Running the Central line

Interview

2010-07-11T17:45:00.008+01:00

I was interviewed on BBC Essex early in the morning last Monday. In case you missed it, here's a recording (thanks to Alex).

Awesome!

A retrospective

2010-07-01T20:47:00.006+01:00

As half promised last time, this final blog post will look back on my challenge and evaluate what I thought went well, what didn't go so well and what I have learned from the experience. Firstly, some facts:

In undertaking my challenge, I ran/walked 42 miles through 3 counties, 11 London boroughs and 6 tube zones. The journey took something like 15 hours to complete (in contrast to the 1 hour and 21 minutes it would have taken on a single uninterrupted tube journey between West Ruislip and Epping) and cost me around £32 in tube fares (again, in contrast to the £2.40 price of a single off-peak journey). And that's without considering the cost incurred by Beth, my (clearly devoted) girlfriend who joined me for the vast majority of the trek.

On the face of it, an outrageously priced, lengthy journey between two already adequately connected areas of outer London. So was it worth it? Well yeah, of course. But why? Because, excluding an obvious exception that I'll come to, I satisfied all my original motivations for undertaking the project and I had fun doing so. I saw famous landmarks like the BBC Television Centre, Oxford Circus, the Old Bailey and the 2012 Olympics site and learned how they all fit together. I visited areas of London that I would otherwise have had no reason to visit but whose quirks I enjoyed all the same. Like the massive roundabout at Hanger Lane, the horses at Leyton and the expansive fields surrounding Epping. Plus I got to eat delicious treats like Ben's Cookies, Krispy Kremes and Brannigans along the way.

But all this ignores an important aspect of the challenge that was less successful. Am I disappointed I couldn't run the entire distance, as originally proposed? Yes and no.

Yes because failing to do so technically constitutes a failure of the whole challenge. But I don't actually care about this much. Far more frustrating was that being unable to run myself, I wasn't in a position to invite other people to run with me. It would have been great to have met up with Ben and Joe and Tim so missing out on that was probably my biggest disappointment.

No because walking had it's own advantages. At walking pace I was more equipped to absorb my surroundings and take a silly number of photos (the ones included in my blog formed just a small subsection). At speed I might not have noticed the people giving out Orangina at Marble Arch or the flying bomb plaque near Mile End or the vandalism at Buckhurst Hill(billys). Without these interesting deviations, this blog would have become crushingly dull.

It's also important to mention that without a trusty accomplice, much of the walking between stations would have been tedious so I'm really grateful to Beth for that!

So what have I learned? Well, I've learned a lot of stuff about London and the Central line. But on a more personal level, I've learned not to go overboard whilst training for relatively minor athletic ventures. I've learned that to my cost.

Excitingly (and ridiculously), Alison from BBC Essex registered her interest in my walk in the comments section of my last post, so this may not be the last time you hear about Running the Central line. That is, assuming you live in Essex and listen to a lot of local radio. Otherwise, this definitely is the last time. Unquestionably so.

I hope you've enjoyed (CLICHÉ ALERT) reading about my (CLICHÉ ALERT) challenge as much as I (CLICHÉ ALERT) have enjoyed tackling it. If, for whatever reason, you fancy following another blog by the same author, I will gladly point you in the general direction of my new one, Selling Ice Cream, which will be about my summer in America. Expect updates soon.

Bye.

Leg nine (Loughton to Epping)

2010-06-27T22:00:00.007+01:00

It's been a pain in the arse to blog about, but you'll be thrilled to learn that last weekend I finally completed my challenge to run (read: walk) the length of the Central line! The reason it's been a pain is because I've since moved to a different country where they still believe the internet is a series of tubes, so it's been difficult to find places to upload photos etc. etc. etc.

As usual, we began the leg where we wrapped up the last one, this time in Loughton. The houses close to the station were huge and laden with expensive vehicles. I spotted at least two Bentleys along the way, as well as a BMW sporting the personalised registration plate "B1OPSY" (?). The route soon became more rural however, as demonstrated by the below photo.

It's amazing to note that, despite technically being in Essex, the city of London was still very much visible from where we were standing. We covered that four whole legs ago!

And then came Debden.

The long walk between Debden and Theydon Bois (pronounced, unfortunately, Bwah EDIT: Someone corrected me in the comments. Apparently it is pronounced Boys!) was mostly restricted to a single road cut through the forest. Unlike all previous stations, Theydon Bois was located in an actual village, meaning we had to depart from and then reunite with civilisation in order to reach it.

There is a huge demand for both flowers and fireworks in Theydon Bois. Presumably to both please and fend off The Village Monster.

Here's me at the station.

If we thought the walk to Bois was a departure from civilisation, we hadn't seen nothing yet. During the offroad hike to Epping (the Central line terminus!) we risked not only being shot by hostile farmers, but also by the Essex Police force.

But the walk was lovely and it topped what had already become one of my favourite legs so far.

There was an unsettling few minutes when a rogue horse began stalking us. We climbed over an electric fence to shake him off.

If we needed any further proof that we were no longer in London, we next crossed a footbridge over the famous orbital motorway, the M25.

Soon afterwards we chanced upon something mysterious. Atop a wooden fencepost sat a pile of items, consisting of a book entitled "Birds of Prey", two nails (one rusty, one not), 11 pence, a shard of bike reflector and a handkerchief.

I felt enticed to add my own contribution to this stack of unexplained trinkets, so began probing my wallet for a suitable candidate. The obvious choice was a Euro 2008 sticker featuring the celebrated Portuguese footballer Deco.

As we drew closer to Epping we watched as tube trains glided across the landscape, decelerating as if approaching a station. It couldn't be far now.

And it wasn't.

Ta-dah! Station 37/37! I celebrated the completion of my challenge with a well earned Italian BMT.

I'll consider writing a closing "What have we learned?" style post in the not-so-distant future so please keep an eye out for that!

Thanks again for reading, you lovely lot.

Leg eight (South Woodford to Loughton)

2010-06-16T17:15:00.001+01:00

An even shorter write-up this week I’m afraid. To preemptively summarise: Again, we were pushed for time and again, we gave up one station earlier than planned. But it was a lovely walk.

We started the leg at South Woodford, where I had business to attend to in a branch of Nationwide close to the station. As fellow customers will be aware, branches of Nationwide are almost never open, so I felt compelled to take advantage of the situation. Beth bought loads of stuff in the charity shop next door while she waited for me (with my money).

Once I was done banking, we began walking. A few roads in we bumped into some street vermin, which I attempted to neutralise.

The houses along this street looked perfect for doing spine transfers. Or have I just been playing too much Tony Hawk's Project 8?

