Joy here...We arrived in London at around 10am Friday morning after flying all night from Ottawa. So we just stayed awake, wandering the city like sleep-deprived zombies for a day, meeting up with friends/family in the evening. After falling into bed at around 9pm Friday night, we slept right through until 11am Saturday morning! (Granted, that's only 5am Ottawa time, but still...that's one heck of a sleep in.)
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| A swan on the Serpentine |
In order to move our legs and not let ourselves fall out of practice running, we headed out into the London rain on Saturday for a run. You see, one of the great things about running as a way to keep in shape is the fact that you can just throw your running shoes and a pair of running tights in your suitcase and you're good to go, no matter where you might find yourself. You aren't dependent on a team of players for your sport; you don't need a bunch of equipment that's hard to transport; you just need your feet and out the door you go!
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| Kensington Palace |
And lucky for us, right out our door is Hyde Park. Hyde Park has its roots all the way back to 1536 when King Henry VIII (he of the six wives) used it as a deer park. Through the centuries it's gone through various iterations, with additions here and there made by monarchs and politicians along the way. For instance, after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 when William of Orange and his wife, Queen Mary, came over to England from the Netherlands to take the crown from the Catholic James II, they took up royal residence in Kensington Palace in Hyde Park and made changes to the park itself so that it would suit their needs.
Nowadays, most people associate Kensington Palace with the late Princess Diana as it was one of her principle residences, but it has a long history that predates her.
So we spent our Saturday and Sunday runs meandering through the many pathways in Hyde Park laid out over the years, people watching the Londoners out on their weekend (mostly smooshy, mostly unsmiling).
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| Royal Albert Hall |
For us the entire place is imbibed with such a sense of history and gravitas that we are unused to it. At one point, The Man said to me "I don't want to see anymore young stuff like from the 1800s; I want to see things that are at least from the 1600s!" So you know that you're in a place steeped in history when you get sick of looking at things so recent as to be a mere 200 years old!
But back to our running...we're both still a little jet lagged and not feeling 100% so our two runs have been pretty conservative. We'll try to remedy that this week with some longer runs with strides to change things up a bit.
For now, our run stats are:
Saturday's First London Run: Ran for 56:18:53 for a total of 8.61km with an average pace of 6:33min/km.
Sunday's Second London Run: Ran for 55:49:53 for a total of 8.63km with an average pace of 6:21min/km.
Those are neither long nor fast, but they're better than nothing! Now I'm going to shower, eat, and get in some real sight-seeing!
Over and out,
Joy
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