My London Trip

For those of you not keeping up with me on social media (I suggest you do using the links to the right--I'm very active on Facebook and Instagram!) I recently returned from a trip to London seeing the local sites and of course, running.

We went on the Harry Potter Studio Tour....

Drank lots of tea....

Ate "contraband" chocolate (Kinder eggs are banned in the United States due to the small parts in the toy, despite it all being contained within a smaller egg.)

Saw a play (Matilda the musical), went on a bus tour around town, and went to a few museums.

It took me awhile to get comfortable enough with my surroundings to be able to go for a run.  (Okay, and I made the rookie mistake of wearing shoes that were comfortable but I hadn't broken in yet on a 2 mile walk on our first day to brunch.)  London and Soho (where we stayed) were very big areas and despite being a Washingtonian (okay and somewhat of a Baltimorean) the roads were very confusing to me.  This made it difficult for me to feel confident in being able to create my own route, follow it and be able to return home.  (Although I was able to go out with my Dad and brother-in-law, I'm faster than my father but slower than my BIL and I didn't want to slow up or make my Dad go faster than he's comfortable with.)

On our third day, my husband and I decided to go on a bus tour and while trying to find out where to go, we had a magical thing happen.  We were walking around minding our own business with only a general idea of where to go, when none other than Eddie Izzard ran past us!  (The comedian recently ran 27 marathons in 27 days in Africa for the sport relief fund.)  Since he was on a run, I didn't want to bother him but I was still in awe of our amazing celebrity sighting.  I wanted nothing more than to be able to run a few strides with him, but I was wearing my rain boots.  That convinced me that I needed to run in England at least once even if it wasn't with Eddie Izzard.

Later that day, I got word that there had been a tornado in our county.  (Seriously, I have the worst luck with weather when we go out of the country.  The first and second time we had derechos, and now this third time a tornado?!  COME ON!!!)  So the next morning a run was out of the question since I slept terribly and needed to find more information.  It turned out that the tornado had been on the ground to about 8-9 miles away from our house, but the debris field stretched all the way to less than half a mile to our home.  We got word from our petsitter later that morning that everything was fine, and when we got home we found out that we had only been without power for an hour or so.

Throughout the week I kept saying that I would go for a run tomorrow, I'd set my alarm and then roll over because I just wasn't feeling up to it.  So I essentially did a lot of carb loading--we had some awesome meals along with beer and naturally desserts and my mother, sister and I had tea one afternoon (more pastries, marshmallows, and delicious little sandwiches.) Then every time I would see somebody run-commuting (it's a thing) I would feel a little pang like my legs were saying "You know you should be doing that too, right?"

Finally we were down to our last night in town before flying out.  I decided since we had a light dinner I would go out afterwards....then I just had to have a glass of wine to celebrate! The sun doesn't set until after 9:30 this time of year, so it wouldn't be out of the question to run after dinner, but alcohol can dehydrate you and just generally do bad things on a run. So one final time I decided to set my alarm and was determined to pound some pavement. 

Then after my alarm went off I realized....I didn't know where to go or how to even get there.  After chatting with my husband he convinced me to pull on my running shoes and just get out there.  So I told Google maps I wanted to go to the aquarium since I knew it was about a mile and a half.  (I had a SIM card in my phone for the UK along with unlimited texts and 500mb of 3G data so I could get turn by turn updates on where to go.)  I then stepped outside and started my Garmin and Google told me where I needed to go.  (I had a general idea of how to get there, but had only done it once before so I wasn't confident.)  And when I got there it was oh so worth it, and naturally I kicked myself for not forcing myself out sooner.

I found this amazing painting on a telephone booth...

 Did my best Matilda pose in front of a line of phone booths...

And soon I had made it to my landmark. There were so many famous sights around the aquarium and since it was fairly early in the morning (around 7am) not many people were around so I got some great pictures.

"Look kids! Big Ben, Parlament!"

Got some great looks at the London Eye (with Big Ben in there too!)

Saw the Waterloo Bridge...

And naturally had to take a selfie on it too!  And I had to wear my lightning bolt Bondi Band during my only run in the land of Harry Potter! 

That run was exactly what I needed that whole week.  We spent a lot of time walking around London to get just about everywhere (except when we went to dinner a few times in Chelsea), but that just was not enough.  I needed that last exertion of energy before our 7 and a half hour flight to get back home.  Something about a run (or any exercise!) helps me so much before (or while) travelling.  It wasn't my best pace ever since I kept stopping to take pictures, but it still felt amazing.  I felt so triumphant coming back into the apartment and shocking everybody that I had gone out for a run all by myself.  (And then of course shoving a couple mini donuts in my mouth before hopping into the shower.)

I may not have gotten to do everything I wanted to do in London, but at least I got the most important thing out of the way:  A single, wonderful run.