Here I am outside Woodford Station looking sedated.

It was time for a lunch break. We were due to attend a BBQ later in the day for the England game so didn’t want to fill up too much. We eventually opted to share a lovely tuna mayo baguette. I got some Brannigans as well, which were incredible. I didn’t think you could get them anymore and they hurt my mouth just like they used to. Thanks, Jay Jay Stores!

The weather perked up drastically just at the (exciting) moment of leaving greater London and entering Essex.

You can see Epping Forest in the distance, which we walked beside as we drew closer to Buckhurst Hill. It was a really nice section of the leg.

And then came Buckhurst Hill Station itself.

Beth took my picture and I checked my watch before continuing along the route. Loughton would probably have to be the final station of the day, I reasoned, since time was pressing. Soon afterwards, while passing a parade of shops on Loughton Way, we both stopped to laugh at a cleverly vandalised sign. I took a photo for the blog and we carried on. It was only while reviewing the photos three days later that we realised we had actually laughed at two separate but coincidentally proximate vandalised signs. Neither of us had even noticed the other sign, despite surely witnessing each other looking/taking photos in different directions. I saw this one:

While Beth saw this one (fortunately I was able to locate a picture of it online. Thanks, 21st century):

Streetview reveals just how close these two signs are:

It was one of those strange misunderstandings than can only play out for so long before questions are asked. Like when I picked up the phone to my uncle and for about a minute, we both assumed we were talking to my dad.

Anyway. Clearly not learning from last week’s mistake, I attempted to mount a wall that I was certain would lead to huge cuts in journey time. In reality, it led to huge cuts in my head and chest.

To add insult to (severe) injury, we then came across a strongly-worded notice demanding that before proceeding any further, I would have to dump both my tricycle and barrow. It seemed incredibly cruel to oblige, especially this close to the finishing line, but that's life I suppose.

Loughton!

We located the westbound platform, minded the gap and collapsed onto one of the comfy seats inside an empty carriage. I was able to admire my handiwork on the map of the Central line. Just three more stations to go! YAY!!

Sorry it was a weird one this week. Thanks for reading as always.

iPod chain

2010-06-09T19:19:00.001+01:00

I’ve been very careful not to use this blog as an outlet for things unrelated to my challenge, but today I’m going to break that rule slightly to tell you about something I think is brilliant.

Back in March, Mark Watson (comedian, part inspiration for this blog) promised to give away an mp3 player to the reader of his blog that could provide him with the best reason for doing so. My entries

My wife and I run an orphanage. It is privately owned and we only accept donations in the form of electronic goods. Currently we are one iPod touch (or two Navman F35 Satellite Navigation Systems) away from being able to complete our state of the art happiness facility which will improve the quality of life of our clients twentyfold. I should probably mention that most of the orphans are also burns victims.

Thank you for your consideration, Sir.

Mark, you’re giving away a free iPod on the internet. Shouldn’t you just uphold tradition and give it to the 1,000,000th lucky visitor to your blog?

weren’t taken seriously and a woman called Anna ended up winning it. Well done her.

Here’s where it gets brilliant. Watson decided that instead of just mailing the iPod to Anna or giving it to her in person, he would orchestrate a grand chain of blog readers (including the seven competition finalists) in trafficking the iPod between himself and Anna via a completely stupid, overly-complicated route. The exact path has yet to be determined, but it is hoped the iPod will pass through the hands of all these volunteers.

To make things even more awesome, it was decided that each member of the chain could add a song of their choice to the iPod while it was in their brief possession.

Here’s a summary of its travels to date: Mark purchased the 16GB iPod nano at the Apple Store on Regent Street in London and handed it immediately to Sarah.

Sarah took it back to her home in Dunfermline, Scotland before embarking on an epic trip to Fort William in the Highlands where she met with finalist Seamus.

Seamus transferred his mp3 and they parted, with Sarah taking the iPod back with her to Dunfermline. She attempted to organise meetings with other Scottish volunteers but no one was available/willing to travel hundreds of miles for this absurd cause. Sarah then returned to London.

Last week, I met with Sarah and my almost-namesake Simone in a Covent Garden pub (you’ll remember the reference). Simone added her song and we talked about comedy for a while before I left, Apple bag in hand. Sarah seemed quite relieved to be rid of it.

The iPod, cleverly concealed in a Tesco carrier bag to avoid attracting East London thieves, travelled with me on leg six and then home to Northolt. It looks like this:

The sharp-eyed ones amongst you will have noticed the iPod is still in its protective case. And what is that book? I can explain. Instead of transferring mp3s directly onto the iPod itself, someone thought it would be a clever idea to store the music on an accompanying UBS memory stick. This was to avoid situations where iTunes (the software that Apple forces on iPod users) does silly things like wipe the contents of the iPod without warning, which would obviously be disastrous. The booklet is simply for each member of the chain to write down their reason for picking the song they did. The memory stick is out of view, but it’s one of those fancy ones that look like a key. Only distinguishable from an actual key upon hearing the crunching noise that accompanies trying to unlock a door with one, which is quickly followed by the crushing realisation that your 600-page PhD thesis is gone forever.

On Monday, I again met with some strangers in a different Covent Garden pub to perform the next handover. Hannah, Kate and Heather showed up, strengthening the hypothesis that Mark Watson’s fanbase is mostly female. Hannah asked how my knee was (I’m basically a celebrity now) and Heather left with the iPod.

Next week Heather travels to Northern Ireland where the iPod will continue its long journey “towards” lucky Anna.

The song I chose was Australia by The Shins. Give it a listen!

Apart from the ridiculousness of it all, the thing I love most about this challenge is the level of trust involved. If I were an arsehole, I could have just registered my (fake) name and email address, met up with some random people I’d likely never meet again, and walk away with my shiny £140 prize. But I didn’t. Of course, it would only take one such arsehole to wreck the entire challenge, but wouldn’t it be nice if that didn’t happen? Mark took a risk when he chose this unusual method of delivery and I, for one, hope honesty will triumph and the risk pays off.

LOL Jk I sold it on eBay.

Thanks for reading.

Leg seven (Leyton to South Woodford)

2010-06-08T21:41:00.001+01:00

Just a quicky today because I’ve got little to say and little time to say it in.

Saturday began, as I promised it would, bright and early with a morning run around Belvue park. It was a stunning day and the temperature at 08:30 hadn’t yet reached unbearable heights so it should have been a great experience. Predictably though, it wasn’t. Before I’d even reached the park gates, the faint stabbing sensation in my left knee arrived and I knew immediately that leg seven would be a walker.

