Intervals in Green Park

Some days you only have time for a quick session and luckily the Runners World schedule that I'm nominally following required a speed hit today (although for 8 miles - rather longer than I had time for). So, for the first time in a good while, I headed to Green Park for my trademark inner-city interval work-out; the great thing about this park is that it is almost exactly 1-mile around the edge. Thus you can just keep looping back and forth, clockwise and anti-clockwise, as fast as you like without too much mental effort beyond counting in ones. In the past I've got up to five or six mile-intervals but today just a couple was on the menu.

Before the main course though I had to jog over from the office and I couldn't help feeling that something was missing. Pondering on this I suddenly realised what wasn't there - for the first time in maybe two months my left foot was entirely pain free! A miracle! Well that and biology; I'm pretty sure that I had a stress fracture (which necessitated two weeks off running over Christmas) but now it seems to have healed up. Throw in the fact that my lungs finally feel clear of my New Year lurgy and maybe, just maybe, this year is looking up at last.

I have to admit that this wasn't all that I had playing across my mind; I was also looking forward to trying to spot some gas lamps in Green Park. Yes they exist (according to the Time Out guide that I read only yesterday) and in quite a few places in central London (like Buckingham Palace, the Royal Parks, Covent Garden etc). So on arrival I looked about and lo and behold there was one all lit up; just for me! It's strange how an outdated and labour-intensive system of illumination can evoke an emotional response - see if you can resist:

 

Anyway back to the running, well almost. Just as I was about to set off on my first lap there was a decently-sized thud in the grass next to me as a squirrel fell plumb out of the tree! Jumping to its feet and looking a little sheepish it raced back up the trunk - perhaps to repeat the experiment? With that I left and managed the two laps at a pace ranging between 6.15 and 6.30 minute-miles; reasonably handy without quite being race-pace. Next I need to up the number of intervals I think...

Distance: 5.5 miles

Time: 40m 38s