Where are you staying

http://londonsbestcoffee.com/news/soho-cafe-guide

Flat white for coffee

Bthazar in covent garden - good

Mash - piccadilly excellent though you may need a very big day to work it off

Opem water swimming - serpentine hyde park. Group runs listed on serpentine running website. Think they are fridays

If you are staying in london i'd not ride but thats just me and i live there (sort of)

Shit traffic and you will spend as much time tiding in and out of london as a good ride e.g. up to 45-60 mins each way on bad roads with crap drivers

Group rides. That said if you want to ride groups would depend on where you are staying

Pools. You can go to the olympic aquatic center but again depenong on where you are staying could be a long journey

Shopping - they all sell exactly, i mean exactly the same shit every othet bike and tri shop sells all over the world. You really want to go to london and look at a bike shop?

I spent 7 years travelling on and off with rich arabs and we would go london, paris, NY and in every city they would go to exactly the same shops which sell exactly the same shit - it baffles me

I'll be staying in the Limehouse area. The aquatic center doesn't seem to be to far and thus doable.

Thanks for the link for good coffee.
As for the bikeshops, I was more referring to smaller boutique-like shops. I like handmade bikes from smaller manufacturers with custom paintjobs and all that stuff. Not really interested in big brand shops.

My bike was made by saffron frameworks.

These guys do the fittings and are quite exotic

http://www.bespokecycling.com

Watch out for pretentious pricks riding fixies with no brakes when crossing the road.

If you're near Limehouse, would definitely recommend pool swimming at the Aquatic Centre. Make sure to check the timetable ahead of time, sometimes they have giant inflatables in the olympic pool...unless that's your thing. In which case go crazy.

Open water swimming at the Royal Docks (near you) or Serpentine (middle of Hyde Park, very scenic, let me know if you need info about this or opening times as the website is sparse).

Cycling more tricky - as others have said you'll be picking through London for a while to get anywhere nice which can be difficult if you don't know where you're going. If you're determined to go on a long ride out somewhere like the Surrey Hills or Kent then your best bet is to join a local tri or cycle club's group ride. Many have an organised ride on Sundays, some other days of the week too. If you just want to pootle around solo then head to Richmond Park. There's a decent loop of around 7 miles (shared with cars, other cyclists, and deer...) but if you go early it is reasonably quiet.

Serpentine Running Club is a great bet for a group run in central. They run Weds evenings and Saturdays, with some more ad hoc runs organised other days of the week too. Different distances from about 4 miles up to 11 miles +, different pace groups too. I can give you more info on these if you need. Runs start out of the Seymour Leisure Centre near Marylebone / Edgware Road.

You'll be spoiled for good coffee bars out East, as long as you don't mind sitting next to a few fixie riders with handlebar mustaches wearing ironic tweed...

Theatre:
The Play that Went Wrong (very funny farce)
The Ferryman (excellent drama, if you can get a ticket)

Pink Floyd exhibition at Victoria and Albert museum (if you're a fan, crowded though)

Imperial War museum is excellent if you're into history, likewise RAF museum in Hendon, Maritime Greenwich is fantastic -- check out the Painted Ceiling tour at the Old Naval College, short and well worth it

riding: Richmond Park, don't know if there's a good connection from Limehouse > Overground railway, beware of stags

Backup plan to swim is the Oasis near Tottenham station has indoor and outdoor pools. Always a fan of the St James, Green, Hyde and Kensington park loop. Agreed that on a 4 day trip renting a bike is just a pain although the loop in Richmond is nice but riding out there or taking the overground isnt great by bike. Every so often I take a train out a ways and just run back to the hotel in to see more of areas I havent seen.

Non-training the Churchill and National Museums are all great.

Have fun.

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Banger

definitely run in Hyde Park. It is very nice indeed.

I don't see much tourist stuff above, so I'll comment from my own tourist adventures. Pick what suits you.

- Walk across the Millenial Bridge and take a ride on the London Eye
- Save 4 hours for the Tower of London
- Visit St Paul's Cathedral. Be sure to catch the crypts below.
- Find the Monument to the Great Fire and pay to walk up the 300+ steps to the observation level. Collect your certificate for having done the climb.
- Check out the Shakespeare Theater and museum. Book ahead to catch a play there if you have time.
- Shop at Knightsbridge St. Spend some time in Harrods, especially the food hall.
- Watch the Horse Guards parade at Whitehall.
- Hang around Trafalgar Square and watch the people go by.
- Spend some time in the Portrait Gallery next to Trafalgar Square.
- Go to the original Madame Tussauds (OK, it wasn't the original building, but it sort of started there)
- Take a tour of Buckingham Palace (but the Tower of London should be higher on your list).

HAVE FUN!

Hang around Trafalgar Square and watch the people go by

x2. Have done this both times I've been to London; grab a pint or two nearby at the Two Chairmen

Running in Hyde Park was great also.

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"You can never win or lose if you don't run the race." - Richard Butler

If you're a soccer fan, make a quick stop over at Lillywhites.

