It’s getting cold in London, and running might become less enjoyable with the wind in your face and sub-zero temperatures. That’s why I headed to Gatwick to take a flight to Nice, France. The famous French Riviera is a perfect place for running: the views are stunning and it’s so warm even in December. Running through the picturesque Nice Promenade and the fancy streets of Monte Carlo was an amazing experience. Until a certain point…
Watch my vlog about the exciting running adventure I had on the Côte d’Azur to learn how I dealt with a very unpleasant incident that happened to me in Monaco, how much I spent on this day-trip and what I packed in my bum bag!
00:00 Intro
00:31 Why I decided to go on this running adventure
02:23 Morning before the trip
04:49 Arriving in Nice
06:47 Stunning Monaco
09:47 The incident
16:34 Back to London
21:19 How much I spent on a day trip to Côte d’Azur
22:40 What I took with me to run from Nice to Monte Carlo
25:09 Conclusions
Hi I’m Kate I’m an ultra Runner a running coach and a mother of two welcome back to my Channel or welcome if it’s your first time here and here in this channel I talk all things about running so today I want to tell you about a little running Adventure I went
On recently But first you might be asking yourself what’s this here I have um on my chin well these are wound closure strips and yes I do have quite a deep cut in my chin and yes that was a part of my running Adventure um but I’ll
I’ll touch on that later on so how it all began and um where it was coming from so the idea was to go somewhere warm and sunny and do my long run there you know it’s um I’m here in the UK it’s end of November um it’s getting rather
Cold I usually run in the mornings so it’s just a little bit above zero sometimes even below 0 de I don’t find this weather comfortable for me some people do but I prefer warmer climate I prefer running in warmer weather so I thought why don’t I just go somewhere
Maybe to the Mediterranean maybe somewhere else um just in one day so kind of fly there in the morning do my long run and then come back in the evening um so I Googled the tickets um one of the first um locations that came
Up um to my mind was um French Rivera I thought maybe I can fly to nice and run there um a friend of mine um lives there he’s um a runner as well so I um texted him said do you want to come with me do
You want to do a run with me I might come just for a day he said well yeah great idea the initial plan was that I fly to KN catch a train to Monaco where he works and um from there we would run back to nice and and um I would catch a
Flight back to London it didn’t really work out exactly that way I did get the ticket so my ticket there was for 7:30 in the morning and I was going to go back at um something like 9:00 in the evening but um it didn’t go exactly as
It was planned um on the day I woke up at um something like 3:30 so I did need some time to get ready to pack everything um get to gck airport I thought that the best scenario is to actually um leave my car at a long day
Car park there because you know early in the morning late in the evening there aren’t many traffic jams so it makes sense to to take a car and then I could leave some something you know some warm jacket in the car um so it’s kind of
Easier there I am I wake up in the morning 3:40 go to the shower get dressed you know pack my gear and I open my email and I see an email from the airline company saying the flight had been delayed by 3 hours so it didn’t
Make sense to go to um the airport straight away so I thought I’d stay home I did try to get some sleep I couldn’t actually maybe I was just a bit too excited probably also a little bit anxious cuz that was my first trip I got
Into the car drove to Gat Vick left my car there took a shuttle bus got to the airport did seem quite weird to be in the airport wearing my running GE there were so many people around in the airport with huge suitcases with huge backpacks none of them I think were
Dressed as runners or you know I mean a fair andet obvious and then also it was pretty much cold and I was just wearing running shorts and a t-shirt I think I did I did take a vest a running vest and um jacket like a wind stopper jacket and
I was wearing it but probably took it off the airport and that that seemed weird but also very fun because you feel like you’re a little bit out of place so you are supposed to be maybey running in the streets and all this outfit but you’re here in the airport but then it’s
It’s it’s still okay it’s quite fun I had my um breakfast waited for the flight hopped into the plane I was lucky to be the only one sitting at the row so I had all three sit seats to myself so I could get a little Nap so V has sent me a location while he he’ll be waiting for me and ni so I guess I got to get running to get that now there was a change of the initial plan because we had to play around with it a little bit um so my friend came to
KN and I ran from the airport to this you know famous um ponade at nce so far the hardest bit was to understand how to get out of the airport as a pedestrian cuz you know people usually leave it by my taxi bus whatsoever had to find my
Way out but just look at it just look at this people who live here must be just happiest people on earth end of November it’s plus 17 just amazing weather and we met there and um you know started our um run to Monaco it is a very very beautiful scenic route
It’s all up and down I think there was something above 300 M elevation on it I don’t remember exactly something like 26 6 K you know my friend was telling me all about you know the mountains that we see the base that we passed the views were just
Amazing most of the route you have like a pedestrian area or a cycling route there at some places it wasn’t ideal sometimes we had to cross the road multiple times but I mean generally that happened just a few times during those 26k and um I mean that’s that’s that was
