Summer Breeze (makes me feel fine!)

It’s Week 2 of the LSE’s final Summer School intake and the group made their way out on a running tour to explore London.

A bumper group turned out this evening with 15 runners ready to take on the London summer heat (hurray!) and learn a few of the local historical and modern spots of interests.

First up was Lincoln Inn Field for the warm up and a chance to test out the runners and their capabilities - coach report was that this was a high performing group who would easily deal with the planned 6km route!

Just to the North of Lincoln Inn a few minutes brisk running away is a special place for many people - Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital - the UKs first dedicated childrens hospital which opened in 1852 which we whizzed past en route our first stop. For those interested check out the link between JM Barrie and his famous creation Peter Pan and the hospital.

Our second destination was just a short hop away on Doughty Street - the Charles Dickens museum! His former home where he wrote some of his most memorable novels and now a museum designed to look like it did when he lived there. More quiz action for the team and it was to guess the names of novels written at the house, lots of good guesses but with points aplenty this round. (Answers include the Pickwick Papers, Nicholas Nickleby and of course Oliver Twist).

On we ran to Coram’s Fields and the Foundling museum, designed to resemble Thomas Coram’s original foundling hospital (opened in 1739 after 17 years of petitioning!) - another first of its’ kind in the UK. Plenty of quiz questions this round with runners scoring more hits. A fitting place for us to get a team snap to remember the achievements of this fantastic place.

Our final destination was Coal Drops Yard and the Regents Canal but we had to make a quick detour via Kings Cross and Platform 9 and 3/4 for the Harry Potter fans out there. And just like that we were at the canal, taking in Granary Square, the huge choice of shops, bars and restaurants and the movie screen on the water (which had been removed this week....) normally watched in deck chairs under the setting sun by happy Londoners.

With the site visits in the bag it was a loop back to the LSE and the end of our time together. One final question once we got back to settle on tonight's winner - when was the LSE set up? The answer was 1895 and while no one got the answer it meant everyone was the winner! In the end we ran just shy of 6kms and we ran for exactly 60 minutes!!

Thanks to all the students for being good sports and running with me I hope to see many of you on a future run!