#5 Gladstone Park

If you’ve never been to Gladstone Park, then that makes two of us! Despite living in northwest London all my life (bar a year in Paris in my early 20s, and 3 years in New Zealand at the turn of the millenium, so that makes 48 years in northwest london!) I have never visited this park, which is only 20 minutes from where i grew up. A perfect example that we often disregard what’s on our doorstep!

It’s a nice park of about 85 acres in the Dollis Hill area of Brent, named after the prime minister William Gladstone, and founded at the turn of the 20th century. From the highest point in the park (65m above sea level!) you can see Wembley Stadium, Parliament, the London Eye, and the city.

It was another 2 lapper, and was very tough for me as I have started to get an old problem recently that i had when i was younger, an inability to take a full breath, which when you are running believe me is really quite uncomfortable. I wonder if it is linked to pollen count, or to a particular tree or flower blooming, but i’ve had it ever since i can remember (earliest memory of it is 18 years of age) and haven’t been able to identify a trigger. So anyway, it made running quite uncomfortable. My hip seemed to be feeling a bit better though!

Do i sound like the neurotic worried well of north london?? Yup!

Here is the nice group of people at the start!

Here is Peter who is the race director!

Here is Peter’s map of Gladstone Park!

Trying to catch my breath back at the end!

So for the last week I have been doing some lunges that are good for the strength of my glutes (particularly my manky left one – see Brockwell Park last week) and for hip control as they are good for balance. I’ve been doing 10 reps on each leg, three times this week, and it already feels like it is helping my hip pain when running. Here is a video of the lunge (couldn’t quite work out the format of the video so it’s strangely stretched sideways!)