A trip to the city

Since the company I work for recently introduced flexitime to my working conditions, I decided a good use of this month's bonus day off would be to do the Serpentine 'last Friday of the month' 5k. OK, it wasn't on the last Friday of the month this time, but that was an enforced change this month due to Nelson Mandela's birthday celebrations in Hyde Park on this event's normal running date.

I got the train from Hitchin, got a bus across the city (so I could look out of the windows, unlike travelling by Tube) and found the bandstand which acted as the race HQ - but not before I met Anna Priestley, who had also travelled from home to come to the race. As we waited for the regular runners to turn up (which they do at the last minute) we wondered what we were doing there... not in a negative way - but why travel specially from North Hertfordshire just to run round a park? Still, it was a lovely sunny day, so I was very much enjoying being there rather than at work.

The route - you'll never guess - took us around the Serpentine, on park paths wide enough to cause no trouble to the general public. Other park users were going about their business, but there was a disappointing lack of confused tourists or disapproving businessmen having their lunch - perhaps we just weren't that unusual. One particularly hard part mentally was at the halfway point, where we had to run past a tempting-looking ice-cream stall - and there was a short hill at about 4k that could easily have finished off an unsuspecting runner (Anna warned me about it beforehand!).

The route was well signed and marshalled - it looks like it's quite a slick operation, since they practise it every month, and all in all it was very enjoyable. I got round in 17:33, which was fine. After a swimming session earlier in the morning, Chris finished in 21:29. Unfortunately Anna didn't make it round - after tangling legs with another runner she ended up with impressive cuts and scrapes in the second kilometre and had to abandon. (Afterwards, we didn't reprise our conversation about what was the point in turning up...)

I was the only runner wearing a North Herts vest (the Priestleys were in rather nice kit designed for Chris's company) - and that's where my negative comments start coming in: I thought this was a well-attended event by our club, with talk of runners meeting up in the pub for a lazy afternoon afterwards... perhaps I'm a year too late for all that, since the 'pub posse' don't seem to do it any more.

At only £2 to enter you get a very nice, friendly, well-organised but low-key event, which would be perfect for those of you who work in London... but I think I'll only do it again if I know a crowd of other people are going.