Well, this is it!  Our last big run before the race!  You may be a bit nervous about the run, and that is normal.  You all can do this – and we know you know you can do it.  It’s a long run, and it will feel long, and that’s OK.  We will make sure you are not running too fast and we will get there and it will be AWESOME!

A few things:

• Use this run to try out what you might wear in Nice – your shirt, waist pouch, hat, leggings, socks.  If the weather isn’t cooperative, it’s OK to wear different bottoms (I don’t want anyone catching cold by wearing something too light if the weather is bad), but it would be good to wear your expected shirt so you make sure it doesn’t chafe.  We want no surprises on race day that something that worked for a 6 mile run suddenly starts chafing at 9 miles.  Right now, the weather looks to be a high of about 70 and a low in the mid 50s.  With the race at 9:30 am, the temp will probably be around 60 to start and mid-60s to end.  If it’s sunny, it will feel warmer.
• Bring your Oyster card or contactless card to take the tube back plus money for Starbucks
• Bring a gel, maybe two
• Bring water
• Eat well and get a good night’s rest the night before and don’t go out partying 🙂
• Stretch the night before if you can
• Eat something for breakfast

A note about bathrooms along the run – around mile 5, there is a Costa Coffee attached to the Hilton Hotel on the Kensington High Street (just past the intersection with Holland Road) which has a few toilets.  There is also a Starbucks at mile 5.7 but it only has a single toilet.  We are not going to plan a stop – it’s better to keep running – but if you need to stop, a coach will wait for you and other coaches will continue on with the group.

Please confirm that you will be there on Thursday so we can plan our coaching groups.

Finally – I think a few of you may not yet have turned in your medical form.  Please please get that done ASAP.  One of our runners had a cousin who flew to Italy from the US for a race and was turned away because his medical form wasn’t in order.  We don’t want that to happen to any of you!!  Please let us know if you need any help with that.

See you Thursday!

The route:

We start out the normal way running to Hyde Park. Once in the park, we’ll turn to the left and run down the main walkway as we regularly do, to Hyde Park Corner. At the end of the walk, turn right to follow the main cross route in the park—beware of the bike lane! When this ends at West Carriage Drive, cross the road at the crossing and continue on the pathway towards the southwest corner of Kensington Gardens. We’ll run out of the park at the Broadwalk, turning right onto Kensington High Street and continue for about two miles until we reach the Hammersmith Tube gyratory. Run counter clockwise towards the left, ending up on Queen Caroline Street which gets you to St. Paul’s Church green. Run along the green to the right, heading to and crossing over Hammersmith Bridge. Exit Hammersmith Bridge Road to your left, go down the stairs and run under the bridge onto the Thames footpath. Now it’s time to enjoy the view as we run along the Thames for almost four miles—it’s beautiful!

This is the bridge just BEFORE the bridge we exit on.  I find it useful to know what this looks like because then I know it’s the next bridge where we get off the path:

Run UNDER the bridge and then turn left, past a couple of tiny shops and garages. Run through the small parking lot until you see the stone steps leading to the top of the bridge.

At the top of the steps turn right towards town (not back over the river) and run along this road [Kew Road] for about a third of a mile until you reach a 3-way intersection.  At the 3-way intersection, veer right and follow Kew Road along the boundary wall to Kew Gardens until you reach the first main pedestrian entrance to Kew Gardens, the Victoria Gate. Across from Victoria Gate, is Lichfield Road (it is only sign posted on the left-hand corner). Follow Lichfield Road straight into Kew village. Starbucks is on the left where we’ll all meet up to congratulate ourselves on such a great run!