Day 4: Richmond Half

This was the half marathon I was most looking forward to as it was the furthest out of the city centre (so less people, less pollution and better scenery) and I had cycled around the area pre-John O'Groats to Landsend so knew the area pretty well. 

The run started by getting out of the hustle bustle of Richmond and before long I was on country roads. It got a little too country when I got near Hampton Court as there was no concrete to run on so I had to run on the grass. There were many obstacles on this part of the run, some small and some not so small....

After heading past Hampton Court Palace, I reached the half way point at a good time which meant I was exactly halfway through my 7 half marathons so was feeling pretty chuffed. Things got even better when I started to recognise I was on the same street from which I watched the Olympic Cycle Time Trials in which Bradley Wiggins won Gold - fond memories. 

However just after this point, cramp hit and there were some issues (I blame the people of Kingston who got in my way with their bags of shopping). Basically I needed to take a timeout as I knew from having cramp before that if I ran on without fully recovering I would get it again. So I had a little sit down at a rather dodgy bus stop, one woman moved away from me as I think my body odour wasn't exactly fresh. Then when I was feeling fresh and raring to go I set off again and it wasn't long before I was in Richmond Park. 

Now I thought this was going to be the best bit of the run, the sun was setting and the scenery was superb, I even saw 6 deer and got within 1 metre of 1 of them (they pretty much just chew on leaves and don't budge for anyone). However what I forgot was that past of Richmond Park there was a 2 mile hill. It turns out that adjusting the Richmond Half Marathon route slightly to get the Park was a bad idea... At this point I was struggling and what didn't help was the cramp started to come back. The last few miles were pretty slow and I ended up with a time of 1hr 53mins and 59 secs which I am still very pleased with.