Really comfortable to run I think we finished our run in mono at the train station at about just before 5:00 in the evening we stopped at V French to look at this amazing view over the um deepest Bay one of the deepest bays in the
Mediterranean um it used to be a milit a US military base by the way ah I think it was a good idea to to fly here really and uh my friend said he had to go back home and I thought I’d just stay in Monaco for another hour or so because
I did have that hour and um walk around a little bit so what I did I ran up the hill to that famous um District of Monaco called Monte Carlo that’s been around it was hilly I totally loved it I can say that was a great idea to fly
Here um well here we go Sunset Monaco um that’s the famous Monte car Cino at the back wo it’s so beautiful I greatly love the scenery and the whole feeling of just being in another country being able to run in the warm kind of conditions wof um yeah it’s definitely
Worth it I haven’t been to Monaco for a while I think for a couple of years I find that it’s interesting to come to same place in different circumstances in life um doing different things I think I’ve never actually run here before I used to
Come here by train or by car so this is going to be another memory I mean it’s just it was so so amazing they had that little um Christmas fair with all those little stalls there and then there was this beautiful view over the bay there was this beautiful sunset that I was
Walking around all happy feeling fulfilled um you know it was just amazing I thought wow I am just so lucky that I’m here and I’m so happy that I decided to go on this little trip the plan now is to go and grab myself a bottle of water it wasn’t a perfect idea
To run without any Watcher with me but I mean I didn’t have lots of space in my bum bag um I’m pretty much happy I actually took the jacket and the and the vest here because it is getting chilly what I found is that when the sun shines
And when you’re in the sun it’s really really warm here but then we’re in you’re in the shade and now you know after Sunset it’s getting pretty much chilly so I’m happy I have some clothes with me so I’m going to get a bottle of water um hopefully I’m going to pop into
Some Supermarket get some food pop into a train get to the airport and fly back home ideally if everything goes according to the plan at 10 P 10 I’m supposed to be back to London gck just now I got a water bottle for 5 but I
Think that’s what it is when you buy it in the Christmas Market in Monaco near Casino when at some point I was walking thinking about all this and I tripped I fell down really really hard and that was one of those chains you know they use sometimes to separate at um um some zones in The Pedestrian area so there are like two poles standing there and
Then just a decorative chain and you know when you trip over a stone or just some uneven surface on the ground you can actually put your foot forward so you would probably um land on your knees can be painful but then at least you don’t land on your face when you trip
Over a chain your feet work as hooks so basically you sort of trip over you can’t put either of your foot feet over the chain and then you just land on your hands and you know on your face so I put my face up and I landed on my chin that wasn’t very
Pleasant my first thoughts were are my teeth still in place cuz you know the jaw felt really bad I started counting my teeth with my tongue and I opened my mouth smiled and asked people around there were like people gathering around me I asked them are my teeth still in
Place they said yes so that was a relief I think after that I started actually realizing what happened I was wearing this white um running vest that I bought recently and it was all covered in blood I was covered in blood and people around me were like looking at me in some Shock
Um they gave me some tissues directed me to uh the nearest pharmacy I came there I thought I’m just going to get a plastic put it on there and you know hop on a train and go back to London but in the pharmacy they gave me a mirror and they
Said you know look in the mirror and probably you should go to the hospital I did look in the mirror I’ve realized that I have a really really really deep cut there so the one that you have to probably stitch up but my flight was in
Just 3 hours so I couldn’t actually get to the hospital because that would take much longer so I got to the airport I um got into the bathroom washed all the the blood off um luckily I had the jacket that I could cover um the white vest it
Wasn’t white anymore so I did put some kind of those you know straps that sort of help with a wound like this but it’s go it’s extremely deep and I’m I’m not okay so I have to go get back to Gat I’m going to grab my car
From the long term from the long state car park drive home and probably go to an emergency somewhere around and that’s going to be somewhere around 11:00 at night I can’t eat now I can’t Sho it I can’t open my mouth for two reasons first of all it’s extremely painful
Second of all I’m afraid that those kind of straps that I put on the chin I mean they’re not stitches so they won’t work as well so I’m just afraid that you know if I chew and I open and close my mouth it’s going to get even
Worse I really don’t know what what’s the the solution here not eat anything and somehow get to get to emergency somewhere near my house so I got into the plane I started feeling pretty much bad by the time I think the adrenaline went went down and
Um I started feeling all the pain it was really painful put on your own mask before helping others if we land on water take a life jacket from under your seat as we landed Gatwick I went through all the controls um caught a shuttle bus to the car and
By the time I just realized that I can’t go to emergency on my own I just not you know I just can’t do it um luckily a friend of mine volunteered to come with me and um he gave me the support that I needed I think I just needed someone to
