Europe 2023, August 12th

Woke up often during the night again, wasn't feeling tired from 2am onwards so still haven't adapted to the local time. Left early for Old Deer Park parkrun to allow for any delays, there was two different options for the first train line which intersected with the second train at different stations. It only took a couple of minutes for the second train to show up, so I ended up arriving at Richmond at 8am an hour early for the start.

This was my first time running with a waist belt and carrying a mobile phone so I didn't know what to expect from that. The phone just fits in the pouch, depending on how tight it's fitted it bounces around a little but not too much to be annoying, although sweat accumulates a little on a warm day.

I ran a bit of the course in reverse then along the Thames River for a few more kilometres, seemed like a good area although it's under the flight path to Heathrow. Then got the course description during the first timer briefing, in particular they made mention to stay inside the footpath on the grass fields on the way out.

On the first lap we started off in a pack but I soon got a small lead, running inside the footpath up until the tree line but never saw any markers to turn right. I just guessed what looked right according the website satellite map, then saw the posts for the rest of the lap and repeated the same thing again on the second lap. Only on the third lap when overtaking walkers I realised that you actually have to cross over to the other side of the footpath and underneath some trees for a hundred metres or so.

I corrected my mistake on the final lap but I don't think the guy behind did, as he seemed to almost catch up all of a sudden. I managed to hang on for first place but it still came out more than 50 metres extra even with those two small shortcuts.

Ran back to the train station and made it with just a few seconds to spare. Got to the hotel by 10:30am in time for the weekend breakfast that was still going until 11:00am, I was the last person there. The cleaners had already been in to clean the room while I had breakfast, they do a full service every second day but seemed very early to be doing that already.

Took a short train ride to Portobello Road markets, right off the station there was just people everywhere, couldn't walk at normal speed - a combination of people just stopping for no reason, or whole families with prams that take up the entire road.

Found a pound land on the main street, tried a new Carabao drink mixed berry flavour that wasn't very good. Down one of the side streets lots of people were taking photos outside a book shop and annoying the cars that couldn't get past, seems like it must have been related to the very old Notting Hill movie but it meant nothing to me - the donut shop next door was more exciting.

I didn't stay for too long due to the crazy crowds, got the train back to the hotel and had lunch as my legs needed a rest. Watched the second half of the England vs Colombia quarter final in the women's world cup.

For the afternoon headed to Leyton in East London. Once arriving at the station I just followed the big crowd to the stadium for the league one match between Leyton Orient and Portsmouth. I had a seat on the long side in one of the home team sections. Like many other smaller stadiums there was surrounding apartment blocks where you could just watch the game from your balcony.

Although Leyton Orient just got promoted from league two they started better than Portsmouth in the first half. However Portsmouth converted a couple of rare opportunities to lead 2-0 at half time. A bad own goal for Leyton Orient after half time and the result was decided. The attendance was about 8000 including 1500 away fans.

I got back to the train before the majority of the crowd, then back to the hotel. Had a bit of time to rest before going out again to see Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap at St Martins theatre at 7:30pm. It was a very good performance but the seats were just painful. I was in the upper circle, it felt like seats were angled forwards so you were about to fall out of the seat, and they had no leg room at all.

Back at the hotel I tried to watched Match Of The Day from 10:30pm but was too tired to reach the end.