SomersTownLisa

London Life
2021-03-22 18:14:02 (UTC)

My holiday dates blunder

Sunday 21st March
It was only when I put the dates for the New Forest races (see yesterday) in my diary, that I realised it clashed with the Hackney Half, a great social race not too far from us in North London. We listened to The Now Show in bed, but I didn’t hear it all, as I was wrestling in my mind what to do about the date clash. In the end, I decided to do Hackney which cost about £55 and has been postponed twice.

The first day in Wimborne after Jack’s race wouldn’t have been great, as we’ve covered the area well last year, and of course we’ve done the races before. It just seemed a good idea as it’s sort-of on the way to Devon where we’re going next day anyway. We can still go to Lynton but won’t now be going in the nice hotel on the cliff-top. Another reason Jack was disappointed was that he’d managed to book a hotel very close to the race start in the village of Wimborne St Giles.

Later today we did look at dates and at places to stay in Bosham and Sudbury, where Jack has some vouchers for other breaks. We are also going on holidays postponed from last year to Devon, Glastonbury and the Love Trails festival, as well as cricket in Nottingham and a possible football tour.

My ultra training plan had me doing a 22.4km trail run today. As we’re not supposed to use public transport, so have to start the run at home, I decided to do the Parkland Trail and on the way there I did circuits of Caledonian Park, Paradise Park and the whole of Finsbury Park, which soon took up 8km. After a couple of km of the Parkland Walk, I felt I couldn’t do any more, having done two quite long runs the previous day. But after walking for a minute, I was fine, something to remember when I’m struggling during the ultra.

I continued to Alexandra Palace and back through Highgate Woods. I didn’t have enough time to do Hampstead Heath. When I looked at my pace afterwards, I was pleasantly surprised to see the lap times for the first 10km, especially as I wasn’t trying to be fast, averaging 05:32 minutes per km, suggesting I’m getting back to my old running pace. I definitely want to do a 5km trial.

After a sit down, we went for a walk to St Mark’s churchyard, Primrose Hill, Regent’s Park Road, where the coffee shop was closed, and Chalk Farm, where we found another vegan restaurant preparing to open under a new hotel, a new take-away operating out of Morrison’s temporary building, and Café de Nata, which does vegan afters, and where Jack got a tea and coffee which we drunk by the canal.

I’d thought we were going home when I bought some heavy food in Chalk Farm Road, but we diverted again to Randolph Street where they’re going to build a new brewery and part-time drinking spot, under the railway arches. I also saw a picture on Time Out Instagram which gave us more of an idea how a Curzon cinema would fit in the arches at Hawley’s Wharf. They’re going to have five 30-seat screens, which means that even if they show blockbusters, we should be able to see the films we want to see.

We then watched a couple of No Such Thing As A Fish comic relief video episodes, with guests Stephen Fry, Ian Hsilop and Sue Perkins.




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