We set off proper a short while after I’d returned from my epic failure of a test run. I was planning on meeting a friend at King’s Cross Station later in the day so, like last week’s, Saturday’s leg was against the clock. I was therefore annoyed to remember the Central line was closed between West Ruislip and North Acton over the weekend because of planned engineering works, so we instead caught a free rail replacement bus to North Acton where we boarded the actual tube. Oh yeah, Beth came with me again. But that’s pretty much expected now.

Forty minutes later we reached sunny Leyton (actual sunny, not the clichéd figure of speech describing somewhere infamously shit) and began walking. We passed four of the least ambitious attempts at painting a fence I’ve ever seen.

And before long, Leyton became Leytonstone. You’ll notice I wasn't wearing my official T-shirt. This is because I was going away for the weekend (hence the meeting at King’s Cross) and needed to pack as lightly as possible. A poor excuse? Yes.

The stretch between Leytonstone and Snaresbrook was leafy and provincial. We passed lavish houses, a huge golf course and a really posh drinking fountain. I attempted to scale this wall but for some reason ended up with deep gashes across my arms/face.

Station number thirty, Snaresbrook, was next. The cuts had mostly healed prior to this photo being taken.

We then continued down the high street. Along the way, I felt compelled to photograph my first synagogue of the challenge. I had to wait for some unimpressed Jews to disappear inside first though.

I had originally intended to continue walking as far as Woodford station, but upon reaching South Woodford we decided to throw in the towel. My King’s Cross deadline was looming and Beth felt tired.

That’s it for another week. Just two more legs to go! Excitement!

As an aside, I ended up having an amazing weekend which climaxed with a free Rage Against The Machine gig in Finsbury Park to celebrate their successful Christmas Number One campaign. They were fab.

Thanks for reading.

Leg six (Bethnal Green to Leyton)

2010-06-04T20:30:00.001+01:00

Today’s (somewhat late) report details leg number six, which I walked on bank holiday Monday afternoon with Beth.

For interesting reasons I’ll talk about in a separate blog entry, Monday’s venture began in a Covent Garden pub surrounded by strangers. After receiving a call from Beth, I left the pub and made my way past the street entertainers towards the tube station. We met at Holborn and continued, as we always do, eastbound towards the starting point for the day’s leg. These journeys are getting longer and longer as the weeks progress and Monday’s took around 45 minutes. We alighted at Bethnal Green and started walking.

No, actually we didn’t. We stopped at the top of the stairs to look at some weathered flower bouquets beneath a plaque commemorating “The Bethnal Green Tube Disaster”. I hadn’t heard of this disaster before, but according to the plaque it led to the “Greatest loss of civilian life in WWII”, which seemed like quite a bold statement to make. When I got home I did some research, confirming its grim validity. Before the station was fully built it was used as an air raid shelter and on 3rd March 1943, 173 people were crushed to death trying to make their way down the very stairs we’d just climbed. Really, really horrible stuff.

Roman Road was a continuation of the bleak Bethnal Green road we’d previously traversed on Saturday. Before long though, we reached the entrance to a shortcut through the much prettier Wennington Gardens. The canal running through them is Regents Canal, which forms part of the Grand Union Canal. Amazingly, our flat in Northolt is just a couple minutes walk away from the same canal, so we could (and should) have commandeered a vessel and sailed home.

There were baby coots. And there was a squirrel.

Soon after rejoining the road we noticed an English Heritage plaque attached to a railway bridge. We were standing on the site where the first German doodlebug bomb fell in 1944, claiming the lives of six and rendering two-hundred homeless. As if there was any doubt before, this leg had now proved itself to be the one containing the most disaster sites.

Mile End station wasn’t far from the bridge and when we arrived, Beth did the usual honours. There I am. See me? I’m the one with the stripes. No no, not that one. The one with the stripes. The other one. Yeah, on the right. That’s me.

Neither of us had eaten lunch that day and it was getting quite late. Hungrily, we proceeded along the route, scouting for places to eat as we went. A Tesco Express appeared at just the right time and we feasted on a nearby bench. This critter joined us.

Drifting into Bow, we passed a couple of “Park Royule” stations. If you know what I mean by that, well done! You’ve been paying attention.

I began to feel quite at home in Bow after seeing this building with my degree title written across it in big green letters.

The next section of the leg, leading into Stratford, traced a long, boring dual carriageway. Nothing interesting happened and nothing photoworthy presented itself.

Stratford, as you might already know, is the part of London that will be hosting the much mocked 2012 Olympic Games. As a result, the area is currently one huge building site. I was hoping to get some nice pictures of the various Olympic venues being constructed, but there always seemed to be something in the way. Here’s the best photo I could get of the main stadium. And a photo of some rail tracks for good measure.

The cheestring was invented in Stratford of course.

And before we knew it, we had arrived at the incredibly busy Stratford station. In the other photo Beth took, I looked even closer to tears.

We escaped the flurry of activity by heading down a small side road which would deliver us to our final station of the day, Leyton. Along the way, we passed the future entrance to the Athletes Village. Naturally, it wasn’t built yet. The second picture shows the sort of view you’re likely to encounter if you were to look in any direction whilst standing in Stratford.

Much like on Saturday, Monday’s leg concluded with something unexpected. With the final station in our sights, we waited patiently at a pedestrian crossing for the green man to appear. We look left. Suddenly: HORSES.

They were lovely. Just before we reached the station, I tried to get another shot of the Olympic site. It’s not very clear, but you can make out the Basketball Arena on the left and the VeloPark on the right. And the official B&Q of the Olympics in the foreground.

Another leg bites the dust!

Finally, a note about the walking situation. Despite originally seeming like a cop-out, I’ve actually really enjoyed walking the past four legs and I definitely don’t regret doing so. One of my original motivations for undertaking this project was to explore London and to see how the various jigsaw pieces slotted together. Walking these four central legs has really helped accomplish this.

In an ideal world, I would now run the three remaining legs. Ideal because the spectacular sights of central London are now behind me and the advantages of walking are thus reduced. Ideal also because it would mean I could honestly claim I ran half the distance. But it’s not an ideal world and I don’t have an ideal left knee. Tomorrow morning I’ll pop out for a jog around Belvue park and afterward assess my condition. If I feel okay, I’ll board the train to Leyton and give running my best shot. Otherwise, I’ll still board the train (obviously), but will continue to do what I have been doing for the past four weeks. Either way you can expect a new post relatively soon.

Thanks for reading.

