the gym this morning, so will go to Bikram yoga this evening to heat up. That's provided I can get myself out of the house ...

Village London

Yesterday when I was in Chalk Farm on my way to running club, I bumped into a girl I used to work with about, terrifyingly, 7 years ago. It was even more of a coincidence as she doesn't live in the area - she lives in East Finchley with her boyfriend. Interestingly enough, the last I knew (about 4 years ago) they had broken up - and now they're back together. I was dying to ask a bit more, but I didn't want to pry, so instead I am sharing this story (identifying details have been changed) with the world wide web.

It was a coincidence, but the funny thing is it wasn't the first time I've bumped into her or indeed her boyfriend. In fact I think I have bumped into most people I know in London at some point: on the street, on the tube, and even at parties. It's not like Dublin, where you can't set foot out the door without meeting 10 people you know, but after 8 years living here it's close.

Speaking of coincidences, when I was in New York last month, I went for a late dinner on Sunday night with F in Brooklyn, in a Thai restaurant near her apartment. It's quite a popular local place but nothing that would be in any guide books. At the next table to me was someone I used to work with, in fact who used to be my boss, 3 years ago. He doesn't even live in New York., he was on holiday. Wierd, huh? I think we bump into people we know all the time, but it takes a certain kind of observant (ok, nosy) person, who is constantly checking out all the faces around them, to notice.

LDN v NYC

Just returned from 5 days in New York. I heart NY. I remember my first visit there in 1997 ... I was spending the summer in Boston working in the Famous Atlantic Fish Company as a hostess. This makes it sound as though I was greeting dignitaries in some sort of fish packing company, but I was showing people to their tables in a restaurant. We had a lot of booths which could sometimes cause problems if a customer requested one and was prevented from sliding into it by their girth. I soon managed to gauge customers by size and if they asked for a booth that I knew they wouldn't fit, I would say that it was reserved. Anyway, I was toiling away when some friends decided to go to NY for 3 days, travelling there by bus. I didn't have any holiday from Famous Atlantic and didn't think I could go. But then I thought, in years to come which will be more important - that I was a good employee to Famous Atlantic, or that I went to New York? I called in sick and went to New York.

We loved it. We had no money (probably 20$ a day) and were staying in the rather dubious Aladdin Motel in the theatre district, but it was great. We lived on slices of pizza and beers and walked from one end of Manhattan to the other, sometimes supplemented with buses as a treat. We couldn't get over the scale of the place: a city built for giants, with skyscraper canyons that stretched to the horizons. We were fascinated by the people: models doing a shoot in Central Park, rollerbladers zipping around, little ladies walking their poodles on the Upper East Side, people everywhere waving arms, arguing, honking horns, just like in the movies! We didn't darken the door of any museums but we did treat ourselves to a trip up the Empire State Building, where we saw all the lights of Manhattan below with Central Park cut out in darkness.

This was my third visit since then, and I still love it, but I'm not sure any more if it's somewhere I am actively keen to live. Meeting up with some friends who live or have also lived in London, we discussed the pros and cons as follows:

Eating Out:

New York definitely has better restaurants. I don't know about the top-end, Michelin-starred stuff, but I think the mid-range restaurants are generally of better quality. They are much more individual. There are fast food outlets but you don't see all the mid-range chains like Strada, Pizza Express etc that you get everywhere in London. On Friday night J and I went to Westville, a tiny place in the West Village where they have a changing list of 10 seasonal vegetable side dishes, fresh from the market every day. We had a cauliflower dijonnaise dish that was one of the best things I've eaten in months. We also had amazing Mexican food at La Palapa in the East Village, and went to a nice Thai place in Brooklyn. And the service everywhere was excellent.

A, who lives in London, says he would rather not have excellent service, but just have the food brought to him to the table and save 15 or 20% of the bill. I see it differently: for a start, you pay the same price in London, but at least in NY you get great service with it. Also, eating out isn't a purely functional thing. There is a difference between having tap water brought to you as soon as you sit down, and begging for tap water four times or having to run the 'still or sparkling' gauntlet. And I think it's important that people should be rewarded for good service, and that restaurants invest in their staff, not just get whoever is most desperate to work for the least money.

Having said that ... I think London might have a better range of 'ethnic' restaurants - it definitely is better for Indian food, and I'm not sure if you get those regional pockets in NY like the Vietnamese cafes in the East End or the Lebanese/Moroccan places on the Edgeware road, which do liven up London. And also, very importantly, wine in NY restaurants is 40$ a bottle, which is a drawback.

So, on eating out: London 6, NY 8.

