Hi Everyone,
We’ve made it to our longest training run of the season – 11 miles to Kew Gardens! I hope the above photo inspires you. Once again our route takes us to a beautiful part of London as we run along the Thames. Don’t forget your Oyster card, water and gels. Remember, nothing new on race day! This is a perfect run to try out a water belt or anything else you expect to wear or use during the race. Please take a minute to read the route and especially note the directions for entering and exiting the Thames path. Please be on time to Barclays and get into your pace groups right away. We’ll do a staggered start since we’ll be a very large group and we don’t want to overwhelm the sidewalks. Watch your pace! I heard from a few of you that you ran too fast on Monday and suffered. Don’t forget that by running slower on the long runs it allows your body to build mitochondria, which we need for fuel on race day.
Wednesday we’re running to The Wall. Even with the small diversion (look at the map below), it’s still a good (almost) non-stop route which we need to prepare for the race. Friday we’re back up the hill.
Warsaw Update
Everyone should have submitted the photo directory, menu choices and bus money by now. Early next week we’ll be sending out the Itinerary and list with everyone’s flights. Make sure that you read the emails. They will have important information about the weekend travel, but also about packing and preparing for the race. Tomorrow is two weeks to race day!
Need some inspiration?
Sport England has released a follow-up to their very successful 2015 “This Girl Can” campaign. The following article has the new ad as well as the original. The aim is to encourage all women to be active regardless of age, shape or ability and it rose out of research that showed that many woman didn’t participate in sport because they thought they didn’t look the right way or they weren’t good enough. Anyway, I think they’re brilliant, very fun and give me inspiration. Hope you enjoy as well! http://www.telegraph.co.
Lululemon yoga
Lululemon is offering a yoga class geared towards runners on Tuesday, 14th March at 8:45am in the Marylebone store (74 Marylebone High Street, W1U 5JW.) RSVP to Kathy or Stephanie . Please note that if you’ve done yoga before and found it helpful this could be a good way to get an extra stretch. However, if you have never done yoga before, it may not be the time to try something new as we are so close to the race.
Hats for Sale!
We have extra red Warsaw hats. If you aren’t going to Warsaw, but you’d like a hat the cost is £10. If you are going to Warsaw and you already have a hat, but would like a second hat, the cost is £5. So basically, first hat costs £10 and second hat costs £5. (The supplier requires a minimum order so we have extras available.) I’ll bring them to Starbucks after running on Wednesday and Friday this week.
WRW Photos
Thank you to everyone who has sent in photos! If you have any photos from this year, send them along to [email protected].
Keep running,
Jane
ROUTES
Monday 13 March – Kew (11 miles)
Bring your Oyster or contactless card!
You’ll be feeling exhilarated as we do our 11 mile run to the cute village of Kew. 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! We will exit at the Kew Bridge, see photo below:
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. Here there are two options. Option 1 is on the route map but option 2 may be easier to remember. The distance is the same.
Option 1 – At the 3-way intersection, veer left on Mortlake Road, then shortly thereafter turn right on Cumberland Road, which will merge into Kew Gardens Road. You’ll do a turn to the left onto Station Approach [follow the Kew Gardens Station signs]. There is a Starbucks around the small bend where we’ll all meet up to congratulate ourselves on such a great run!
Option 2 – 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!
Wednesday 15 March – The Wall (6 miles)
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.
CANAL DETOUR
Exit the canal at Camden Road, which is where the canal is now blocked. Turn left on Camden High Street and then make your first right. On the map, this is Castlehaven Road which becomes Harley Road but it is not well marked on the street. Turn right on Kentish Town Road. You can re-enter the canal at the Kentish Town Rd bridge. There is a small unmarked entrance to return to the canal along the construction boards.
Friday 17 March – The Heath
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.
4 miles: A great way to ease into running the hill. Run up to the Hampstead tube station and back. If you have trouble running up, think about how easy it will be running down!
5 miles: The Betsy Route
6+ miles: The Partial Heath route OR the Reverse Heath route
7.5 miles: The Highgate route
8 miles: The Full Heath route
Click here for maps of all of the Heath routes.