Final Run #23 – Waterloo & City Line

Run #22 – Jubilee Line – Stanmore -> Stratford

Jubilee line. Stanmore to Stratford. 23 August 2015.

There was a sense of occasion as we convened on Stanmore at 9.30am. This was our last big run, the forth of our four ‘ultras’ and the 22^nd of our 23 runs together. We set off excited by the prospect of finishing the last serious run of the challenge. Unknown to us all, Seb had a bottle of Champagne stashed in his backpack. The mood was, dare I say it, jubilant (sorry).

The first half of the run progressed pleasantly. Warm conditions gave way to a refreshing light rain by about midday, and there was plenty to see along the way – this was an excellent route for landmarks. The arch of Wembley came and went. Lords cricket ground floated by. The tourists parted at Buckingham Palace. As the rain got heavier we waddled past Big Ben, London Eye and then the Shard.

At around Southwark things took a turn for the worse. Adam’s thigh, which had been troubling him from the start, and despite a potent mixture of Deep Heat and Ibuprofen, became excruciating. The heavens, as if to echo Adam’s pain, opened. By Bermondsey Adam couldn’t go any further. He limped onto the Tube while the remaining three of us plodded on. By this point we were thoroughly soaked. We agreed that Adam could make up the remainder of the run when his leg had recovered, and Seb was blamed for tempting fate with his Champagne.

The three of us were left to negotiate the tricky Canada Water/Canary Wharf/Greenwich North section without Adam’s map-reading skills. Here the Thames gets considerably in the way – with no regard whatsoever for those trying to reach all of the Jubilee Line’s Tube stations on foot. Nonetheless, we persevered on to the O2. By Cutty Sark the rain had stopped and the sun was thinking about coming out. At Canary Wharf we passed the marathon mark and knew the end was in sight. We circled north through West Ham to the Olympic Park, and then on to the finishing post at Stratford.

The Champagne, by now hot and heavily shaken, remained in the bottle, to be shared once Adam has made up his missing stops. All being well it will get drunk after our final run – the mercifully short Waterloo & City Line on 10 September.

Stanmore

Canons Park

Queensbury

Kinsbury

DCIM100GOPRO

Wembley Park

Neasden

Dollis Hill

Willesden Green

Kilburn

West Hampstead

Finchley Road

Swiss Cottage

St John’s Wood

Baker Street

Bond Street

Green Park

Westminster

Waterloo

Southwark

London Bridge

DCIM100GOPRO

Bermondsey

Canada Water

North Greenwich

Canary Wharf

Canning Town

West Ham

Stratford

Run#21 – Northern Line – High Barnet to Finchley Road (with War Child)

  

Run#20 – Piccadilly Line – Cockfosters to Heathrow Terminal 5

Sunday 26th July

Torrential rain has hit London and we have decided to run the length of the Piccadilly Line.

There was a sense of trepidation as we set off as this is our longest run of the entire challenge and our distance estimations ranged from 55km to somewhere into the 60’s.

On past experiences we have found our preference to be unseasonably cool conditions but the gale force winds and driving rain were taking things a little too far! The disappointment of stepping on a loose paving stone and the subsequent submerging of your trainers in 3inches of puddle water does little to speed up the time between stations

The run itself began at Cockfosters Station, sandwiched between Barnet and Enfield, in the Northern most suburbs of London. As we wend our way south, towards central London, it became apparent that this would be a long day out in the pouring rain. Our attention was soon being drawn to the fact that we could be running over 60km (to put this into perspective, 42.195Km is the decidedly long distance of a marathon). Soon though we had passed Oakwood, Southgate and Arnos Grove and onwards to Bounds Green, Wood Green and Turnpike Lane.

Action shot – Running through a park by the train arches

The long stretch past the Haringey Ladder brought us to more familiar surrounds and down to Manor House Tube Station, at this point we sought a change of scenery and jogged through Finsbury Park down to the namesake station. Finsbury Park station is a clear reminder, in case there wasn’t any doubt, that this Arsenal FC territory and the next 15 minutes of our run was a chastening experience my Spurs supporting fellow RunTheTubers. It was like a guided tour of all the Gooner sights, first the club shop at Finsbury Park, then a short run down to Arsenal Station and passed the old stadium, Highbury, then, onto the Arsenal built bridge over the train tracks to lead us to the glorious spaceship of a stadium, The Emirates. At this point, I will add that I am a United fan but it’s always fun to wind up my Spurs friends!

