Winter keeps its icy grip

Driving over to the Running School this morning I was dismayed to note the outside temperature; 1 degree Centigrade! What's that all about? In St. James Park the cherry trees are already pushing out blossom and those hardy daffodils are thrusting their heads up from the earth and yet today the puddles had ice on them. This is just wrong but it didn't stop twenty or so of us massing in the car park for a quick performance in front of the video camera (I kid you not) before heading over to Highgate.

 

As you can see this took us into one of those nice little loops that combines a bit of road-work with some parkland scenery, throwing in a few hills to keep us on our toes. For me this is always a casual, social run but I like to liven things up with a bit of fartlek - which essentially means pushing the pace on any hill worth the name and jogging back down to pick up the stragglers. Today provided 3 or 4 of these opportunities but the one I enjoyed most was a 400m sprint up the Heath Extension at just over 6 min/mile pace. Very satisfying! Tomorrow I may jog to the start to make a long run out of it but we'll see what the weather is like (and my hangover given that we're going out for dinner tonight!).

Distance: 8.5 miles

Time: 1h 14m 24s