Leg five (Holborn to Bethnal Green)

2010-06-02T21:49:00.003+01:00

You’ll remember from last time I wasn’t quite sure how my weekend would pan out. Well, in the end I managed to visit Ipswich and walk two legs of my challenge. Productivity! In today’s post I’ll give an account of the first of these legs, which was undertaken on Saturday morning. Expect another update within the next few days detailing the second. Sorry again for the late arrival of these posts - I’ve had (and am continuing to have) a stupidly busy week.

We emerged from Holborn station at 09:45, swiftly found our bearings and directed ourselves towards the focus of the day’s leg, the Square Mile. This is London’s historical core and the famous home of its financial district. I had decided to shorten this leg by a station because we had a coach to catch in the early afternoon and it would have been tight otherwise. We would finish at Bethnal Green instead of Mile End.

Within literally seconds of turning our back on Holborn station, Beth noticed and launched herself at a cake vendor. Much like Ben’s Cookies, Krispy Kreme donuts are pricey but wonderful. If I was forced to choose between the two (say, at gunpoint), I’d probably vouch for Ben’s Cookies but it certainly wouldn’t be an easy decision. She bought twelve donuts (I’m not joking) and we continued on our way.

Chancery Road station came first. I should forewarn you that today’s station photos are amongst the least flattering yet. This is one of the better ones. Seriously.

As we continued along High Holborn, I was distressed to glance upon this sign, suggesting racial segregation is still maintained in some areas of London. Why can’t we all just get along?

Next, we crossed Holborn Viaduct, a bridge originally opened by Queen Victoria in 1869 which is flanked by fierce-looking dragon statues, sadly undermined by the high volume of bird shit on their heads. The bridge led us nicely on to the Old Bailey, the famous criminal court. I was surprised to see the building in such good condition having recently watched the documentary V for Vendetta, in which it appears to be completely destroyed.

St Paul’s Cathedral isn’t an easy building to conceal and the first signs of its vast presence came into view as we drew closer to our next station. Here, you can spot its reflection in the national headquarters of BT.

In agreement with my set of hand-drawn directions, St Paul’s tube station was found to be tucked around the next corner. Beth took my photograph as usual before we ventured towards the great landmark itself.

As well as tourists, there were people wearing suits and dresses lining the stone steps of the cathedral suggesting a wedding was taking place. I imagine you have to be fairly important to get married at St Paul’s.

As we continued along my route I noticed a colourful flag in the distance. I thought it was Cameroon’s, Beth didn’t know but guessed at Jamaica. It turned out to be Ghana’s. I think you’ll agree my guess was closer in both design and geography.

Plenty of important people were born in the stretch between St Paul’s and Bank stations. We passed blue plaques commemorating Catholic troublemaker Thomas Becket, prison reformer (and face of the current five pound note) Elizabeth Fry and some other guy I’d never heard of.

The photograph outside Bank station is unquestionably the worst yet. Beth actually took two photos (she normally does) but I had my eyed closed in both. Bollocks.

En route to our next station we travelled along streets and alleyways teeming with historic buildings, statues and monuments. I took pictures of the Royal Exchange building and of a statue of George Peabody, an American entrepreneur. Predictably, it began to rain.

The familiar sight of the twin towers fronting Liverpool Street railway station soon made an appearance. Beth took my picture outside the (for some reason closed) outside entrance to the underground station.

We then took an impromptu shortcut through the station itself which provided an excuse to take some photos of the interior. Sorry if I’m overloading you with pictures. Except I’m not actually sorry.

Exiting through the tail end of the station, we were thrust into what most people would consider to be the “East End” of London. The Square Mile was behind us now. There are plenty of stereotypes about east London, many of which I suspect aren’t fair, but this particular area wasn’t doing the area as a whole any favours. It was a bit of a dump.

The comparison was stark. Just minutes after passing through the grandeur of the City, we were walking beside shops like this:

One 2 One hasn’t even existed in eight years. And this was by no means an exception: Bethnal Green road is a hive of decrepit looking shops and boutiques.

Then, just as the rain began to fall more heavily, something incredible happened.

A deep sadness came over me. Among the questions racing through my head were: “What is this yellow creature?”, “Why is he holding a Super Soaker?”, “Where did he possibly come from?” and “Is Dom Joly following me?”

And before I knew it, we had arrived at Bethnal Green tube station. Still shaken, Beth took my photo and we floated down the stairs towards the ticket hall.

I quite liked the clock they had on the westbound platform.

Thanks for reading.

Leg four (Shepherd’s Bush to Holborn)

2010-05-25T18:33:00.003+01:00

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:

(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.
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.

Leg three (Hanger Lane to Shepherd’s Bush)

2010-05-16T16:52:00.001+01:00

Good afternoon and welcome to the first edition of Walking the Central line. To celebrate this hopefully short-lived change in format, today’s report contains about 500% more pictures than usual. And since pictures are each worth a thousand words, LOADS more words than usual!

Beth (girlfriend) reluctantly joined me for yesterday’s hike, which lasted two hours and twenty minutes in all. That seems like a long time to walk under five miles, but as you’ll see, we did keep stopping to take photos/go shopping/eat Double Deckers.

We began the leg at Hanger Lane Underground Station, which sits on Hanger Lane gyratory system, a mammoth road junction the Daily Mail recently branded Britain's most terrifying. The junction has particular resonance to me because it was a wrong turn here that led to last week’s drastic detour, so this time round I was extra careful to avoid making the same mistake. Fortunately, as we moved away from the junction, I started recognising landmarks that I had earlier noted down from Street View, confirming we were heading towards North Acton and not Ealing Common. Good.

The remainder of the walk towards North Acton was uneventful. We passed an interesting formation of chairs (captions in the comments section, folks) as well as Park Royal Underground Station, a Piccadilly line station which I didn’t pose in front of for that very reason. I’ve got to have loyalties!

We reached the discrete North Acton station at 12:36 and Beth took the below photograph. The slightly weird thing about this station is that the line running into it from the west partitions Acton Cemetery into two sub-cemeteries. Look at the map. I’m guessing the cemetery probably existed before the railway did which begs a disturbing question…

Onwards. The walk between the Acton stations was even less interesting than before and I didn’t take any photos along the way (that’s not quite true). It was nice to finally deviate from Western Avenue, one of London’s major transport arteries, and walk through some quieter residential streets. The timestamp on the below picture suggests we reached East Acton Station at 13:13.

Du Cane Road and Wood Lane, the two stretches of road leading us into the Shepherd’s Bush area of London, were littered with interesting buildings to take pictures of. We passed the infamous Wormwood Scrubs prison, former home of inmates Pete Doherty, Keith Richards and Charles Bronson, and the less infamous Linford Christie Athletics Stadium, formerly used to detain Linford Christie. The iconic prison gatehouse (along with the rest of the building) was constructed entirely using convict labour, and it’s now a grade II listed building. Interesting eh?