Enjoying the Arsenal tour

Once we safely negotiated our way over Holloway Road and to it’s station, the gang felt relieved that the worst of the Arsenal fandom was over. It also brought to our attention that soon we would be back in central London and that the Northern Section of Piccadilly Line was completed. Maybe we could do this after all!

Optimism raised, we promptly found ourselves at a dead end and had to make an about-turn (the hardest manoeuvre to make on long runs like these!). Optimism now slightly dimmed, we continued on and from Caledonian Road we made our way to King’s Cross St Pancras via the recently renovated Granary Square. For a fleeting moment, our minds were taken off running and to the offerings at Dishoom (Irani Style Bombay café) as well as Grain Store and Caravan. A short but sweet day dream to take ours minds off the task at hand. By the time we reached the station we were at the 20Km mark.

The difference with today’s task when compared to a usual Run The Tube route is that, normally when we have completed the stretch into central from the outpost stations, we would be within touching distance of the end. This time, however, we were only a third of the way through.

The central London stations went to script, busy streets, landmarks aplenty and stations suddenly no more than 500m apart! Soon we had passed Russell Square, Holborn, Covent Garden, Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus.

The throngs of tourists, however, did not let up. We battled along Piccadilly to Green Park and onto Hyde Park Corner and Knighsbridge (where a Porsche 918 Spyder was blocking the Brompton Road whilst being valeted).

The stretch through West London became a bit of a blur as we all trudged forth and wished for the end to arrive! South Kensington, Gloucester Road, Earl’s Court and Baron’s Court were completed before we arrived at Hammersmith. I decided to check on our progress and let the group know that we had likely reached our half way point at 30Km.

Next on our route was an old favourite, Turnham Green followed by Acton Town and South Ealing.

We had now reached the part of the journey where we hadn’t visited the next stations. We were out into the wilderness of Zone 3 West London. Northfields first
then onto Boston Manor and Osterley. Never before has the noise of being under a low flying plane been so welcome, finally it felt like the end (Heathrow) was in sight!

We soon picked our way through the streets of Hounslow to get to the stations (East, Central and West) and onto the open road towards Heathrow. The roads becoming noticeably less enticing as they moved from residential to A-roads. 

The pace was slowing as we approached Hatton Cross, no surprise given the distance and the driving rain. Once through Hatton Cross it was onto the Heathrow Perimeter fence along to Terminal 4 and Terminal 5. Suffice to say it wasn’t a popular walking/running spot and workers from the logistics depots gave us some odd looks. It would have been a surprise if our every move was being tracked.

Having completed the run we managed to stock up at the new terminal and never before has a beer felt so needed!

 

Run #17 – District Line – Upminster -> Kensington Olympia

Every challenge has an unexpected nemesis lurking in the corner. For us it was the long District Line run from Upminster to Kensington Olympia, the first attempt at which set off a cascade of injuries, most of which had nothing to do with running.

Our first attempt at the fairly innocuous-looking 43km run was at the end of August 2014. The four us, plus two of Jon’s friends, set off on what should have been our first RunTheTube marathon in high spirits. Never ones to turn down a potential shortcut we tried to improvise a cross-country route through some fields to save ourselves a probably no more than a few hundred metres between Elm Park and Dagenham East. Before we knew it we were bounding through fields and forest when disaster struck. While joyously skipping through nettles Adam went over his ankle on some hidden concrete. He didn’t run again for a month. With the motto All for one and one for all in mind we decided to call it a day at that point and restart from Upminster another day.

Adam’s ankle injury was the first in a succession of injuries to the four of us that led us to abandon the notion of All for one and one for all. Jon’s toes and Simon’s ankles succumbed to football knocks and Seb’s back went while he tried to rekindle his glory days as a hockey player. The chances of finishing within the originally planned 12 months were dimming, so come January Adam, Seb and Simon re-attempted the District Line marathon. Running without Jon, who frequently scouts ahead to check for dead ends or shortcuts, was an odd experience, but given the state of his big toe there was no telling when he’d be back running, so the three of us pressed on.

The run passed without incident, probably due to our over-cautious approach and distinct avoidance of any cross-country shortcuts. In just over five hours we completed our first marathon and knocked off over 7% of the challenge in one go. Jon caught up later, although nemesis that this stretch was, he mistakenly finished one stop short of Kensington Olympia at Earls Court. If Jon’s our scout then Adam is definitely our navigator. Enough said.

