Davina & Lisa's London Landmark Diary

Davina Galloway and Lisa Wright had signed up for the London Landmarks Half Marathon on Sunday 23rd May 2021, this was delayed due to the pandemic and due to prior engagements they both couldn’t make the new date! Instead, they decided to run their own un-official version and raised an amazing £2,350 for Different Strokes. Lisa sent us this diary from their weekend in London and we loved it and their gorgeous photo’s so much we just had to share!

When Davina and I signed up to run the London Landmarks Half Marathon for Different Strokes back in October 2020, we were feeling optimistic that it would go ahead on 23 May 2021. Despite heading into lockdown #2 at the time, we were confident things would be better by this date, and the organisers had put Covid measures in place to give the race every chance of going ahead.

We had just started our 12 week training plan on 01 March when we got the news that the race had been postponed to 01 August! Due to a booked holiday for Davina and another race commitment for me, we would be unable to run on this date. Instead, we signed up to run the Great South Run for the charity in October and made an agreement to run the 2022 London Landmarks Half as well. In the meantime, we would continue our training (and fundraising) and run our own unofficial virtual London Landmarks Half Marathon, on the original date.

We were excited to make our plans to run the half marathon IN LONDON and we eagerly booked our hotel, as well as a special belated special birthday afternoon tea at The Savoy that had been waiting for restrictions to be lifted. We knew it would be impractical (and probably unsafe) to run the official LLHM route, but we figured we could run alongside the Thames for the 13.1 miles and still take in a serious number of landmarks, so Davina and her husband set to work planning us a perfect route.

Our training went extremely well over the 12 weeks and we ran four times a week, building up the mileage gradually, with our longest run of 11 miles a couple of weeks before the half, and it was soon time for the big event!

We set off for London bright and early on Saturday 22 May and were so pleased to be travelling on a train again, for the first time in well over a year! We desperately tried not to do too much walking in London, as we wanted to save our legs for the next day, but we did have a little wander around a few of the sights, and we also managed to get last minute theatre tickets for a matinee of a musical we both fancied seeing – result! Then, after purchasing some supplies we’d forgotten to bring, it was back to the hotel for an early night!

we both fell asleep watching the Eurovision Song Contest (I know…. we didn’t miss much!), and we were rudely awoken by the 05:30 alarm!

Breakfast was porridge and a banana with tea/coffee and we were outside the hotel shortly after 7am and ready to begin our event.

We settled into a great pace which allowed us to chat as we ran along the peaceful London streets and onto the Embankment, and it quickly became evident that the big city GPS was not going to do justice to our pace (we’d had similar issues running other races in London), but we did our best not to be deterred by this as we continued to clock up the miles. Davina – who is a far more ‘seasoned’ London visitor than me – pointed out the various landmarks we passed along the way, and the first 6 or 7 miles passed effortlessly, with so much to see along the way. There were a few cars and one or two other runners, but generally the streets were our own at that time of day and it was so lovely!

As we came past Battersea Park, I was starting to flag a little, and at this point we had our first sip of drink and a trusty Dextrose tablet! This was a real boost and the animated chatter resumed as we took a little detour through a huge development which had sprung up since our last visit to the capital! By this point we were heading back along the other side of the river, and by 9 miles we were already talking about the end of the run, with both of us feeling strong.

At 10 miles we were on The Mall and beginning a couple of circuits of the outer perimeter of St James Park, before digging deep to ascend Constitution Hill and then through Green Park, back onto The Mall, finishing up on Horse Guards Road at 13.1 miles!

We walked the short distance back to the hotel, stopping to pose for a windswept ‘finisher selfie’ in front of the London Eye, to gather our bespoke finisher t-shirts and medals, before heading down for some well-earned breakfast!

The rest of the day was spent celebrating, with afternoon tea at The Savoy and cocktails at The Ritz…as you do! We finished the day with a little walk in the rain to take some ‘London by night’ photos, before falling into an exhausted, but extremely satisfied, sleep!

We’ve had an absolutely brilliant time training for and completing this challenge, and our supporters have been so generous, helping us to raise over £2,000 for Different Strokes so far! We’ve got a short period of downtime now, before we start training for the next race, but at the moment we’re still buzzing from this one! I am feeling so proud of us both for this achievement, and for not allowing a little pandemic to stop us from getting the job done! I’m also thrilled that we’ve been able to help this great charity to support other younger stroke survivors….. and we are not finished yet!

On behalf of us all at Different Strokes we want to thank Davina and Lisa for making a difference to the lives of younger stroke survivors and their families!

As with a lot of our plans this year! Davina’s holiday was cancelled as was Lisa’s other race commitment which meant that we were able to get them back in the actual 2021 race – which we are really happy about. Fingers crossed this race goes ahead. The combined team of 10 have so far raised just short of £7k – Thank you! Follow their progress here: Different Strokes London Landmarks Half Marathon 2021 Team – JustGiving