Mostly a pre-race warm-up

I have to admit that there's been a bit of a break in service lately; on the running front at least. Last weekend we were down in Kent and I planned to get out on at least one of the days, if not both, but that never happened. Then this week I was all set to get out on a couple of days but every time I looked at my running shoes some work took a-hold of me and the next time that I checked the clock it was too late to go; so another lunchtime wasted (from a fitness perspective anyhow). So it's been ten days since I last stepped out in anger and while I've managed to keep the jitters away with some decent cross-training I was looking forward to going out with the Running School this morning for sure.

From Jack Straws then a decent group of us (including Adam; back from illness) set off south into the back-streets of Hampstead (all very gentile) and down Rosslyn Hill towards Chalk Farm (a little less refined). With much banter we edged around Primrose Hill and into Regents Park; generally speaking we tend to circle the park and head back at this point but then someone came up with the bright idea of heading to Regent Street and the cars of the London to Brighton car rally. Sounds like a fine idea doesn't it except the event doesn't kick off until tomorrow and there were no veteran vehicles in sight!

It would have been cool to see something like this!

Suitably disappointed at taking such a diversion for no benefit we turned tail and headed directly back to Regents Park - away from the pollution and the crowded pavements. It was rather nice to return to our urban lung especially as we headed around the boating lake (though it's more full of geese than it is boats). All was fine then as we inevitably zeroed in on Fitzjohn's Avenue and its lengthy ascent - although I did have a bit of a stitch from my early breakfast and a forlorn hope that the pace might not be too aggressive.

Of course the secret when you're feeling like this is to immediately go to the front and determine a pace that suits; although when I arrived there I found that I just wanted to keep going and so I edged past Darren, Daniel, Mike and Craig and did exactly that. The nice part of this is that I could dose my effort and concentrate on my form; which went very well until Darren appeared on my shoulder with about 200m to go and made a bid for glory. I couldn't let his challenge go unanswered of course but I had to really up my game with a full-on sprint to ensure that the pecking-order remained intact. How exciting an ending!

Distance: 8.5 miles
Time: 1h 25m 00s