Running the Central line

NOTE: I did this leg on Saturday but have only just got around to blogging about it. Sorry. The weather’s been nice and stuff (you might have noticed).

Saturday’s leg was an important one. Before Saturday, I’d only visited stations and ran/walked beside track that was above ground level. I wasn’t discovering much London that I couldn’t have otherwise discovered from the comfort of a train carriage. This sort of lazy exploration stops being an option at some point between White City and Shepherd’s Bush stations, where trains disappear into a thirty mile tunnel, deep beneath the interesting streets, buildings and parks of central London.

Leg four is also interesting because it’s the leg covering the most stations, ten in total.

You’d think that perhaps under the circumstances I might have done some basic preparation for this most important of legs. But you’d be wrong. Minutes before leaving the flat I realised that my shirt was still in an unwashed, crumpled heap from last week and that my camera had a completely dead battery. Not wishing to delay our departure any further, I wore the most similar shirt my limited wardrobe could offer me and switched my camera battery with the one from Beth’s (handily compatible) camera. Unfortunately, Beth’s battery was also low so despite seeing plenty of cool stuff, photos were taken very sparingly.

We (Beth came too) left Shepherd’s Bush at something like 10:45. She commutes here daily for work so knew the area well enough to point us in the right direction for our first station.

Holland park is a famously snobby area of London. The streets are wide and the houses expensive. It’s a lovely place to walk around, especially in Saturday’s uncharacteristically beautiful weather. It didn’t take long to reach our first photo opportunity of the day.

Not much to say about the short journey from Holland Park to Notting Hill Gate station. So I’ll cut straight to the photo.

Just before Beth took this picture, a tourist asked me if I knew where Portobello Market was, which I didn’t, but as he shuffled away Beth drew my attention to a ridiculously huge sign directly in front of us declaring that PORTOBELLO MARKET was to the left. You really couldn’t miss it. I wonder if that guy was Dom Joly?

Again, nothing much to say about the 13 minute walk between Notting Hill Gate and Queensway. Stations are quite closely packed together in tube zone 1. Here’s a picture of me standing outside Queensway Station with my hands in my pockets (again) deeply regretting not having worn sunglasses.

The stretch between Queensway and Marble Arch stations runs parallel to Hyde Park. On the one hand, this was cool because of the nice views of things you’d typically expect to find in parks. But on the other, the hot weather had brought about a surge in plants trying to fertilise each another. I don’t have Hay Fever or anything but I did an awful lot of sneezing. This would have been debilitating if I were running.

Here’s Lancaster Gate:

I paused to consider whether this structure (Spire House) was worth any of my precious camera battery. Yes, yes it was.

As we drew closer to Marble Arch Station, the number of people walking in the opposite direction holding cans of Orangina gradually increased from normal to confusing levels. The source was soon revealed to be a couple of people dressed in orange giving away free cans. I hadn’t tasted Orangina before, but I’m happy to report it tastes like weird Fanta.

My can and I:

Here’s the (ugly?) shop-front of the famous London department store, Selfridges.

Bond Street was next. The bag I’m holding arrived after a visit to the massive Primark opposite Marble Arch station.

We stopped again to buy some treats from Ben’s Cookies. They’re pretty expensive but I really cannot recommend them highly enough. They’ll make you rethink everything. I do feel a bit sorry for the girl trying but failing horribly to escape my photograph though.

Soon came the vastly populated Oxford Circus.

I snapped pictures of the famous junction and the spindly looking BT tower in the distance. You can make out the X-shaped “diagonal crossing” that opened a few months ago. Not many of these types of crossing exist worldwide for the very good reason that everyone collides in the centre. A strange (£5,000,000) investment.

Continuing down Oxford street we reached Tottenham Court Road. I seem happy about this.

On entering Westminster (an actual city).

No no, thank you.

After getting slightly lost (quite an achievement considering this leg follows a single road from start to finish) and having to ask someone for directions, our finishing line for the day eventually came into view. Beth took my photograph outside Holborn Station and we breathed our last few breaths of fresh air before Oystering through the ticket barriers and allowing the escalator to lower us into the heat chamber below.

The tube definitely wasn’t designed with days like Saturday in mind.

Four down, five to go then. I haven’t yet decided on the logistics of the remaining legs but I’ve got two main issues to contend with:

1. (When) do I start running again? To be honest, my knee feels ready to go. But that’s likely to be misleading because the problem only seems manifest itself after a period of actual running, which I’ve been avoiding. I may go for a jog around Belvue Park one evening soon and see how I feel afterwards.
2. How do I make up for lost time? To remind you: I’ve got to complete five legs in four weeks. A sensible option might be to do two legs this coming weekend, one on Saturday and the other on bank holiday Monday. Trouble is, I was half planning on going home (as in Ipswich) this weekend. We’ll see.

Thanks for reading.