Be there um with me because you know on my own it just felt a little bit too much probably I would have just went to bed thought that i’ deal with everything next day I’m pretty much sure that wasn’t that wouldn’t have been uh you know the best solution cuz at the same
Time I felt like I have to know what’s going on there what if the wound needs to be stitched up what if it has to be disinfected what if what if what if so um a friend of mine so I drove to my house a friend of mine came and went to
Ane I am very grateful to him that he’s done it because it was it was really hard to be on my own at the time at an that said that I’ve actually done a great job literally that was what they said that I put the strips on and they
Said the wound closed up I mean not fully but I mean at to some point so they just disinfected it a little bit more and um took off those old strips put the new strips on and said they’re and said they’re not going to stitch me
Up so I I got been home by about 20 p 3 um so basically it was almost 24 hours not sleeping I couldn’t really get to bed straight away because it was painful I couldn’t fall asleep yeah I mean I probably that’s just another life lesson running taught me but putting that aside
It was really an enjoyable Journey an enjoyable trip I really really liked it it was so nice um you know running in the warm running in the sun seeing those those fantastic views and also what I really liked about it was that now putting that incident with the chin
Inside I must say that this journey was a really really enjoyable one and it’s not only that I could see all those picturesque views that I ran in the war that I you know met my friend it’s also something about having done so much just in one day having traveled to another
Country and having come back home just in one day and also you know you have this feeling that you’re not exactly in in a place where everyone else would expect you to be or maybe you yourself would expect you to be it’s just doing something that is not in your routine
Doing something new and having all those emotions all those experiences the day seemed very long not only because it you know turned out to be 24-hour day for me I mean of not sleeping and doing something but I mean even even if there hadn’t be that incident
With the chin it was it still seemed like a very long day because you get all those new emotions um new experiences and it’s really fun cuz then the next day you wake up and you think wow I’ve done something which feels like something big and it is something to Remember now um let’s go into some details you might be wondering how much it cost me to go to knes and back I mean what was the overall money I’ve spent on the trip it’s not that much actually so the ticket there cost me something like £1
19 the ticket back was more expensive around £43 and then I also paid for the longterm long stay um car park at Gat that was roughly 20 all together um I’ve spent around £80 on the trip yes of course I have been um buying something
To eat went got to the pharmacy but all this all this could have happened in London as well so I wouldn’t um count that towards the cost of the journey so £80 for a journey like this and I must also mention that I got a ticket a
Couple of days before the flight it was a week day but nevertheless I think if you plan in advance you can just look for some nice locations and cheap tickets and um get them you know two months ahead and then you know go for your long runs to some nice and
Interesting locations another thing you may be interested in is what gear I took with me what equipment and how I carried it all well basically I was just wearing my bum bag well now I’m dressing the way I was on the day so I had my
Sunglasses since I was going to nice and I had a bum bag I prefer wearing it this way probably most people would wearing it would wear it this way but at the back here in the running shorts I have a kind of a pocket where I kept my tripod
So it’s kind of a foldable tripod and as well um it’s uh worth mentioning that I also had to take some you know some equipment for filming this whole thing with me so there’s the tripod and then let’s see if I just take everything out what I
Carried with me so um my shorts also have got some side pockets so I could carry my um camera in them and then everything else went into my bum bag so let’s see what’s in there um a little cloth for um sunglasses so here we go there is a
Jacket I didn’t wear it in cons apparently there is um a running west must say a pretty thick one my passport I put my driving license into there as well a charging wire and a European charger for the phone um didn’t really need it but um yeah could have my
Keys and yes I don’t know why I took such a long trap here but I did my heart tray prator so there we go it all fit into this um maintained bum really convenient and um probably you can you know not take the heart rate monitor and
You might not need tripod might not need the camera so here we go that is probably the amount of things you need for a journey like this so I think that from now on I will be looking for tickets um some cheap tickets to go somewhere nice and warm and I will be
Planning trips like that um doing my long run somewhere and flying back to London just in one day so it doesn’t interfere a lot with my work it doesn’t interfere a lot with my routine and I think it’s just a good idea to keep on doing that and probably every single
Trip like that will be bringing me something new maybe new friends maybe just new experiences maybe new places and that’s what it is and that’s another thing um I like about running please subscribe to my Channel please hit the like button Help Me Grow this and I will
Be posting more videos which hopefully are going to be interesting and also informative and useful for you and um see you Soon