UK Running

[Parker]

This is about a month late, due to just returning from deployment, but while in London about a month ago, I decided to look up any races being held in the area. There was one race, at Greenwich park, which was only about 2 miles from where my ship was moored. Now, due to the nature of the Navy, I couldn't go by myself, I had to take a liberty buddy. Knowing full well that the only other officer who would do this race with me was on duty, I talked a mostly out of officer into running it with me.
Now, here's where I had to get a bit dishonest. I knew he wouldn't agree to run 2 miles to the race, run 5k, and then run 2 miles back, so I kind of fudged the numbers, and told him that I thought the start line was just a few blocks away. By the time we got there, it was too late to do anything. We almost missed the start of the race, because he slowed me down, but we got there, registered, and ran the race. I came in with a 20:22, which after 6 months of deployment and treadmill running only, was actually pretty good. Plus, I can now say I've run a race in two hemispheres, as the race crossed the Prime Meridian (cool in a nerdy way).
Anyway, after the 2 miles back (torturous thanks to having to drag this guy along), I was pretty excited to have run my first race in a foreign country.