Upminster

Upminster Bridge

Hornchurch

Elm Park

Dagenham East

Dagenham Heathway

Becontree

Upney

Barking

East Ham

Upton Park

Plaistow

West Ham

Bromley-by-Bow

Bow Road

Mile End

Stepney Green

Whitechapel

Aldgate East

Tower Hill

Monument

Cannon Street

Mansion House

Blackfriars

Temple

Embankment

Westminster

St James’s Park

Victoria

Sloane Square

South Kensington

Gloucester Road

Earl’s Court

Kensington Olympia

Guest Post: Run#17 – District Line – Upminster to Earl’s Court (Jon’s second and final catch up run)

Run#17 – District Line – Upminster to Earl’s Court (Jon’s second and final catch up run)

One of the main attractions of running for me is the solitude it provides.  Bounding along with no particular thoughts in my head and no concerns about keeping up with anyone else is one of the most relaxing ways to spend a few hours.  I’m not a complete sociopath though, and running with other people can be fun too.  On the rare occasions that I commit to running with my friend Mike, who is far faster than me, I am forced to acknowledge that it feels good to push myself rather than always just plodding along comfortably.  There are times when chatting to a friend as we jog along together provides a refreshing alternative to the often mad internal ramblings of my own brain.  And sometimes, promising to run a very long way with a friend is the only way to force me to get a long training run under my belt.  With the 50km Thames Path Challenge coming up in September, a combination of all three of these considerations led me to say ‘yes’ when Jon asked if I wanted to run past every stop on the District Line from Upminster to Earl’s Court.

And so it was, that I found myself stuffed full of porridge and bursting for the loo on a disconcertingly long tube journey from Victoria to Upminster on Tuesday 14 July.  Jon, Adam, Seb and Simon seem to have been chipping away doggedly at their self-imposed Run the Tube challenge forever and, having run with them in the past, I know the drill.  Navigating from one station to the next is not always straightforward so it isn’t really possible to predict the overall distance of a run with much precision.  I knew Jon and I would be running ‘roughly a marathon’, but I hadn’t given the distance much thought.  It was only when the almost empty tube carriage was hurtling overground through suspiciously green space and past stations I never realised were even on the tube network that I realised this was going to be quite some run.

After a panicked (and mercifully successful) hunt for a loo at Upminster station, I met Jon and we were soon on our way.  As I blindly followed the route Jon seemed to know instinctively, it became clear that it was going to be one of those days when, for no perceptible reason, every step feels far harder than usual.  Despite having slept well, eaten properly, swerved the wine bottle and trained sensibly, my legs felt heavy and I was overwhelmed by weariness.  By the time we reached Upminster Bridge, I felt ready for a little break.  This was worrying.  But with a flourish of Jon’s selfie stick, we were on the move again and I hoped that I’d settle into a rhythm and feel comfortable again soon.

I felt impossibly tired for the whole run, but I did manage to slip into a bit of a trance as I followed Jon’s confident lead.  The likes of Hornchurch, Elm Park, Dagenham East, Dagenham Heathway, Becontree and Upney all blurred into one pretty bleak, grey, homogenous place and it seemed impossible that we would ever reach a place I recognised as London under our own steam.  I seem to remember there being fields and horses at some point, but my then vacant brain cannot be relied upon.  There might have been purple unicorns, for all I can remember. Despite my struggle to find my running legs, there was something pleasingly liberating about running without any idea of where I was going.  Not being blessed with anything approaching a sense of direction, I was amazed that Jon was able to lead us through empty and nondescript streets to the next station on our route.  Each time the familiar architecture of a tube station loomed into view, it felt like a stroke of luck that we had found it.

Barking, East Ham, Upton Park, Plaistow and West Ham slowly but steadily joined the ranks of dreary places we had passed and I started to allow myself to think that actual London must be reasonably close.  Not only did we start to see more people (most of whom looked surprised to see runners), but scruffy independent greasy spoons gave way to Starbucks and Costa, and fewer pubs were boarded up.

