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By the time I crawled into bed it was nearly 3 AM. It was a full day back to work.

It was an early flight back to New Delhi and there wasn’t much of a chance to do the Sunday long run. I could have – had I started at 4 AM – but running that early in London is no fun. The last time I did that here, it was positively eerie. At least for me.

So it was three movies on the circuitous route back and plenty of dessert.

The Thames river run today involved twists, turns, up and down staircases, avoiding bike paths and construction sites. More than scenic, it was to get the distance done. Perhaps I should have thought of it like a video game but I didn’t. It was a tad tedious, with many roads blocked off for the trooping the colour.

Later, while at Hyde Park, with the young boy accepting a Muay Thai kicking challenge, I saw the Red Arrows finish the parade with a fiery trail of red, white and blue.

I woke up feeling much better and it was off for a quick training session with Gaby before heading off to the airport.

I headed towards the beach and then backed up to a highway towards Albufeira.

It wasn’t a scenic run. Just a broad road with nondescript buildings and snatches of ocean that I could see between them or at an elevation.

Back at the hotel, it was another session with Gaby. Later in the day, I got a bit of a fever and spent the day pretty much recuperating.

I had short interval bursts today which I did in the small town near the beach. Even though I started on the later side, everywhere was near empty.

I made my way immediately to the gym where I requested a personal trainer. My sister, Roshini, yesterday had said it was a super session, and I looked forward to trying it out.

The gym had a great outdoor set up with all manner of pull up bars, TRX, battle rope, kettlebells, medicine balls, flowbag, stability swings and more. It’s the kind of equipment that makes me excited to train.

My sister had it spot on – Gaby was fantastic. The half hour went by quickly – the intensity often matching the work of the interval run.

Meanwhile, the moon is meant to be pretty special between yesterday and today and perhaps I will catch a bit of the grandeur tonight.

When I woke up, I asked the young boy if he would like to join me. He first said no. Fifteen minutes later, he was waiting for me to get ready. That’s how we roll.

We ran uphill right away for a short 600m before turning downhill for a kilometre down to town next to the beach. A bit of back and forth and back uphill to the hotel finished off ten kilometres exactly at the entrance gate.

It wasn’t a particularly pretty run, but in this same sentence, seeing the vastness of the ocean itself is always spectacular. Running here in Portugal with the young boy, more so.

I landed in Portugal this morning but it was a rest day. Ordinarily, I would have loved to do a run the first day in a new place. But, rest it was.

On Sunday morning, I started off on a leisurely loop around the parks. This time on Sunday, the area around the Palace was near empty. When I ran down the Mall, I couldn’t see a single person in any direction. It was heaven, wasn’t it?

I came back at a pre-appointed time to pick up the young boy.

The weather was perfect for running. We set off the same way I had come, making way around St James’s, skirting Green Park, onto Hyde Park.

After a bit, it was apparent it wasn’t his day. The distance he finished was respectable enough, but it wasn’t his day and so I bundled us up in a taxi to drop him back.

After the ten minute break, I felt energised to do more than I had planned and it was once again back down the same stretch for the third time.

This time in Hyde Park, running known loops and combining new patterns, I finished long run Sunday in London.

Next up, a cello lesson.

There was a ceremony going on near Buckingham Palace. The young boy and I were instructed by a helpful policeman to approach St James’s Park from Queen Anne’s gate. I hadn’t approached the park from there before and the entry opens at Birdcage Walk.

This is the final stretch of the London marathon before it curves around the mall at a spectacular photo finish with the Buckingham Palace as the backdrop.

The roads were busy with folks dressed in afternoon formal attire and the young boy and I weaved through them eventually running down paths hitherto unexamined. Three loops took us just past the thirty minute mark to finish up the run and settle into a leisurely breakfast.