Pond Hopping Part 4: Weekly Workouts and Running Hyde Park

Greetings on the lovely Monday morning! I’m coming at you after a weekend filled with friends, food, and fun – and running. This is the last post straight from England, and I’ll be recapping my weekly workouts and running Hyde Park (well, more like 10 days of workouts, all over London). I fly home Tuesday morning, so look out for a few more posts on the whole experience later in the week. And without further ado…

 

Weekly Workouts + The Miles

You can read about hiking in the Lake District here and here, which was from Friday 8/14 to Tuesday 8/18. My Wednesday 8/19 long run is the backdrop for my 10 tips for running in London. The miles are from my FitBit Zip which is mostly accurate (counting about .9-.95 per mile run, but spot on walking).

 

Wednesday 8/12: 10.67 miles walking

Thursday 8/13: 5 miles running, 6.67 miles walking (11.67 total)

Friday 8/14: 5.4 miles running, 12.68 miles walking/hiking (18.08 total)

Saturday 8/15: 3.1 miles running, 14.16 miles walking/hiking (17.26 total)

Sunday 8/16: 17.53 miles walking/hiking

Monday 8/17: 16.92 miles walking/hiking

Tuesday 8/18: 17.43 miles walking/hiking

Wednesday 8/19: 9.5 miles running, 5.5 miles walking (15 total)

Thursday 8/20: 11.79 miles walking

Friday 8/21: 6 miles running, 11.46 miles walking (17.46 total)

Saturday 8/22: 13.42 miles walking

Sunday 8/23: 7 miles running, 12.18 miles walking (19.18 total)

Monday 8/24: 13.56 miles walking

 

FitBit for Friday 8/14, the first day in the Lakes – I never actually “log” anything manually 😉

 

Here’s the thing: I did not intend to put my poor little feet through this many miles by any means. I knew that the days of hiking in the Lake District would be long, but figured we would end up topping out around a dozen miles a day since the actual process of going up and downhill on rocky scrambles means moving at a pace of 2-2.5 miles an hour (rather than my usual brisk NYC walk of 4 mph!) And then, of course, we wound up getting ourselves off the right trail, or wanting to go a bit further to a pretty vista someone told us about, or just taking a walk after a massive dinner to refuel for the next day. As you can see from the Lakes days, Elli and I cut out the morning runs quickly – we planned to do more since Dumbo is in less than two weeks for me, but after Friday and Saturday it was absolutely necessary to stop!

 

We had to walk a mile uphill after dinner just from Bowness to our B&B

 

 

Even in London, getting around meant lots of walking. To be fair, much of the time when I’d ask directions, people would try to put me on a bus or the Tube to go just a stop or two and I’d refuse – I am from a walking city, and the idea of getting on and paying for public transport to go a mile is ridiculous to me! Besides, I love to explore on foot and really take it all in. The end result was walking a half-dozen miles or more in an afternoon without even realizing I was doing it. So I will definitely need to rest up this coming week so I don’t totally crash during Dumbo.

 

 

Running Hyde Park on Sunday, 8/23

I’ve mentioned a few times that I was supposed to run the Hyde Park 10K with my friends Elli and Heather, but unfortunately the registration didn’t actually go through for two of us. However, we decided to run into Kensington and Chelsea and through Kensington Gardens, meeting up with Elli at the finish line near the Serpentine in Hyde Park. We did 7 easy miles, stopped so I could take lots of photos, and had a massively good time anyway!

 

 

 

In Kensington Gardens

 

 

Puppy Foutain in Kensington Gardens

 

 

More of Kensington Gardens

 

 

Post-run in Hyde Park

 

 

After running our legs off and stretching and grabbing some water, we took a stroll through Hyde Park and exited near the Exhibition Road to locate brunch. We wound up at a British Le Pain Quotidien, which I have to say I prefer to the American rendition, mostly because they didn’t charge extra for subbing gluten free bread in my meal of eggs, smoked salmon and toast.

 

 

Le Pain Quotidien breakfast menu

 

 

 

The brunch was excellent, with actually really good gluten free bread and butter. Afterwards, it was raining so we were not able to walk back to Wandsworth as planned, but after getting back and cleaning up, the sun came out once again. Heather and I headed out for the second phase of the day around 3pm. We went over to Richmond, an area a bit further outside central London, and took a lovely walk along the Thames from there to Kew Gardens, which ended up making yesterday the most mileage of the trip! 

 

 

 

 

This required another excellent meal, which we found at The Roundhouse, a lovely pub in Wandsworth that had lots of gluten free and vegetarian options while also managing to maintain a regular pub atmosphere. I went for grilled octopus and vegetables in olive oil and pepper, and a big side of chips.

 

 

 

 

Also delicious, and when followed by ice dream and gluten free biscuits on the terrace, a perfect end to a very active day.

 

 

Sunset in Wandsworth

 

In fact, I’m pretty sure the only days I have moved more than on this trip were days when I had run a half marathon (the day of the Disney Half Marathon was my record, I think.) All good, if tiring, and requiring lots of fuel. Speaking of fuel, look out for my recap of even more good gluten free eats in London in Wednesday’s post, and further reflections on the trip thereafter!

 

 

How far do you think you’ve ever walked or run in one day?

 

 

 

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