Last Day In London

Well, it's the last day of our United Kingdom/Ireland trip. It was a nice trip: busy, constantly on the move, tired, and sometimes a bit overwhelming with so much that we saw and learned. Unfortunately, I never had a chance to do some fel running, but did get to run in a lot of new places. I even ran to 221B Baker Street today before we are leaving London very early tomorrow morning. I did have a bit of a scare though. After a long bus ride on Wednesday, my right knee was really hurting. And it had kept up for the last couple of days till I had my good run this morning. And it just went away. I really don't understand, but I am just happy it went away. It will be nice to get back home, though, and, hopefully, to a couple weeks of good training leading up to Howl At the Moon on August 13th. Long flight tomorrow.

Finally, Some Trails!

Finally!

I got to run on some trails and had some elevation gain. It was in Killarney National Park. It wasn't fel running, but it was very nice. I did have to run about one and a half miles to get to the park. But It was a good two hour run, so I had plenty of time on the trails. What was really nice was that I was able to get out the back of the park and up to and above the Torc waterfall. It was quite beautiful with a 500 foot climb. If I had had another hour I think I might have been able to reach the top of the mountain (about 1000 more feet of elevation).

A Day in the Edinburgh Area

Had a good day, yesterday seeing the sights of Edinburgh, Scotland. Edinburgh Castle was the highlight of the day high up on a small mountain. Throughout the town were buildings from 900 years old on into the 18th century. Bought some Scotch single malt.

Also, I had a great twelve mile run early in the AM. Went through Uphall and Broxburn and then found a great trail along the Clyde Canal. At one point, the canal actually passes high over a river and a road. Very strange! All in all, I felt very good averaging 9:14/mile.

London To York

We are in York tonight. We traveled from London starting about 8:00 a.m. Saw a number of sites yesterday on our free day from the tour. We rode the hop-on, hop-off bus around a big part of London, but traffic was just about as bad as yesterday. We did get to Kensington Palace and the boat tour on the Thames. But of course, something seems to always happen to me to put a damper on things. With it raining on and off for part of the day, I managed to leave my $270 Ruby Project sunglasses on one of the buses and now they are gone. Sometimes, I really don't know why I bother buying nice things. Every vacation it is something. The last one was a soaked and ruined iPhone. And I always seem to do it early in the trip, so I am without it for the majority of the trip.

I did get a couple of nice runs in yesterday and this morning. Yesterday's run allowed me to get some nice pics and selfies at Parliament, Trafalgar Square and Big Ben. This morning's was mostly in Regent's Park. I found it a lot like Central Park in New York City.

Start of London/Ireland Trip

I will need to combine yesterday's and today's posts since I had no connection to post last night.

July 9th

The day is finally here. My wife and I are at the airport waiting to board our flight to London. It seems that we have been waiting for this trip forever. We are visiting London and a good part of Ireland on a two week trip celebrating our 40th anniversary. It will be the longest flight I have ever been on. It is the one part of the trip I have had some anxiety about. My body tends to ache when staying still for any length of time and this will be a seven hour plus flight. 

One of the things I really want to do is be able to get in some runs during the trip. I really want to say I've done some fell running. But how it will affect my training for Howl I don't know. Thankfully, my Tunnel Hill 100 cycle really doesn't start till we get back. Although I have gotten in some solid weeks, I seem to be dragging a little bit, particularly, mentally. Once I'm out on a run and warmed up, I am okay, but the first part just doesn't always feel right. So, maybe not actually training the next two weeks will be a good thing to recharge my mental batteries for the fall racing season.

July 10th

No running today. The first day I've missed in 498 days. My longest streak ever (power walking or running). Did get some walking in, but not really pushing.

As far as the day went, it kind of sucked for most of the day. After a long, uneventful flight, it took us two hours plus to get through the passport gate. Absolutely ridiculous. Then after getting our baggage, we find out the guy from the transportation company wasn't there to take us to the hotel. We called the company and they told us they only stay 90 minutes from when the plane docks at the terminal. You have got to be kidding. The person on the other end of the phone call basically said there probably wouldn't be much of a chance to help, but told MaryLou they would try. After 20 minutes on hold, we just hung up and grabbed a taxi. Surprise!!! $116 cab ride. Get to the hotel, room is not ready and it would be at least an hour wait. We just came in on an almost eight hour flight with just a little in an out sleep over a couple hours. Not happy.

Finally, a couple of hours later we meet with the tour group for a bus tour of London. It was okay, but traffic was horrendous. I would say we maybe average about two miles an hour for two and a half hour trip. It made the bus tour quite tedious. If someone gave me the route, I could have gotten a run in and did it in less than half the time.

Alas, I suppose it can only go up from here. We meet for a dinner with the group in 15 minutes. We'll see how it goes.