Hello Runners,
Goodness, the year is disappearing! In a month’s time, most of our running group will be away celebrating the holiday season or will have children home from school and will not be running on the regular routine. Let’s try to squeeze in some interesting routes between now and then!
Before we talk routes, could you do me a favour regarding the Bratislava trip? Check this spreadsheet (click here for the link) before this Sunday at midnight. Please make sure your flight and hotel information is correct. Please make any corrections and/or additions. Also, please input the following:

• Have you registered for the race? yes or no in Column D
• Do you want to ride the coach from the Vienna airport to the hotel? If so, the 2:30pm or the 6:15pm? (just put an x in the correct column K or L, or leave it blank if you are finding/arranging your own transport). We need these numbers so we know whether to order a large or medium coach.
• Input Sat and Sun dinner information. For now, we just need estimated headcounts for restaurant bookings. When it gets closer, we’ll deal with specifics. I’ll let you know when we need final decisions about dinners.
• Please add any comments that need to be noted in Column AN.

The spreadsheet is available to edit until this Sunday at midnight. After that time, any changes will need to be emailed to me. Next week I will be communicating our room counts to the hotel. You are free to make changes after Sunday, but they need to go through me (so I can call the hotel and say “now we are x # of doubles/singles/etc” instead of me needing to check the spreadsheet from time to time and figure out what has been changed). Throughout the next four months, we’ll open the spreadsheet so everyone can make final decisions on meals, tours, etc then close it again so headcounts can be passed on to restaurants and tour guides. Lastly, Lynn Gilbert is heading a group of ladies to organize the Sunday night celebration dinner and Betsy LaMaster and Kathy McMahon are organising the Saturday group tour. Would someone mind organising the Italian dinner Saturday night or getting together a group of ladies to organise it? It would involve finding an Italian restaurant (hopefully within walking distance of the Sheraton) and working with the restaurant to select a menu. Let me know if you’re willing to volunteer for that!

Routes this Week

Monday, 19 November
Due to the American Thanksgiving holiday, many of our runners are out of town or unavailable to run Wed/Thurs/Fri so we will do one, combined group long run on Monday. The medium progression, half-marathon training program has 9 miles on the schedule this week and the marathoners need to do 8 miles. Everyone feel free to bump that up to 9.5 if you want to go to Canary Wharf. It’s a great run!!!! There will be a wide pace range between the front of the pack and the back of the pack. If you are concerned about falling behind, find someone who would like to run your pace. There are places along this route that aren’t great to be running by yourself.
Canary Wharf (9.5 miles) – this is a fun route! We’ll follow the canal east to “The Wall” then come up to street level and run for a few minutes through Islington until we can drop back down to the canal. From that point, it’s all canal running until we reach Limehouse near the intersection of the canal and the river Thames. We wind our way through a residential area, run alongside the river for a bit, then cut into Canary Wharf business district to finish at the Starbucks in the mall at Canary Wharf. It’s a great run. You can see Canary Wharf from a couple of miles out (which is kind of cool), the canal provides for straight running without street crossings, and it feels great to grab a coffee then ride the tube back to St. John’s Wood.

Canal to Farringdon loop (8.25 miles) – If you don’t have time to run to Canary Wharf, try this route – it’s a loop back to SJW. Start with the main group on the canal to “The Wall”. When the Canary Wharf runners head on towards Islington, you turn right crossing Pentonville Rd and carry on south towards the river. At Oxford St. (called Holborn Viaduct at that point), turn right and run west all the way back to Baker St. Turn right (or north) there and finish at Starbucks in SJW. If you need 9 miles, turn into Regent’s Park near the end of the run to add a bit of

Wednesday, 21 November
Notting Hill (6.5 miles) – I think most of you know this route now. If you’re not familiar with it, have a look under the “Routes” tab to make sure you know where you’re going.
Notting Hill (6.5 miles) partial tempo run – If you want to try a bit of tempo work, but love the Notting Hill route – then do both!!! Jog to the canal, once you get there, run hard until the Ladbrook Grove turn-off (where we exit off the canal). From there, run a steady pace for the rest of the route and enjoy the window shopping in Notting Hill.
Western canal tempo run (any distance) – If you want a more intense tempo work-out than the one above, jog down to the canal, do your tempo work on the canal, turn around and do tempo work on the canal back to Maida Vale. From there, jog back to Starbucks in SJW to cool-down.

Friday, 23 November
There will probably be a small group running so do something fun (or follow the regular routes below)! With a small group you can make it up as you go. Ask Kathy, Michelle, Syma, and Sherry about their route today (Fri, 16 Nov). They call it the FUN route or the FYK route. It sounded like a blast! It’s approximately 7.99999999999 miles – definitely not as far as 8 miles.
The Heath – (8 miles) – The old route.
The Heath – (6-7 miles) – follow the group doing the full 8 mile old route. At Parliament Hill instead of turning left towards Kenwood House, turn right and run past the track. Exit the heath, run past Royal Free Hospital and head home through Belsize Park.
The Betsy route (5 miles) – I think Betsy is now doing a longer route on Fridays, but her namesake run is a great route. Anyone wanting this distance ask around as we are running up the hill to Hampstead and someone will explain to you how to do it.
Hampstead tube station (4 miles)– this is a great route to do if you’re short on time or are new to running “the hill”. Head up to the Hampstead tube station with the group then turn around and head back home. For a change of scenery, run up to Hampstead tube station then run back to Starbucks in SJW via the Hampstead high street, then Belsize Park, then down St. John’s Wood Park Rd.
Happy Running,
Paula