Others have covered touristy stuff. All highly recommended. Say hi to the ravens at the Tower. :)

You are staying close to DLR train. You can take it and then transfer and get off on Stratford tube station. That's where the aquatic center is. (You'll need to transfer trains at least once but that's no big deal.) Apple and Google maps have excellent transit directions for London. Use them.

As for running, Hyde park is good. Victoria park is even better. Especially if you take the path along the navigation canal near the park. It will take you on a scenic run for miles and miles along the canal. There's a greenbelt from Limehouse almost all the way to Victoria park.

As a londoner. The three edits i would make to the above are

1) ditch tassauds. Really not my thing. Never been ;)

2) go for breakfast at roast in borough market. Hands down one of the besr places to, if not have breakfast, hang out and have a drink

3) tate modern. If only for the engine hall. The best public space in london.

I would of course then walk to waterloo and go past QE2 hall a listed building of brutalist architecture and on to wahaca........but i have a mexican food thing

Harry Potter ... ;-)

WD :-)

I like Madame Tussauds. Been to them at London, Blackpool, New York City and Las Vegas. Not for everyone, but I am a crass tourist and like those kind of things. :)

I do appreciate people like it, its just not my thing and, well, you know, being a liberal people are free to do what they like so long as i agree with it...............

Thats a joke.......

Anyway, i would 100% hit almost everything on your list but add in the tate modern

after you've done a hard workout, treat yourself with this

Going to repeat some of the suggestions here.

Tower bridge and Tower of London are some good tourist locations that are going to be near to you. Luckily while you're in the Tower Bridge area you can head over to borough market and check out a favourite local place with lots of really good food to be had. I loved going to borough market. There is an Italian stall that sells some spectacular pumpkin tortelloni that is made nightly.

The london aquatic facility where they held the Olympics is definitely a really nice place to swim but be warned there is nothing near it. There is a mall you can do some shopping at? But it really is nothing special and the restaurants there are nothing special.

Shoreditch/old spitalfields market is another place that has lots of interesting shops and places to check out. Shoreditch would qualify as the hipster area along with Bethnal Green. Although there really isn't a lot to see in my opinion in Bethnal Green. Poppies fish and chips....for fish in chips just outside of old spitalfields.

The colombia rd flower market is a really cool place to check out, again, more of a local place. While I lived there are didn't do a ton of the touristy type things.

The Natural History museum is really amazing and has a ton to see but you need a whole day in my opinion to see everything. May or may not be up your alley.

I personally would skip the London Eye. Overpriced tourist trap. Head up to Regents park instead. The hill there has a point that you can look over London and get a better view in my opinion. You can avoid the possibility of being trapped at the top with someone making a proposal ;) You can knock of Hyde and this in one trip easily. Buckingham Palace is good to see in this area too. Get off at the Green Park tube stop and you can hit Hyde, Regents and the palace in one day.

Hyde park is gorgeous. I thought Kew Gardens was a lot nicer and is one of my favourite places in London but it is literally on the opposite side of the city from you and would be close to a full day trip if you wanted to see that.

Further up someone mentioned Monmouth coffee. You can hit this one while you are down in Borough Market as they have a location there. Beware, the line cane be pretty large depending on when you go. Flat white? eh. Get whatever kind of coffee you like. Straight espresso or plain latte are just as good.

Leicester square is a pretty busy place and you can get cheaper tickets at the booth there if you want to go see a play. Don't remember what it is called but won't be hard to find. China town is very near if you're into that sort of thing. This area is just constantly buzzing. London really is just alive. Burlington arcade/Saville row is cool to browse around, not place that I could afford to shop but neat to check out. In the arcade there is a place that specializes in selling rolexs for specific years so you can get one that matches your birth year.

There's King's cross for the whole Harry Potter thing. Paddington for the bear. James Bond fan? MI6 is down by Vauxhall bridge. It is a very unassuming building from the exterior.

The riverbank down near waterloo bridge has a lot of places to go eat and there is the national theatre there. There is usually a market or some sort of goings on if you head west from waterloo bridge along the riverbank, this will also put you on the way to the eye (don't do it) and Big Ben.

Get a 1 week Oyster card for Zone 1 and 2. Unlimited public transport between zones 1 and 2.

If into art, Courtauld Galley, National Museum, and National Portrait Gallery are all fantastic. Someone mentioned the Imperial War Museum. That was a great place, as was the Museum of London.

Coffee in London is Just. The. Worst.
Avoid if you can, or find somewhere run by an ex-pat Aussie.

Screw training, you've got 4 days there you won't get back. Go be a tourist. Tacky as they are I enjoyed the hop-on-hop-off double decker bus tour around the city (there are several to choose from). They go past all the major tourist attractions (assuming you're into that).

I would highly recommend taking the Ferry to Isle of Wight and doing the loop there (about 70 miles with significant climbing) and definitely go to the Lee Valley Velodrome (2012 Olympics) and do a taster session. Those were my favorite 2 things I did in London

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