Bromley-by-Bow provided a relatively rare glimpse of London as it might have been in the 1800s as we ran on cobbles past an old mill and through a square that would not look out of place in a period drama.  Tube stations started to be closer together, which was both a relief and a trial.  At the start of the run, it often felt as though we were running miles and miles only to tick one stop out of 35 or so off our list.  The positive side of such long stretches though is that you do feel like you are covering ground.  Once we were running only one or two kilometres between stations, it felt like we were always stopping.  Although the stopping side of things is lovely while it lasts, inertia kicks in and the energy it takes to wind your legs up again and get moving is indescribable.
By the time we reached Mile End, an extra challenge presented itself: crowds of people walking along pavements like overgrown snails.  I soon realised that the key to combatting the frustration caused by so many obstacles was to treat it like a game.  Doing my best to keep an eye on Jon’s bobbing blond head weaving through the crowds ahead of me, I imagined I was an unlikely heroine in an action film, racing through crowds with the sort of urgency that denotes some sort of serious mission.  In my case, the mission was just to get to that mythical land, Earl’s Court, where I would be able to get my hands on an orange calippo at long last.

As Jon and I gamely launched ourselves into oncoming traffic near Aldgate East – by this point it seemed a more bearable risk than getting stuck behind lamentably slow pedestrians – we both seemed to find a previously untapped reserve of reckless determination that would see us to the end.  Tower Hill, Monument, Cannon Street, Mansion House (one of only two tube stations to include all the vowels, I once heard – I can’t remember the other one) and Blackfriars whizzed past us at a satisfying pace and it felt as though we were nearly there.

By this stage, it wasn’t only a mental challenge to get moving again after the obligatory station photo, but my legs were starting to seize up and I felt as though I was an 80 year old candidate for two hip replacements.  I hobbled in an ungainly fashion through Embankment, Westminster, St James’ Park and upon reaching Victoria, where I’d got on the tube many hours ago, I felt the first signs of a sense of achievement; I had run the length of that horrendously long tube journey.  With just my  wobbly legs.

Approaching Sloane Square and running through the staggeringly grand residential streets between there and South Kensington, it felt impossible to believe that one tube line connects such starkly different places as East Ham and Kensington.  How can they both be part of the same city?  It seemed extraordinary.  I can hardly remember stopping at Gloucester Road, such was my focus on staying upright until our next and final stop, Earl’s Court.

Never has Earl’s Court felt like such a haven.  I half expected the clouds to part, illuminating us in shafts of golden light to the sound of angels singing.  It felt momentous, yet ordinary.  We were triumphant, but too tired to celebrate with anything more exuberant than a grimace and a thumbs up.  A consultation of endomondo confirmed that we had run 46.47km.  It felt like further to me.  Jon and I limped into M&S, practically dribbling with manic excitement, and I felt paralysed by choice.  I realised for the first time that I was starving, but in my delirium I couldn’t decide what to stuff into my face first.  With a bizarre assortment of overpriced foodstuffs, we parted ways.  Red-faced, sweaty and gnawing furiously at a cold chicken, I attracted some disapproving looks on the journey home.  I probably feature on that horrific #womenwhoeatontubes site but I don’t care.  It is a sad fact that running such a long way brings out the animal in you.  I’m now closer to completing my challenge in September, and Jon and the rest of the boys are closer to the end of their epic Run the Tube challenge.              

Jon’s First Catch Up run – Run#18 Metropolitan Line – Uxbridge to Aldgate 19/04/15

It’s 6.30am on Sunday the 19th of April and I have woken up dreading the day ahead. Today is the day where I catch up on one of the two runs I missed earlier in the year due to my foot injury sustained playing 5-a-side football.

It was to be the first time running without the other Run The Tube members. Fortunately, I had coerced my friend Tom (and previous guest runner) into joining me.

The run was to start at Uxbridge and winding our way through the north-west of London and then along the Marylebone Road and down into the City. The journey out there took a while, having to get the Northern Line down to King’s Cross and then majority of the route to Uxbridge (at least it gave us a chance to get our bearings!)

Here are our pics from the run:

Uxbridge

Hillingdon

Ickenham

Ruislip

Ruislip Manor

Eastcote

Rayners Lane

West Harrow

Harrow-on-the-Hill

Northwick Park

Preston Road

Wembley Park

Finchley Road

Baker Street

Great Portland Street

Euston Square

King’s Cross St Pancras

Farringdon

Barbican

Moorgate

Liverpool Street

Aldgate

The things about running is that it is particularly hard when you haven’t run for a while. In the lead up to my foot injury, I had been nursing a toe injury (another football injury) so had been running infrequently for a number of months. Suddenly my first run back was the Central Line run (53km) followed by this run (40km) in the space of a week! During this second run I realised that it is even harder running when your base fitness levels have dropped and you complete nearly 100km in a week.

