Hi Everyone,

I enjoyed the run to the Pergola on Friday! We’re going to encourage this run throughout the spring so hopefully it can become one of our standard Heath routes. (Thanks to Kathy McMahon for writing the new route!) Monday is a bank holiday so for anyone who wants to run we’ll meet at 8:30 and decide on the route in the morning. Wednesday we’re doing one of our standard routes – The Wall. Feel free to turn before the wall if you want a shorter route. (Be careful of the bikes – they can be very aggressive at this time of year!) Friday we’re back up the hill to the Heath.

An adventure run means that we ride the train to a location at the start of the run and then we take the train home at the end of the run. This means that if you are doing the run we are NOT meeting at Barclays – see the details below. (If you can’t do this run, there will be a group that meets at Barclays and decides on a route of their choice.) We’ve done this run twice and it has become a favourite of many people. We run along the Thames path for pretty much the entire way and it’s a beautiful route. Plus you can’t beat coffee at the Palace cafe when you’re done. Block out the entire morning or more if you want to stay for a long coffee afterwards.

If you’re planning to attend, please email [email protected] so we know to look out for you at the station. But please be aware that we are not waiting for anyone. You must be on time to catch this train or we’re leaving without you.

Here’s the plan: We’ll meet at the Finchley Road and Frognal Overground Station at 8:30 for the 8:41 train to Richmond. We will arrive in Richmond by 9:15 to start our run. (You can take a bus up Finchley Road to the station or take the tube to Finchley Road, turn left and walk up to the Overground Station.) When we arrive in Richmond we’ll run along the Thames all the way to Hampton Court Palace. (The entire run is approximately 8 miles or you can exit at the Horse Fair bridge for a 6-mile route and take a train from Kingston station.) We’ll have all the details about the route in the email next week. We’ll take the train back to London Waterloo from the Hampton Court train station. The train runs every 30 minutes, at 24 and 54 past the hour from Hampton Court and it is an approximately 40 minute train ride back to London Waterloo.

Please mark your calendar for Friday 19 May for our annual Sights of London run and afterwards our coffee gathering to say “good-bye and best wishes on the next adventure” to some of our dear friends. (Sigh, I hate saying good-bye.) For anyone who is new to this, we run to Big Ben and stop along the way for some group photos at key London landmarks. Then we take the tube home to St. John’s Wood for coffee upstairs at Richoux. If you are leaving, can you let us know?

Thanks to Meg Stone for pointing out this article in the NY Times about an interesting study that found that running exercises your mind as well as your muscles. I love this quote,

So now I have another reason to encourage you to run – it will make you smarter! Here’s the link to the full article: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/14/well/move/running-as-the-thinking-persons-sport.html?emc=eta1

Have a nice Bank Holiday weekend and keep running,

Jane

Monday 1 May – Bank Holiday

We head down towards Regents Park, then enter the canal at the Charlbert entrance and run east [left] cutting through Camden Lock Market until we run out of canal path at Islington.  Touch the canal boat tunnel wall—this is The Wall!—then turn around and re-trace your steps back to SJW.  You can turn around before the Wall if you want to have a shorter run.

It’s Friday [again!], so everyone up the hill! You can pick your distance and whatever you choose, there will certainly be someone else interested in running that distance. All of these routes are on the website. If you are not up for a hill run, ask around at Barclays; every week there is a group who prefer to do a flat run and you can decide together which flat route to tackle.

Click here for maps of all of the Heath routes.