We then passed the equally grand Hammersmith Hospital, which is a major teaching hospital associated with Imperial College.

As we turned into Wood Lane, BBC White City and BBC Media Village came into view. I quickly identified a sign constructed solely for tourists to stand beside and have their pictures taken, which I put to good use.

I also got photos of the monolithic headquarters and the lorry they use to store the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Soon we bumped into my tenth underground station of the challenge: White City. This station is significant because it’s the final one to have platforms above ground until we reach Stratford, 17 stops away to the east.

I’m not sure when I acquired that water bottle.

Slightly further down Wood Lane sits BBC Television Centre. They broadcast the news from here and produce countless other shows. The recognisable section of the building covered in white dots houses Studio TC1, which Wikipedia tells me is the third largest television studio in Britain.

We then passed the brand new Wood Lane Underground Station, which serves the Hammersmith & City and Circle lines. Obeying the Park Royal rule (the Park Royule, if you will), I decided against a photo op because Central line it ain’t.

A shortcut through the (also brand new) Westfield Shopping Centre turned into a longcut after getting seriously lost inside its labyrinthian* structure. The lens of my camera can’t do the scale of this vast, soulless building any justice.

We emerged from Westfield feeling relieved but flustered. These emotions were painted on my face as I stood outside the final station of the leg: Shepherd’s Bush.

So there we go! Another leg defeated. I’m now a third of the way to completing my challenge in terms of legs and over that in terms of stations. To celebrate this jubilant occasion, we had a lovely meal at Wetherspoons before going to see Four Lions at Vue. We bought sweets at Poundland to rebel against the horrific pricing at the cinema, but it turned out Vue weren't making a lot of money on this screening since we were joined in the auditorium by just four other couples. On a Saturday. One week after the film was released. Anyway, the film was definitely worth watching and had me laughing aloud several times. The other eight seemed to enjoy it too.

In terms of future plans, I intend to walk the next leg (Oxford Street) and then assess how I feel about running subsequent legs. I’ll do a trial run around the park or something.

Thanks for reading. Leave a comment.

* Labyrinthian is a real word but Windows doesn’t believe me. It suggests “Labyrinth Ian” which, if I was called Ian, would be a pretty cool nickname.

The end of the line?

2010-05-14T18:22:00.001+01:00

I’ve been thinking hard about where to go next with this project. I’ve had a good response from blog commenters and from people I’ve spoken to in the real world. Thanks if you were one of them!

A few have suggested giving up entirely on account of the potential damage I’m doing to myself. I class this as a drastic last resort option.

Others think I should rest for longer before attempting to run again. This is a sensible idea in principle, but the inescapable fact is that I only have six more weekends in London before I have to leave indefinitely. So that’s out.

The prospect of completing the remainder of the challenge on a segway also proved popular. Segways, however brilliant, are more expensive than some cars.

I briefly toyed with the idea of getting really drunk, forward-rolling the distance and vomiting majestically over the finish line. But my camera would get pretty scratched up and they probably wouldn’t let me back on the train. Not to mention the inevitable spinal disfigurement.

Probably the most sensible suggestion was first brought forward by amycool:

I definitely wouldn't risk causing permanent damage to your knee so don't feel bad about not running. And you never know, you might walk the next leg and then it recovers and you can run the rest.

Now that sounds fair enough. It’s a compromise, but a fairly unavoidable one. I still get to see London (arguably in greater detail than before) and there’s a high chance I can still run for a good section of the route, knee permitting.

So it’s decided then. Tomorrow, I’ll walk the 4.93 miles that separate Hanger Lane and Shepherd’s Bush underground stations. Since I’m beginning to approach what most proud central Londoners would call “actual London”, this leg promises to be the first to include some actual landmarks. So expect photographs of things other than me looking sheepish in front of public transport hubs.

Despite changing the tack of this project slightly, I don't think I'll update its name to "Walking the Central line". After all, I'll only have to revert this change when I start running again, as I fully intend to do. The other alternative, of course, is to choose an all-encompassing name such as "Traversing the Central line by foot at various speeds", but you’ll agree this doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

Finally, a sinister update from Google Analytics. Last Saturday, someone reached this blog after Googling "laura kuenssberg thigh watch". Incredible.

Thanks for reading.

Leg two (Northolt to Hanger Lane)

2010-05-09T18:48:00.003+01:00

Today started off so promisingly but rapidly descended into disaster.

I set off from Northolt Station at 09:30 following two weeks of complete rest. It felt wonderful to be running again and the distance between Northolt and Greenford passed without any problems. I felt fresh and fit and euphoric. When I reached the station, I pestered a guy into taking my photograph and he did a fine job. Like all of my previous guest photographers, I handed him a slip of paper with the URL of this blog, so if you’re reading this: thanks guy!

You’ll notice I wore trousers today. This was because the weather was terrible.

Almost immediately after turning my back on Greenford Station I began to feel the familiar sting growing in my knee. Urgh. I tried to minimise the amount of strain I was putting on my left knee by sort of “speed limping”, but this didn’t have much of a positive effect. I was dismayed to note the rate at which the pain was developing from “slightly uncomfortable” to “fucking unbearable” and within half a mile I was forced to slow down to walking pace. I hobbled the remaining distance to Perivale Station, occasionally testing the water with short bursts of painful speed.

As I waited for someone to emerge from the seemingly desolate underground station, I pondered to myself whether I was in any state to continue with the run. Hanger Lane was about 1.5 miles away along a single, congested, unforgiving road. No I wasn’t, I quickly reasoned. Several minutes passed without any human activity and I eventually threw in the towel by limping through the ticket barriers, photo-less. You’ll just have to imagine a frustrated, moist figure standing in front of this scene:

During the short tube journey between Perivale and Hanger Lane, confused passengers gawped at my now inaccurate T-shirt. They were right, I definitely wasn’t running the Central line.

I met Beth outside Hanger Lane Station and explained the situation to her. She took my picture while I hatched a plan. Under the harsh constraints of my injury, walking is significantly less painful than running, so I decided it would be sensible to trace my route in reverse and walk with Beth towards Perivale Station where she could take my photo and we could catch the tube home. Unfortunately, this was to prove no more successful than the rest of the day.

After 20 minutes of walking, I conceded that I had no idea where we were. Fortunately, Beth noticed an underground roundel down a side road. We gravitated towards it and soon the full extent of my navigational ineptitude was revealed. We had somehow drifted towards Ealing Common Station.

