8 Weeks Until the Dingle Marathon

Hello, hello! I am here with my weekly recap of training for my 48th marathon in Dingle, Ireland…and recapping life as an American in London!

Here’s how the week went:

Monday: 8 mile solo morning run before work.

Tuesday: 8 miles with 4×6 minutes hard (1 min jog in between.) Hello to King Charles!

Personal training at Nordic Balance over lunch, Heartcore pilates (after work with Dustin!)

Go big on Tuesdays, I guess!

Wednesday: Easy 5 mile run with friends around the Thames, physio at Purus over lunch

Thursday: Our friends from Minnesota were arriving around 3 pm, so I took the day off of work and did my long run Thursday, 16 miles solo.

I’ve been using Precision chews on runs- they are pretty high in carbs. I like them! I do a mix of gels and chews for long runs.

When our friends arrived, we took them for a chill walk around the Heath- Ruth wanted to show them “her” park! She and Matilda were buddies with their dog back in the states; I am sure she recognized them- and she was happy for new socks to steal to hide in her cozy cove! Naughty girl.

Then we did a refreshing swim in the mixed bathing ponds- a Hampstead must-do!

We followed the ponds with a fun dinner at the Holly Bush in Hampstead, with a nightcap pint at “our local,” which is the Magdala pub, that has some live trad music.

Friday: Our friends were touring the Tower of London and Tower Bridge, both of which Dustin and I have toured MANY times by now, so we sent them on their way without us. Instead, we went for a 7 mile run with Ruth. Eventually, we joined our friends for a walk along the Thames to Borough market for the (TikTok famous) chocolate strawberries and lunch. Borough market is fab, but it is SO busy, even on a Friday!

After lunch at the market, we walked down the Thames to Millenium bridge and then across to St. Paul’s Cathedral for the tour and the 500+ stair climb to the viewing platform at the top.

By then, we needed a glass of cold white wine to cool-down, so we waited in line to get into Gordon’s Wine Bar, London’s oldest wine bar (no bookings, so you usually have to queue.)

We wandered around afterwards to some more of the London sites before a lovely dinner at Fallow.

We ended the night at “The Room Where It Happens” which is a piano bar in SoHo that only does show tunes. My friend and I LOVED it. It truly is so much fun for someone who loves theatre (like we do!) Highly recommend.

Saturday: We woke up to rain, so I decided to take a rest day. We joined our friends for a tour of Shakespeare’s Globe theatre, which we hadn’t actually done before. The tour is about an hour or so, and then our friends were heading to Westminster Abbey (another site we’ve done one too many times at this point!) so we went back to Hampstead and let them explore on their own. (I embraced my rest day and took a much-needed nap!)

Eventually we went back into central London for dinner at Lina Stores and (my FOURTH time) seeing Operation Mincemeat. It really is a hilarious musical, very British.

Sunday: Our last day with our friends! They wanted a low-key morning (it was vacation, ha!) with time to explore coffee shops and bookstores, so Dustin and I went for an 8-mile run with Ruth while they did their own thing.

Saw this beautiful guy in Regent’s park!

We grabbed lunch before joining a historical pub tour at 2 pm. The historical pub tour is brilliant! It really is a bit more of a historical walking tour of the sites, with four pubs mixed in there.

We did this same tour with my sister Erin when she visited a few years ago, and this time the pubs were different (and a different guide), starting at the Cockpit, then Ye Old Bell Tavern, the Old Bank of England. ending at the George.

All the pubs were in the “City” of London (i.e. the square mile of London that is called the “city of London,” which is different than Westminster, or the boroughs of Chelsea/Kensington, or Camden where Hampstead is located (where we currently live.) London has many boroughs, just like NYC.

We ended the day with dinner at Speedboat Thai in SoHo before making a detour to Abbey Road in St. John’s Wood to make some poor but funny attempts at recreating the Beatles album.

We bid farewell to our visitors on Monday morning, as they went on to explore other parts of England. Come back any time!

Summary: Even with guests, I managed to fit in 52 miles of running, 1 pilates class, and 1 personal training session. Not bad.

I’m linking up with Running on the Fly and Confessions of a Mother Runner; check out their blogs to connect with other fitness bloggers for workout ideas and inspiration!