Stanley Road here we come

Well what a day - wet and windy hardly describes the climatic conditions does it? That said at 8am this morning the conditions were just fine for running and quite a few of us thought so; me, Mike, Adam, Amanda, Mark, Daniel and even Ira (fresh from his health camp). With so many leaders and not enough followers it could have been chaos but nothing could be further from the truth; Adam took charge and we headed north through Golders Green and up to the mega-roadworks at Henley's Corner. It looks like it'll be great when it's finished but right now the area is a sea of cones!

Anyway we navigated the junction successfully and headed over towards North Finchley - where I successfully lobbied for a minor diversion via Avenue House. The gardens here are delightful in the summer and worth a trip; the only problem was this caused me to become the de facto leader on the road and so it was my task to bring us back home in the best way possible. What was neat was that I could see a chance here for some exploration around the area of the Stanley Road Playing Fields; I knew roughly where they were but had never managed to find them up till now.

So through the back alleys of East Finchley we continued until, fortuitously, a side-alley appeared and a sixth sense told me that this was the one. By this time Daniel was totally disorientated and even I had my doubts but no; a bridge appeared, we crossed into the promised land of Stanley Road and then we were in familiar territory. Only Winnington Road stood between us and a warm car seat! Now it's reasonable to say that Mark took an early and seemingly decisive lead on this long, gentle drag upwards towards the Heath but in the end I just couldn't resist and had to chase him down from the halfway point. Sorry Mark! After that it was a gentle jog and Amanda showing us a clean pair of heels at the finish; having been strong all weekend she had to end on a high note!

Distance: 8.0 miles

Time: 1h 11m 07s