Right then. Tired of walking, we attempted to board a District line train towards Ealing Broadway but failed this most basic of tasks by standing on the wrong platform like morons and getting on a train heading in the opposite direction. Damn it. At Acton Town, we were careful to step onto a train that said “Ealing Broadway” on the front. We managed this, and at last began to make progress towards home on the Central line. We decided against getting out at Perivale for a photo opportunity in case I fell down a manhole or something. Beth took this excellent “picture” (without realising my camera was on video mode) as a substitute.

As we departed from Perivale, the driver warned us over the telecom that he would be “proceeding at a cautious speed due to a signal failure”. Fantastic. After a lot of stopping and starting, the train eventually crept into Northolt station just two and a half hours after we had initially left. What a morning.

So what happens now? I honestly don’t know. I’m absolutely desperate to complete my challenge but if I can only manage a couple of miles after two weeks of rest, what hope do I have? As far as I can see, this leaves me with a few less-than-ideal options:

Fail to take the hint and keep trying, possibly damaging my knee in the process.
Walk it.
Give up.

I happen to know this blog has a lot more readers than the number of comments would necessarily betray. I’d really appreciate your input this week guys and girls. What should I do?

Thanks for reading.

Don’t be alarmed

2010-05-08T22:47:00.002+01:00

I didn’t run today because I felt rough this morning (I’m still recovering from a mostly sleepless election night) and I needed to devote my day to dull but important admin chores. I wrote a resignation letter, applied for a US visa and selected modules for my final year at university. I won’t write a report on how that went because eating your own hair would be more interesting.

But fear not! I’ll run the leg tomorrow instead. And I’ll pay the price for my laziness because one section of the route relies on a certain gate being open which I happen to know is always locked on Sundays. Curses! I’ve adjusted my route to bypass this obstacle but it means running slightly further.

Oh, and my knee is feeling okay. Not great, but okay.

See you tomorrow!

Knee update

2010-05-04T21:24:00.001+01:00

Just a quick one today. This morning I went to the doctors to enquire about my painful left knee. Dr Swain (a nice man) asked me a bunch of questions and performed various tests. When I replied honestly to his question about why I had taken up running, he gave me a confused, troubled look. Anyway, here are Dr Swain’s observations in bullet point form:

There is nothing seriously wrong with my knee. I’ve not damaged any ligaments or tendons.
I shouldn’t run again until the pain has completely subsided.
I should try to restrict my running to soft surfaces instead of pavements where possible.
I should buy a pair of proper running shoes. I actually pre-empted this piece of advice and bought some in Harrow over the weekend. They feel really great! See the photo below.
I should take some Ibuprofen to reduce inflammation.

In summary: unless the knee situation worsens over the next few days, I hope to run the second leg of my challenge this weekend. So expect a write-up on Saturday!

Severe delays

2010-05-01T18:30:00.001+01:00

Last week I promised that I wouldn’t run another leg until I’d seen a doctor about my dodgy knee. As you might have already guessed, this didn’t happen, so I was forced to cancel today’s session. I don’t require medical assistance very often which meant I actually had to register at my local surgery before I could book an appointment. This process took longer than I’d hoped and the earliest non-emergency (tempting, isn’t it?) appointment I could make was for this coming Tuesday. So Doctor James Swain will have to wait until then before receiving a face full of my knee.

Suspending today’s run raises a problem. When I was planning this challenge, I left no room for week skipping. In fact, just five days after completing my final leg I’ll be living and working in a different continent, thousands of miles from London and the Central line. This leaves me with just two options:

Run two legs in one week
Restructure the eight remaining legs into seven

What do you think? I’ll probably keep my options open until I’ve spoken with Dr Swain on Tuesday. After all, he might instruct me to rest for another week, in which case I’ll be doubly-fucked!

On a far lighter note, I was yesterday presented with the highly sought-after* Prolific Blogger Award! The presenter was Ben who writes Learning To Read, an unsurprisingly well-written blog about books.

The idea of the award is outlined as follows:

A prolific blogger is one who is intellectually productive, keeping up an active blog with enjoyable content. After accepting this award, recipients are asked to pass it forward to seven other deserving blogs.

What an honour! I had a difficult time choosing my seven winners because the majority of the blogs I follow are either really popular, or already appear in Ben’s list of award recipients. Anyway, congratulations to the following blogs:

Garry’s Blog – An insight into the life and works of the now wealthy software developer and creator of Garry’s Mod, Garry Newman.
Mark Watson’s Blog – A daily, decade-long blogging effort from one of my favourite comedians. Lots of community projects and stupid games.
The Uneven Bookshelf – Interesting mix of anecdotes taken from the everyday life of it’s writer, Sam. Hit and miss, but mostly hit.
spEak You're bRanes – Cynical but hilarious piss-taking of internet commenters, mostly sourced from the BBC News website.
Tabloid Watch – Exposing the bullshit-peddling section of our press.
Going Underground – Comprehensive source of news about the London Underground. I had to include it really.
The Official Google Blog – Because I’m a massive Google Fanboy.

I’ll write another post on Tuesday or Wednesday detailing the result of my encounter with Dr Swain.

Thanks for reading.

* completely unheard-of and valueless

Leg one (West Ruislip to Northolt)

2010-04-24T17:15:00.002+01:00

After a whole week of no training and treading very carefully on my left leg, Beth and I boarded Saturday’s 09:30 underground train towards my starting point for this challenge, West Ruislip Underground Station. This was the first time I’d travelled anywhere beyond Northolt in a westerly direction on the tube so the scenery was new to me. In case you’re confused, the Central line is entirely above ground by this point (about 65% of the line is), hence “the scenery” and not just “the unrelenting darkness”.

Seven minutes later we arrived at the near-deserted station and Beth took a quick picture of me standing outside for evidence. We agreed to meet at Northolt in 45 minutes and she disappeared back into the station towards the platforms. It would be like a Top Gear race but without the suspense and the unconvincingly close finish.

The run between West Ruislip and Ruislip Gardens was pleasant enough and I was relieved to find that my knee only hurt very faintly as I ran. Just before arriving at my second station, I passed the school where they film The Inbetweeners. So that’s interesting, right?

When I reached Ruislip Gardens Station I began scouting for a stranger with which to entrust my camera for the first of many times. I summoned over the first I came across, a middle-aged women, who kindly agreed to help me. Unfortunately, by her own admission, she “wasn’t very good with technology” and held the camera up to her face despite my camera having no viewfinder. Luckily, an unsuspecting Asian man walked past and she hastily delegated the task to him before slinking off, looking embarrassed. I feel a bit bad for putting her on the spot like that.

