Eastern Promise

I'd arranged to have several guys lined up for a wet lunchtime run. In the end Mark Westlake was still too tender from the night before to come out and left it to Andrew Stubs and I to hook up with fellow running fource buddy Paul.

I forgot my wet weather red jacket of marathon rejection, my cap and my snorkel.

However the cold had moved firmly out of my head into my chest, but I was not producing anything to worry about and knew it was safe to train again.

As I'd only done one run heading to docklands with a muppet who shall remain nameless who took me on a stair and road cross fest that was not idea I was a shade nervous about the new ground ahead.

Paul expertly lead the way entirely on virgin running routes as far as I was concerned. Some fantastic vistas of the docklands skyscrapers on the outbound leg and the vast majority of the running was canal or riverside. Going through St. Katherine's dock Paul wanted to know which of the rich men's boats was mine - I tactfully pointed out mine had already moved to it's new mooring in Lac Lemain.

Some nice drags for intervals down here. Treelined canals set back from the roads providing long straight sections - Paul knew the distance from each tree to the 800m mark and so on.

Low point was going under a bridge, I moved over to avoid a massive puddle under the bridge to smack into a waterfall about 6 inches deep that finished off the job of making me entirely soaked. Did I mention that it was tipping it down?

By now I was loving exploring this Eastern wonderland and caught up in the thought of glimpsing the end of regent's canal (where the lockett's rockets train) at Limehouse basin.

By now Andrew wanted to go back, but we convinced him to stay as far as the basin and turn there while we did a basin loop adding nearly a mile to the run.

Paul explained the rules to me. At a certain point I had to go much faster until another certain point. We must have pasted the first point before I noticed it because we'd both shut up as the work rate climbed and the pace shifted up a gear. Clearly, we both blamed each other for the 6:35 pace. My asthma caught up with me and so I had to slow down before the finish but Paul very graciously joined me at the recovery pace.

I ran into a wall and have a scrape on my arm to show for it. Left, when?, Now!, Ow!

We caught Andy on the way up from the river to London Wall. We slowed to his pace and for some mad reason I turned into a metronome and started beeping out the 90 cadence rhythm. We were all pretty much spot on.

Too wet to be described as candyfloss today, more like a sea weed kelp forest, swaying with the storm and yet strong and tall.

One very wet hour and 16 seconds was the total time on feet. Hope Paul can calculate the distance for me. My guess is about seven miles.