A Good Excuse to Visit London

I ran my 10th Half Marathon of the year....in London! I ran the Run to the Beat: London's Music Half Marathon. That just meant every mile or so there was a DJ, some of whom were really good. I still ran with my headphones on though, and for a change the ear buds stayed put.

I was supposed to do a long run, so I padded my run both before and after the half. I ran a little over a mile from the hotel to the Thames Clipper, where I got a ride to the race start at the O2.

Now I've done one other foreign race before (Dublin), but this was by far the weirdest race. Instead of bibs you got a race T-shirt with your number on it. So, you had to wear the race shirt. It was a sea of purple, and I stood out like a green thumb. I was cold and planned to keep my green jacket/vest on, so they had to hand write a bib for me.

The runners were put in pens, and these pens had aisles that snaked. I felt like I walked a mile just inside the pen! It took over 13 minutes from the race start for my pen to even begin moving. I didn't cross the start until 20 minutes or so after the start gun went off. That was quite frustrating. And then I ended up running .2 miles to the start.

There was no water until after mile 3. It turned out to be a warm and sunny day, and between mile 2 and mile 3, all I kept thinking about was water. It was quite funny actually, since were running near the River Thames.

It was a pretty course. We passed by Millennium Park, Royal Arsenal, Royal Artillery Barracks, Royal Observatory Greenwich, and the National Maritime Museum (which looked really nice), ran through some quaint parks and towns, and then finished right back where we start at the O2, this ode to modern architecture, if ever there was one. Not just the O2, but the other building nearby, which were really interesting.

But one thing I noticed was that the mile 10 sign was at 9.7 - according to my Garmin - in fact we finished at just under 13 miles by Garmin.

At the end of the race, I got a bottle of water, and that was it. There were no food tables. At Dublin, we got a little lunchbox, but granted that was a full marathon. What they had instead were these food trucks: crepes, candy, fish and chips, and burgers. You had to pay for them, of course. It was interesting. I got a fish, cause I needed something post race. It was really greasy.

Now I thought I'd run from the O2 to London Bridge, but the course was under repair, and I didn't. Instead I got off at London Bridge and ran from there back to the hotel. Well, I ran 2 miles and then walked a mile. So all in all, I covered 17 miles (17.5 if I count the time getting to and weaving through the pen. Not too shabby. Now it's tea time with GF!