London City Runners

This evening I went out for a run with the London City Runners for the first time since August 10th. After being away for so long I’d even been quite anxious about going again, particularly as there wasn’t anybody who I knew on the list of signups for the run I’d chosen to do, but I figured I need to get back in the swing of things with running and also get out of my comfort zone and try and speak to some new people. Despite joining the allegedly “social” group, which advertises itself as running at approximately 6min/km, our average pace was closer to 5:20/km, in what has now become a classic not-so-social progression run for that group. Still, fortunately that pace is now not too bad for me, and although my body clearly wasn’t used to it after a few weeks of post-race R&R, it was nice to spin the wheels a bit. I had a great chat with a guy named Dan the whole way round, who proved to have an infinitely more interesting life than me, as he was an audiovisual technician from Spain who frequently got to travel with work. As is often the case, any anxieties I may have had were completely misplaced.

The club is amazing, everyone is so friendly, and without it I would’ve really struggled for social contact when I first moved here. The fact that it’s free is also mindblowing to me. It’s one of the many things that I have come to love about London, and I feel very grateful to be a member.