My Asian friend did a much better job and took the following shot.

The short run towards South Ruislip station was pretty unmemorable. My body coped well despite the hot weather and lack of recent exercise, but I could feel the pain in my left knee gradually begin to resurface.

At South Ruislip station, the second guy I spoke to (the first was holding a dog. Looking back: a poor choice) was willing to help me out with photography. Despite my protests, he stubbed out the cigarette he was in the middle of smoking and reassured me that he was trying to quit anyway. He took the below picture and we had a little chat about my project. A very nice man!

It was during the final two mile stretch between South Ruislip and Northolt that my knee really started to hurt. The closer I got to Northolt, the more pain I was in and it reached a point where I had stop and walk 100 metres or so before continuing. This was extremely frustrating because the rest of my body felt relatively unfatigued and could have easily tackled the remaining distance (and beyond). I eventually arrived at Northolt station almost exactly 45 minutes after setting off from West Ruislip.

I’ve decided that this week I’m going to see a doctor. If I can’t make an appointment in time for next Saturday, I’ll suspend leg two (I don’t mean hopping…) until I am able to make an appointment. As a few people have told me, this challenge isn’t worth permanently damaging my knee, which is actually a pretty useful part of my anatomy that I tend to use quite a lot.

So there we go, leg one of nine completed. Apart from all the agony stuff, I actually really enjoyed myself today and I can’t wait to continue in the weeks to come.

Thanks for reading.

Training (part VII)

2010-04-18T11:49:00.002+01:00

Hello again. Here follows my seventh and final training report!

This week I ran 1.5 miles on Wednesday and 4 miles on Friday.

Wednesday’s 1.5 was intended to be run on Tuesday, but once again Mister Alcohol had other ideas. So I postponed it and covered the short distance with Tim on Wednesday instead. Sadly, we didn’t manage to improve on last week’s time, but it still felt like a ‘healthy’ enough run: relatively quick, consistent and without pain. During the final sprint along Britannia Road I noticed a small child crisscrossing the pavement in the distance. We later agreed that had we vaulted the child at full speed instead of slowing down to carefully manoeuvre around her, we could have shaved a few valuable seconds off our time. Hindsight eh?

Friday’s 4 miler was another painful mess of a run. I should have just saved myself the effort and employed someone to shout abuse at me from a car window whilst taking potshots at my kneecaps with a pistol. I’m starting to seriously question what benefit these types of run are having on my fitness, since they’re certainly not getting any easier as time goes by. If anything they’re getting harder. Perhaps I’m expecting too much of my body, considering the furthest I’d ever ran before I started this project was something like 2 miles. Does anyone have any advice or reassurance? Or am I just being a girl?

In the time between Friday’s run and Sunday’s planned run, three significant things happened to me. I turned twenty-one, I travelled back to London and my knee started really hurting. For these reasons (mainly the latter to be honest), I decided to abandon Sunday’s planned 4 miler. I’ll probably also cancel all midweek training leading up to the first leg of my challenge on Saturday in order to give myself the best chance of recovery.

Whilst on the topic of my birthday, I received some brilliant Central line related loot. Beth had a special T-shirt printed for me to wear while running and dad managed to “acquire” some actual London Underground signage (really heavy). Awesome.

Finally, I noticed something quite funny on my Google Analytics account for this blog. Google Analytics is a web statistics package accessible by typing “anal” into Google and letting suggest fill in the rest - a dangerous game I frequently play at work. It can display a list of websites that have referred visitors to this blog, of which Facebook and Mark Watson’s Blog are (predictably) the two most popular. However, one guy reached my blog after searching for “what time does the central line stop running”. I’m ranked third (!) on this query and the top two results give pretty comprehensive answers to the question so it’s surprising he made it this far, but there we go.

Come back next week to see how my first leg went!

Cheers.

Training (part VI)

2010-04-11T20:47:00.001+01:00

Hello readers. Excitingly, this was my sixth and penultimate week of training, so enjoy reading about it while you still can!

I ran 1.5 miles on Wednesday and 4 miles on both Friday and Sunday.

I was actually scheduled to run the 1.5 miles on Tuesday instead of Wednesday, but Tuesday turned into a recovery day following a night of particularly heavy drinking. I spent most of it laying on the sofa, watching Laura Kuenssberg’s weird face talk to me about the freshly announced election on the BBC News Channel. By Wednesday afternoon I had fully regenerated and was ready for a serious running session. I convinced Tim to come with me and he again proved to be an excellent aide. With his pacekeeping skills, I was able to destroy my previous best time by 43 seconds! This wasn’t the sort of run where you could breath properly afterwards, but 43 seconds! Lovely.

I thought it unfair to drag Tim out for another run on Friday considering he does proper training on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I ran the 4 miles alone. For the benefit of any interested readers from Ipswich, here’s where I went. I found it much tougher than last week’s attempt and I came quite close to giving up along the Woodbridge Road East stretch, but my willpower pushed me through and I made it home in pretty good time. Very slightly slower than last Sunday, but not bad considering the number of times I had to stop to cross roads.

Tim joined me for Sunday’s run which employed the same route as Friday’s. During the run, he used phrases like “You’re definitely slowing down!” and “Use my slipstream!”. Anyway, much like Friday’s attempt, I found it really tough. By the end of the run my legs felt ruined. There wasn’t a part of my lower body that didn’t ache, and I had trouble walking for about half an hour afterwards. It was so tough, in fact, that I’ve started to question how I dealt with the first 4 miler (last week) so well. Was it really four miles? Surely not.

I think the hard running surface is definitely the problem. Or at least a major contributor. Given that my actual route is made up of 99% pavement, it was probably a mistake to train primarily on grass up until this point!

Incidentally, I did beat Friday’s time, but this doesn’t seem quite so important given the amount of pain I went through to do so. Here’s to a more pleasant week seven!

Training (part V)

2010-04-04T15:41:00.003+01:00

Greetings from Ipswich and welcome to training report number five.

This was a busy week for me but I still managed to find the time to go running. I covered 1.5 miles on Wednesday, 3 miles on Friday and 4 miles on Sunday.

Wednesday was when the inevitable happened: My unbroken record of improvements to my 1.5 time came to an end. The ghost beat me. The disheartening and slightly confusing thing about this is that I was slower by a whole 31 seconds, which seems like a significant backwards step. I don't quite know what to attribute this to, but (as with so many of life's hardships) it was probably just a combination of wind, psychology and daffodils. I'll explain:

Wednesday was unusually windy and I seemed to be battling against it for the whole of the run.
There was a lot on my mind and I felt more stressed than usual. As a result, the desire to beat my previous time wasn't as strong. I didn't have my usual competitive mindset.
The daffodils are out of control. They're now fully grown and drooping across my carefully established pathway. I'm too stubborn to change my route as this would seem like corner-cutting, and I'm too community spirited to just bulldozer my way through them. So instead I leap from side to side, looking like a massive idiot, which I'm sure must slow me down.

