It's almost Xmas. Still in London. After the run of yesterday I planned to have a shorter one today at a definitely slower pace. But plans are always hard to respect when I have no races ahead or when I am abroad and I want to experience new tracks or I just feel the need for disconnecting my mind from whatever is going on around me.
I woke up at 6am again, had a tea and dressed up. I was tweeting from bed something I barely remember. The temperature here in London is much warmer than Belgium. These steady 13 degrees are like a cold spring.
Starting from Kings cross, where my hotel is, I took Euston road until Marylebone, I ran ahead until crossing Baker street. Straight up to Oxford road and I suddenly found myself in front of Marble arch. When I got to the speaker's corner, I didn't find anything to say and I kept running into Hyde park for a while. It was still dark, the feeling was the same as those nights when people get out wasted from clubs. I actually met some of them coming back from a tough saturday night. But that night was almost over and there was very little time for the sun to rise and hit my warm and bearded face.
When I was on the bridge over the Serpentine I met a guy who was making a photograph of the sunrise. We were almost there. I turned my face as my eyes were the lenses of his camera and looked in the same direction.
It was divine.
Gooses and many other birds were living on the surface of the water, the light of the sun getting brighter and brighter, and it suddenly was daylight. The city woke up. I could feel it moving forward. Nothing changed for me. I was moving way earlier and way faster than them. Faster than everybody else.
The running pace got smaller and smaller, my legs were just not running. They were rotating, fixed only in one joint of the hips, my feet were brushing against the ground with high frequency, easy as the light, as fast as the sunrise.
4'10" min per kilometer and I couldn't feel it, as easy as drinking a glass of water.
On the way back I was so detached from the rest of the world that I just couldn't see that my hotel was now behind me and I was heading towards Camden town, in the wrong direction.
I had to stop and ask a guy "where am I, mate? where is kings cross station?"
"It's all the way down man, you're running in the wrong direction," he said.
Nothing is wrong when I am running.
I turned back and went to the hotel. It was in the room that I checked the mileage: 16 km, again, before breakfast.
I woke up at 6am again, had a tea and dressed up. I was tweeting from bed something I barely remember. The temperature here in London is much warmer than Belgium. These steady 13 degrees are like a cold spring.
Starting from Kings cross, where my hotel is, I took Euston road until Marylebone, I ran ahead until crossing Baker street. Straight up to Oxford road and I suddenly found myself in front of Marble arch. When I got to the speaker's corner, I didn't find anything to say and I kept running into Hyde park for a while. It was still dark, the feeling was the same as those nights when people get out wasted from clubs. I actually met some of them coming back from a tough saturday night. But that night was almost over and there was very little time for the sun to rise and hit my warm and bearded face.
When I was on the bridge over the Serpentine I met a guy who was making a photograph of the sunrise. We were almost there. I turned my face as my eyes were the lenses of his camera and looked in the same direction.
It was divine.
Gooses and many other birds were living on the surface of the water, the light of the sun getting brighter and brighter, and it suddenly was daylight. The city woke up. I could feel it moving forward. Nothing changed for me. I was moving way earlier and way faster than them. Faster than everybody else.
The running pace got smaller and smaller, my legs were just not running. They were rotating, fixed only in one joint of the hips, my feet were brushing against the ground with high frequency, easy as the light, as fast as the sunrise.
4'10" min per kilometer and I couldn't feel it, as easy as drinking a glass of water.
On the way back I was so detached from the rest of the world that I just couldn't see that my hotel was now behind me and I was heading towards Camden town, in the wrong direction.
I had to stop and ask a guy "where am I, mate? where is kings cross station?"
"It's all the way down man, you're running in the wrong direction," he said.
Nothing is wrong when I am running.
I turned back and went to the hotel. It was in the room that I checked the mileage: 16 km, again, before breakfast.
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