Hi Everyone,
Love those orange hats! I’m still floating on a happy cloud about the weekend and feeling very grateful to know all of you. The group dynamic was very positive, supportive, welcoming, fun, appreciative and happy! What a beautiful city to spend the weekend and run a race – I LOVED jumping into the ocean after the race. (I may try to make that a requirement for future race locations!) Some women had a great race and some women had a difficult race, but I hope you see that the race is really just a small part of the whole group experience. WRW is mostly about the friendship and on that metric we totally rocked it! Thank you so much for my amazing gifts! I just love my bracelet and scarf. They are so beautiful and will always be a wonderful reminder of you and our weekend together in Nice. THANK YOU.
Finally another gigantic thank you to everyone who worked so hard to make this year at WRW and the race weekend in Nice such a huge success! We are all so appreciative! And because we want to capture all those wonderful memories, Amy is in the process of setting up a photo sharing account for us so we can download and share the photos from the trip. More details on that to come soon.
This week is about enjoying WRW and doing a bit of running if you are up for it. We have an easy and fun run for tomorrow Wednesday. We’re taking the short route to Whole Foods in South Kensington. Plan on a slow, easy 4-mile run (and if you cut through the park, it could probably be around 3.5 miles – I won’t tell on you). It might feel good to get your legs moving again and shake out some of the post-race rust. Upstairs at Whole Foods, there is a big space for us to have coffee and you can do some shopping afterwards. If you are really not up for a run, you could also come meet us at Whole Foods.
Friday we’re back up the hill but if you can’t face the hill, come meet at Barclays and you can organise a group to do a flat run.
Welcome Ex-Beginners – Class of 2016!
Love that name! We’re excited to have the ex-beginners join our MWF group! As a reminder, we have five pace groups (8s, 9s, 10s, 11s, and 12s) but the groups are really just a simple way to organise folks who run at roughly the same pace. Most beginners start in the 11s or 12s. There is a big group of ex-beginners, so wherever you end up there will be other ex-beginners with you. We all know that joining the big group can be intimidating at first, but please know that the first day is the hardest. Everyone is so friendly that you will quickly fit right in. The beginner coaches also help you to get settled into the MWF group. If you find that on the first day the group that you are in is too fast or too slow, don’t worry. It may take a few tries to get a sense of where you should be. (It’s easier to join the MWF group in the spring, because in the fall there are many new runners that just moved to London.) As a reminder we meet at Barclays at 8:15, and we try to start running at 8:20. Let me know if you have any questions about the pace groups or the MWF group. We know that leaving the beginner group and joining the MWF group can feel a bit scary, but we’ll help you make the transition. I promise!
We’d love your help!
Please let us know if you’d like to help in any way with WRW next year. There are lots of jobs, both big and small.
That’s all for now – except to keep running!
Jane
ROUTES
Monday, 25 April – Travel day back from Nice ½ marathon
Wednesday 27 April – Wholefoods S. Kensington thru Hyde Park (4 miles)
This route heads to Hyde Park in the usual way, heading down Lisson Grove to Seymour Place, taking a right at the end of the Seymour Place to cross over Edgware Road, then taking a left on Stanhope Place to the park entrance. We will then run to the left, heading towards Hyde Park Corner, but before we get to the corner we will head off to the right and run along an inner path towards Carriage Drive. Here we cross the road and continue on Flower Walk until we reach the south west corner of Kensington Gardens. We can cross Kensington High Street at Kensington Church Street to get to Whole Foods, which will be directly in front of us, where we can enjoy a coffee together and do a bit of shopping!
Friday 29 April – The Heath (4-8 miles)
Even after the ½ marathon we run up the hill on Fridays–it’s tradition!
5 miles: The Betsy Route
6 – 7miles: The partial Heath route
7.5 miles: The Highgate route
8 miles: The full Heath route
Click here for maps of all of the Heath routes.