25.9.07

Best of London

Not much is new in our lives at the moment so I thought I'd give my two cents about what I believe is the best of London. A lot of these are my favorite places, things to do,etc and I'm sure nearly every Londoner will give you a different answer for each. This is what is so great about the city--so many options for every type of personality. The list could go on and on but here are just a few:

Best............

place to eat out on a budget- Carluccio's in Canary Wharf

place to buy groceries- Waitrose

park- Greenwich

au natural smoothies- Crussh

museum to get lost in- Victoria & Albert

overall shopping experience- Selfridges

shopping for everything
including the kitchen sink- John Lewis

Clothes shop- Zara

art- National Gallery

food market- Borough Market-London bridge

crafts/outdoor market- Greenwich

place to watch movies- The Empire in Leicester Square

place to make fun of tourists- The tube (subway)

View of the city- Royal Observatory, Greenwich

Ice-cream- Movenpick/Green & Blacks

Cultural Experience- A play on the West End

place to hear a concert- Royal Albert Hall

Touristy Spot- Covent Garden

Place for a cup of tea- Organic Cafe, Greenwich

Thing to do on a Sunday morning- Walk through Blackheath Common to Greenwich Park

place for peace and quiet- Greenwich Park on a weekday morning

16.9.07

Two weeks & Running

I've been going extra extra gung-ho on the exercise the last few months or so . This is due to a lot of reasons but mainly I need to get my weight down quickly for my health. I've been doing running races every year since 2002 but the last two weeks I had the bright idea to do two 5k (3 mile) races back to back. My total mileage including the race since last Sunday is 10 miles and this doesn't include my usual time I clocked at the gym and doing yoga this week. I've just got a few more weeks to keep this routine up (if I don't pass out first) and then I've got trekking in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco to look forward to in October as well. 4-5 hours of hiking a day in the high mountains of North Africa will be definitely a challenge. So, keep your fingers crossed and end of November/December I should hopefully have dropped at least a little bit of weight.

The races these last two weeks were the same distance but two completely different worlds. The first one was the London Peace Run through Greenwich Park. About 100 people participated, 80 of them professional runners. Mentally I found this one horrible because half the people darted way ahead at the start, the heat was draining and the difficulty of the hills were unexpected. My time was crap but James did it with me and that made it a lot more worthwhile. Here are some pics of James and I at the end of the race:

The second one, the Hydro Active Women's Challenge was quite humorous due to the amount of people involved. 20,000 runners just in London participate every year to do a little 3 mile race and professional runners come from all over the world to run as well. Its an absolutely huge event and highlights are even shown on the 5 o'clock news. You also get a great goodie bag and medal at the end full of t-shirts, organic food and samples galore of everything you could imagine. I swear people do it more for the stuff at the end than the actual challenge of the race. My time was a lot better than the Peace Run cause the route was easier. In the end I managed to do it in about 34:00 which is a personal best for me (My very first 5k I did it in about 46 min). You can see from the sheer amount of people in the pic below how popular this run is. Also, although the expression of my face at the end makes me looks out of it, I was just glad to get these darn races over with.