Transport:

The subway is air-conditioned. Bad for the planet, but so nice for us. It's also never really crowded. How is that? I got it about two or three times a day while I was there, and I always had a pleasing choice of seats, even during rush hour. Whereas in London, you feel like transported veal and tube bosses are issuing people with free water to cope with the 30 degree heat (actually it must get up to 40). And best of all, the subway runs all night and is cheaper than the tube (and not just for cash fares).

However - the subway is unnecessarily hard to use. Even if you get on the right coloured line according to the map, there is no guarantee that your train will stop at the stop you want: you have to look at the station you want and see if your train's number appears on it. 'Local' and 'express' trains go 'late nights' and 'rush hour', but there's no indication of when rush hour begins, or how late at night. Your train might have a list of stops written up inside it, or it might not; it depends. Same with announcements. There is generally one small subway map per carriage which is always obscured by someone sitting in front of it. And the staff, who hide in their booth, aren't a massive amount of help. I heard many, many confused people on the subway and I don't think they were all tourists. Compare this to the tube, which is genuinely idiot-proof and which must produce thousands of words of instructions a day. Also I think the tube is faster (except when it's on strike/having repairs of course).

So: Score: NY 7, London 7 (I'm awarding NY points for the air conditioning).

Fashion:

Shopping in NY might be better for basics, but I think people are more stylish in London. All the creativity that goes into NY restaurants seems to be diverted into clothing in London. Which does add to the gaiety of life, I think. London has a million different styles while NY seems to have two at most (boho and uptown). Also London has Portobello market, and a general studenty approach to dressing that I find stimulating compared to NY.

Score: NY 5, London 9

Culture:

I'm not sure if I can really say which is better - the Frick and the Whitney are great, and I think dance is probably better in NY, but London's museums are FREE and also pretty world-class. Theatre in NY is very expensive. People in NY queue from 4 am to see the free Shakespeare in the Park, while London has Shakespeare at the Globe for £5 and theatre in Regent's Park, and opera in Holland Park. J suggested seeing August: Osage County, but it was going to be 70$ at the very least - there don't seem to be as many cheap deals available. I don't think the classical music scene is quite as vibrant, though I could be wrong. New bands, I don't know, maybe the same but I'm not really sure.

Score: NY 8, London 9

Papers:

'The New York Times, The Daily News', sang Billy Joel nostalgically when he was in a New York State of Mind. The NY Times seems very hard, and the Daily News is a total rag - I read its reports on the demise of Michael Jackson, and it kept quoting 'The London Sun' which I think says it all. I prefer London papers and I love my free London papers. These don't exist in NY (though the Onion is free). Maybe it's just what I'm used to, but I am going with London on this one.

Score: NY 5, London 9

Parks:

There is no comparison. Central Park is great, and Gramercy Park looked very pretty even though it is behind bars, but aside from that it's scrubby little squares all the way - more gardens than parks. London's parks are the jewel in its crown - it has more parks than any other city in the world and they are all beautiful.

Score: NY 5, London 9

Climate:

I know we bitch about the weather all the time in London, but this week's 'heatwave' feels deliciously cool after New York. It's a bit too hot there, I think, also full of mosquitoes (I now have about 30 bites on my right leg). And snow is great but three months of NY winter might get you down.

Score: NY 6, London 7

Surroundings:

From London, you can go all over Europe. You can be in Paris in less than 2 hours. Or you can go to unspoilt beaches, moorlands, downs - England is beautiful. I know you can go places from NY, but it takes longer.

Score: NY 6, London 9

General ambiance:

There are nice people everywhere, but it must be said Americans are especially friendly. I was also struck, when getting the subway at 1 am, that there was none of the drunkenness that I would expect to see on the tube at that hour. Maybe see above re 40-dollar bottles of wine, but there is much less of a drinking culture, possibly because people are not so afraid to relate to each other or full of class hatred. In fact, I didn't see any of the loutishness that you do see in London. Everyone I asked for help and directions was extraordinarily helpful, friendly and nice. And yet, and yet ... I like the fact that London isn't anodyne, takes its time to get to know you and can be a bit iffy and arsey. There can be such a thing as people being too uber nice all the time no matter what. Can't there? OK, maybe not.

Score: NY 8, London 6

Total: NY 59, London 70! Of course, none of this means much - maybe I'm just doing these sums so that I don't have to go through the immense hassle of trying to find a job in New York. London can be grubby and unfriendly, but it works for me. I think in fairness that New York is probably a friendlier city to strangers and an easier/nicer place to visit, but for me, London is a better place to live. And I forgot to say, it has pubs ...