Here are the run stats.

One catch up run done, one to go!

Run#19 – Central Line – Epping to Ealing Broadway

Shamelessly pilfering Seb’s joke, it was Epping awesome to be standing at 9am on a Saturday morning ahead of an impending 53km ultra-marathon (33 miles for those operating in that currency). Epping daunting more like!

An ultra is a scary proposition. ‘Standard’ marathons (I attempt to use that term lightly) are the longest runs most of us will ever do in our lives – that bucket list distance. You dine out on your marathon for months, regaling the emotional roller coaster you endured, your John Wayne walking style the following morning, and just how much that 18 to 22 miles nearly killed you! And yet here our cavalier rabble stood – one had barely slept, one had a few G&Ts the night before, and one hadn’t run more than 15km since November last year. One thing this challenge has taught me is that we treat these long runs without the respect they deserve!

And off we trod, guided easily through the well trodden paths that Seb had, as an Epping inhabitant, trod many time before. Theydon Bois included, one of the most epic station names on the list of them all, was one of them. However knowledge descended to ignorance fast and we quickly reverted to type when it came to navigation – iPhones to hand and eyes out for bus stop maps.

The joy of our initial 10-20km (I do love the disrespect, controversially against prior comments, we treat distances with) was increased by the countryside paths and green field nature of the terrain. Time and distance slipped by and before we knew it we were at Mile End, the halfway point.

Early predictions of completion time had ranged between 6 and 8 hours. We were below average but now in the city.

Emails prior to our run had raised issues about air quality and the general advice of avoiding any physical outdoor activity had made us nervous. Fortunately winds had picked up and blown a lot of pollution west. It is important to note at this point that we ran a total of 53km into a headwind! However the point I wished to make was that it is an enormous difference running in the countryside to the city. Getting air into your lungs is so much harder – you feel tired when you know you shouldn’t. So our trudge began. Our cross city journey. Our hustle and bustle endurance. Our polluted air and dusty path. There is rarely much good said about central London on the weekend and you won’t find much more written here.

The only positive is the proximity of stations. 17 left turned to 9 in a flash and I, be it the only one, enjoyed the realisation that the anticipated mid-teen stations remaining was below ten.

Although anticipations were awry, we enjoyed a quick overhaul of stations from Lancaster Gate through to a White City.

And then we ground to a halt. We were 48km-ish in. Legs tired and more importantly Grand National bets unplaced. Chats while running became full blown debates while jogging. The final miles drifted by and we arrived with not much aplomb at Ealing Broadway. An ultra marathon done – now who fancies a G&T in the sunshine?

Epping

Theydon Bois

Debden

Loughton

Buckhurst Hill

Woodford

South Woodford

Snaresbrook

Leytonstone

Leyton

Stratford

Mile End

Bethnal Green

Liverpool Street

Bank

St Pauls

Chancery Lane

Holborn

Tottenham Court Road

Oxford Circus

Bond Street

Marble Arch

Lancaster Gate

Notting Hill Gate

Queensway

Holland Park

Shepherd’s Bush

White City

East Acton

North Acton

West Acton

Ealing Broadway

Run#18: Metropolitan Line – Uxbridge to Aldgate

Pigeons 1/10
Navigability 5/10
Rugby games 5/10*
Daffodils 4/10
Underpasses 4/10
Proximity to Wembley Way 9/10
Drunk men extolling the virtues of team sports 9/10**
Adam saying stuff about gentrification 7/10
Random passer-by friendliness 8/10***
Chance meetings with RRT runner work colleagues 7/10****
Proximity to RRT runner current and former places of work 8/10
Time spent discussing the end of civilisation as we know it 10/10*****

*Unidentified teams playing on the HAC, near Moorgate
**See Rayners Lane photo
***Lovely people at Ruislip
****Simon’s colleague John who we bumped into near West Ruislip, him just having done the Finchley 20m race
*****In the week that a picture of a lycra wearing Adam was posted on tubecrush.net

Uxbridge

Hillingdon

Ickenham

Ruislip

Ruislip Manor

Eastcote

Rayners Lane

West Harrow

Harrow on the Hill

Northwick Park

Preston Road

Wembley Park

Finchley Road

Baker Street

Great Portland

Euston Square

Kings Cross St Pancras

Farringdon

Barbican

Moorgate

Liverpool Street

Aldgate

Guest Blog Post! Run#16 – Metropolitan Line – Harrow-on-the-Hill to Watford

16th of October – Guest Blog Post courtesy of Alice Parker.

