It was parkrunday again today, and for the fourth time this year I headed out towards North East London for a parkrun. This time I ran Barking parkrun in 22:14 – my best time for the year.
I arrived early – 8am – so started the day with an easy 5km walk before parkrun. But the main plan for the day was to walk a 15 mile loop taking in the venues for all four of the parkruns I have run this year in the North East and East London area – Barking (today), Valentines (on Valentine’s Day 2 weeks ago), Wanstead Flats (on New Year’s Day), and Mile End (3rd of January).
What I didn’t intend to do, but ended up doing anyway, was take a detour and check out Olympic Park in between Wanstead Flats and Mile End, but I am glad I did. It was the first time I had seen Olympic Park and what an amazing venue! I took heaps of photos, some of which are below, but as a result of that and a little bit of getting lost, my planned 3 hour 15 mile walk ended up being 23 ½ miles in 4 hours 50 minutes.
When I sent my wife a txt message to tell her that I had got lost but was now back at the car in Barking, she replied that maybe we should change the name of this blog to “Richard gets lost in London” as that seems to be a recurring theme of most of my long walks 🙂
Overall I was happy with the walk. I faded a little over the last 60 to 90 minutes, but I hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since breakfast at 6am, and in total I covered 30 miles today so maybe that was to be expected.
The original plan for this weekend, until I got sick a month ago, was to race the Bourges 24 hour race in France. Based on today’s walk I am glad I decided not to do the race as I don’t think I am in the shape I was in before getting sick. But hopefully two weeks of long walks followed by two weeks easy will see me in shape for a good 24 hour race at Château-Thierry in 4 weeks time.
Photos from today:
