For He has risen

22 Weeks to Go (25 November)

Don’t call it a comeback.

To my mild surprise my week off has had exactly the desired effect and I hit the road with renewed enthusiasm.  I want to do this fucking marathon now and I feel like it’s within my reach, so I shake off any lingering doubts and do like Adele does, keep chasing pavements.  [Lesson six: When you’re training for a marathon, you will happily raid anyone’s record collection for new music to stave off the monotony]  I nail my first half marathon distance without meaning too and am delighted with myself: Though mildly concerned that I’ve peaked too soon.

To keep my motivation I decide to only go to new places in London, which has the twin effects of forcing me to run further than usual to get out of my normal routes and making me look forward to each run as much for the adventure as the exercise. 

First up is Neasden, not the first area to spring to mind for a promise of undiscovered beauty but in fact the surprise source of one of the best landmarks I’ve never seen in London: The Shri Swaminarayan Mandir.  It is absolutely stunning inside and out, breathtaking and magical and filled with an aura of perfect harmony.  I feel blessed as I wander round the sacred grounds; blessed, but also more than a little self-conscious about the sweaty footprints I leave throughout the building when they ask me to take my shoes off out of respect.

My next run takes me down south to a place all Londoners know but few visit: Morden, the last stop on the Northern Line.  It’s as drab as I’ve always imagined it, a generic down-trodden London suburban high street in the rain.  Boring, dreary, unremarkable.  Yet forever linked with the grandeur of Charing Cross or Bank in the minds of most capital commuters.

I quite like its rubbish bins, mind: No moral ground too high.

Then there’s a jog along the canal from work.  And a scenic commute back home.  And to round the week off, a tour of some of the capital’s highlights one deserted Friday morning in the sun.  I have never seen so much of London and every few trips brings me into contact with something new or quirky. 

Which has planted the seeds of a little idea for a competition.  As well as Name My House - which will launch as soon as I’ve photographed all of my past England residences - comes Name That London. 

Rules are simple: Whoever can correctly identify the most London landmarks will have any donation they have made refunded.  And if anyone gets all of them, I’ll donate £500 myself.  It’ll take me a few weeks to gather enough photos to make this interesting: So in the meantime, feel free to warm up with the following...