In terms of energy and enthusiasm, Thursday evenings in mid-October do not rate particularly highly in my book.  Owing to a chaotic day at work and a failure to find any time for lunch, it felt most appropriate to bid farewell to Thursday 16 October by performing my best slug impression on the sofa for a few hours before dragging myself into bed.  Sitting on the tube from Clapham South to Harrow on the Hill in unwashed running kit and forcing various types of alarmingly high tech flapjacks down my throat in a manner that inhibited my breathing somewhat, I clung desperately to the hope that they really did possess the kind of magical reviving qualities that might justify their obscene price tag.  It’s possible that they did the trick, because when I met Jon, Adam, Simon and Seb outside the tube station on a dingy high street, I started to feel quite excited and ready to go.

Harrow-on-the-Hill

After a quick group selfie, we darted off and I was struck for the first time by how liberating it felt to run in the dark with absolutely no idea where I was going.  Perhaps my blind faith in the boys’ navigation was a little rash, given that we were running over one of those busy roundabouts where pedestrians are definitely not at all welcome.  But if the flapjacks had failed to awaken my senses, dodging between a bit of traffic woke me up a treat.  Before I had time to notice that I was running a bit faster than my normal plodding pace, we were at North Harrow and grinning for the first sweaty selfie of the evening.

North Harrow

Adam could barely contain his enthusiasm for Pinner station, which he declared to be one of his hotly anticipated highlights of the entire Run the Tube challenge.  Whether this is due to its fame as the inspiration for a Michael Rosen poem remains unclear, but what did become clear very quickly was the enthusiasm for tube-related trivia shared by the group. For the first time ever, I had a captive audience who were eager to hear about the tube documentary I once watched, where the complexities of adding to the tube map in adherence with the policy of only having 90 or 45 degree angles between lines were explored in (slightly excruciating) detail.

Pinner

So engrossed were we in this discussion, that the bright lights of Northwood Hills station loomed ahead long before I expected them to and we were off again and heading towards Northwood station.

Northwood Hills

By this stage of the run, I was starting to feel not only awake (some would argue a fairly rudimentary requirement for running) but quite intrepid.  It started to feel as though we were well and truly out of anything that could be called a city and people were few and far between.  As I followed Adam along unlikely looking, desolate residential streets and down slightly worrying footpaths, I allowed myself to imagine that we were in one of those dark, grimy, edgy Nike adverts, with painfully cool people being impossibly athletic in old dirty car parks and suchlike.

Northwood

Moor Park

It was after Moor Park that things got really exciting though. After running along a street that felt more like a deserted film set than a real place, we found ourselves running along what is best described as an unlit country road with no lights, no pavement and only thick trees on either side.  How exciting, I thought (until we probably die).  With two tiny lights from two tiny iPhones though, we decided we’d got health and safety all wrapped up so we carried on.  Turning off this road, we ran through the sort of abandoned industrial site that is often the setting for the opening scene of a teen disaster movie.  Half expecting rabid alsatians to clamber over the wire fences and maul us to death, we pressed on until we reached a field.  In total darkness, running on very uneven ground is rather like that sensation you get when you walk down steps in the dark and think there’s going to be another step.  It’s disconcerting and strange, yet perversely enjoyable.  Once we reached the canal (another perfect backdrop for sinister crimes) the run to Croxley Station was fairly straightforward, and from there, Watford was almost too near.

Croxley

Watford

By the time we arrived at our final destination, I felt wide awake and ready for a bit more adventure.  But with an early start the next day and a long journey back to my bed in Clapham, we all boarded our train and made our ways back to our respective homes.  The running for the day might have been over, but the geeky tube chat and competitive spirit were not.  Comparing knowledge of the slickest interchanges that can be capitalised upon to achieve an efficient tube journey, Adam challenged me to a race to Clapham South.  Had I not lost by a mere minute, I’d  be happy to report that this particular Thursday evening running adventure was an unmitigated pleasure.  Good luck for the next one, boys!