sam and the city

The running of the serpents

Good day faithful readers. I've never been one to rest on my laurels when it comes to getting out there and meeting new people... well no, that's actually a total lie. Generally speaking, the fewer new people that I am forced to come in contact with the better. However, in order to expand my group of friends beyond the unemployed, alcoholic set (ie. the clientele of the world famous Blue Anchor Pub) I decided that I needed to move beyond my comfort zone, and as such I joined myself up with the Serpentine Running Club, where I though that there might be a somewhat greater chance of coming in contact with people who share my interests/values etc.

Of course meeting new people was not my only motive for joining the club, oh no! There are three other good reasons. Firstly, you see training for a marathon is not an easy task. It requires you to go out training very regularly, sometimes when the weather is horrible (which is more often than not during the UK winter), sometimes when you're tired and sometimes when you damn well just don't feel like it! Being part of a club and knowing that other people will know if you don't turn up adds just that little bit if extra motivation which is sometimes all that is required to get you out the door. Secondly, being a member of this particlar club at least allows me to get 10% off all running gear at various running shops, so given that the membership fee was only 20pound and I'll need to buy at least one new pair of shoes I really had nothing to lose. Finally... well I guess this is really a side bar to meeting people really, but female runners have fantastic legs!

Anyways, Wednesday night was my first run with the Serpentine Running Club and it was great. Before I arrived I expected there to be maybe 10-20 runners, but I was way off, because there were well over 100! On Wednesday nights there is a choice of two runs that you can do, 2-Parks (which goes around Hyde Park) and 3-Parks (which goes around Hyde and Regent Parks - I assume I'm either missing a park somewhere or they have very peculiar naming conventions), which are 4.3 and 7.4miles respectively. They further split the groups up based on what pace you want to run at. Since I'd already run 34km over the previous 2 days I decided to put myself in the 2-Parks, 7:30/mile group, which was just myself and a couple of other guys (Ian and Oliver). We ended up running a bit faster than the intended pace, but it was a really good run and it was good to be pushed a little bit.

Afterward everyone generally goes out to one of the pubs in the surrounding area for a quick drink and a chat about all things running before heading off. I discovered that Ian had managed to get himself a place in the London Marathon (2 weeks after Paris), so he is training for that at the moment. Apparently he also works for the Ministry of Defence! My first run with the club and I've already met at least one person who is nearly exactly like me!

posted by sam @ 9:26 am