Goodgym Islington Area Activator Simon met up with 8 intrepid runners outside the London School of Economics Student Union this evening, ready for a tour of the immediate runnable areas around Holborn. Firstly, we run together to Lincoln's Inn Fields to engage in some classic warm up exercises by the main bandstand, before making our way towards Smithfield Market (passing Bell Yard and Shoe Lane on route).

Smithfield Market is the oldest wholesale meat market in Europe, and was originally the meeting point for the St Bartholomew's Fayre in the 12th Century- a festival for dining, trading and jousting! The name "Smithfields" derives from the Saxon word "Smeth", or "Smooth". The area was particularly flat, and excellent for grazing cattle on green pasture.

We then ran a loop around Charterhouse Square, next to The Charterhouse, a former monastery and now a fascinating museum dedicated to the ancient history around The Barbican and Smithfield boroughs. Round the corner, we scaled the pedestrian bridge at Barbican underground station, and crossed to the upper walkway of the Barbican Complex.

The Barbican Estate was an extremely ambitious urban planning project from the late 70's, and stands to be the UK's prime example of Brutalist architecture. Each block of the estate has been named after renowned English writers and playwrights (Defoe, Jonson, Shakespeare, Trundle etc), and the centre exists as a cultural hub for filmmakers, musicians, artists and educators.

We toured the project, and gazed upon the Cripplegate Fort from above (one of the oldest standing structures in London, dating to 90 AD). As we made our way back to the Ben Jonson estate, we engaged in a Paarlauf Interval Session on the upper deck. Between our group, we separated into pairs, and ran around a short loop in opposite directions. Runner 1 would run clockwise at a moderate speed, while runner 2 would run anti-clockwise at a recovery pace. As the two runners meet, they would switch roles, and start running faster or slower to complete the exercise. 5 minutes of fartlek running between us to up the tempo!

From here, we made our way back to Lincoln's Inn Fields via the Holborn Viaduct (and passing Hatton Garden diamond district, the location of the notorious Hatton Garden heist of 2015), and on to the student union on Portugal Street. Well done everyone, smashing running all round!

Our route data can be seen here, via AA Simon's Strava:

https://strava.app.link/CkMF1wcjgrb