Oh well. I guess I should have learnt a thing or two from Pac-Man. The ghosts always catch up in the end. You can't just run about, shouting "WAKKA WAKKA WAKKA", eating fruit you found on the floor, abruptly turning in multiples of 90° and still expect to improve on every occasion. It's just not realistic.

Friday’s three miler was the last of it’s kind around Belvue Park, probably ever. Fortunately then, I managed to improve on my previous best time by 4 seconds. This came as a genuine surprise to me because I felt drained and took the final lap really slowly and I certainly didn’t sprint the final straight like on Sunday. So either I’m getting fitter, or there’s something wrong with my watch.

Today’s run combined several unknowns. It was the first time I had run 4 miles, the first time I had run accompanied (Tim joined me) and the first time I had run exclusively on pavements and roads. Here’s how I dealt with all three:

The extra distance was noticeable but not really a hindrance. We ran at a pretty relaxed pace because I wanted to use this session as a benchmark and didn’t want to overdo it. As before, my lungs coped perfectly and I never felt out of breath. Also as before (but to an even greater extent), my legs took the real beating.
It was nice to have someone around to chat to and keep the pace. Before we set off I gave him strict instructions to avoid running at warp speed which he kindly honoured.
The hard, unforgiving concrete punished my inexperienced calf muscles which, by the two mile mark, felt worryingly hot. Tim said he’d never experienced that sensation before which only added to my terror. Luckily, we made it home without tearing anything and as I type this two hours later, my legs feel almost completely healed.

Thanks for reading and happy Easter! The Lord has risen etc.

Training (part IV)

2010-03-28T15:31:00.001+01:00

It’s that time again. Get ready for training report number four.

This week I was due to run 1.5 miles on both Monday and Wednesday and then 4 miles on Saturday. However, I noticed that these guys (whose very challenge you’ll remember I stole) were planning an “open run” along the Bakerloo line on Sunday which I didn’t want to miss, so I made some scheduling alterations. The all important four miles was shelved for another week.

On Monday I ran 1.5 miles which was a massive, rainy success. Acutely aware of my leg problems, I pondered whether or not I should run hard against my new ghost opponent. My competitive side got the better of me and I quickly devised a new strategy: pace myself for the first lap and pick up speed during the second. This worked beautifully and I thrashed the ghost by a healthy 25 seconds. Here’s a nice little chart showing my progress:

In contrast to Monday’s rainy session, Wednesday provided the hottest training weather to date. I say hot, it was only 17°C. Anyway, in spite of this blistering heat, I ran the 3 miles well and was rewarded with a convincing improvement of 38 seconds against my previous best time. I managed to keep a steady pace throughout the run and feel this rhythm did me a lot of favours. This rhythm was broken only once when, after passing a group of drunks on a bench wearing tracksuits and shaved heads for the third time, one of them shouted:

“YOUENNERINTHAMARFINYEH?”

So I stopped running and turned around.

“What?”

“YOU ENTERIN THE MARRAFIN YEAH?”

“Oh, no.”

At which point one of their frothy mouthed dogs distracted him for long enough for me to make my escape. Phew.

Sunday was a disaster. I woke up early and boarded the underground towards central London with the intention of meeting the other runners at Elephant & Castle tube station at 10:30, as arranged. As we pulled into Perivale station at around 9:40, Beth turned to me with a worried look and broke the news that the clocks had gone forward last night. It wasn’t 9:40 at all, it was 10:40. Shit. I made the decision to get off at Oxford Circus and loiter for half an hour in the vague hope that we could connect with the passing runners. Of course, this didn’t happen and we went home.

To make up for this frustrating episode, I ran three miles around the usual route in record time. I checked my watch on exiting Belvue Park and noted that I was slightly behind on Wednesday’s time which I wasn’t at all happy about, so I did my first sprint finish. It was pretty knackering but six seconds is six seconds!

I’ve got two weeks off work during the Easter break so next week’s blog will come directly from Ipswich.

Thanks for reading.

Training (part III)

2010-03-20T17:28:00.003Z

Hello readers. Welcome to training report number three, this week brought to you earlier than scheduled! What am I like, eh?

Things got a bit harder this week. I ran 1.5 miles on Monday and then 3 miles on both Wednesday and Saturday.

You might remember that last week I foolishly set myself the challenge of improving on my 1.5 time on every subsequent attempt. I embarked on this week's session with this very much in mind. In fact, my determination almost proved to be my downfall as I powered through the first circuit only to feel burnt out by the start of the second. If it were possible to view a ghost version of my past self whilst running (like in all good racing games) the ghost me would have lost a lot of ground early on, but would have fought back towards the half way point, gradually clawing back time and possibly even merging with current me late into the race. Mercifully, I ended up shaving seven seconds off last week's time so it became a case of "slow and steady narrowly loses the race". Take that you ghostly bastard.

Wednesday’s three miler went well. I wore shorts this time and reaped the benefits, beating Saturday's attempt by 39 seconds. By the end of it I was hardly out of breath, which is great news. My lungs have adapted surprisingly well to this new exercise regime. My legs have done less well though and my left knee hurt for the rest of the day.

Unfortunately, the left leg trouble worsened in time for Saturday, forcing me to question how sensible it would be to go running. My knee had continued to hurt faintly and my calf muscles felt tight and worn. It wasn’t painful but it did feel uncomfortable and as though I was close to injuring myself. In the end, I thought “fuck it” and went ahead with the run anyway. I took things nice and slowly and this was reflected in my not-so-great time, but I don’t really care about that. Perhaps surprisingly, this was my first run in the rain, which made for a refreshing change. The park was completely deserted except for a young lady walking the smallest dog I’ve ever seen. I completed the three miles in record time (the record being “Slowest Time Ever”) but in hindsight I’m really pleased I didn’t chicken out because I felt fantastic afterwards and I don’t think I managed to inflict any further damage on my legs.

In other, really exciting news, I've had an awesome response from people wanting to accompany me on my challenge. Vikki (complete stranger), Ben (friend), Joe (ex-neighbour), Tim (brother) and Beth (girlfriend) intend to travel from Shropshire, Loughborough, Birmingham, Ipswich and London to join me for a leg each. That's a combined travel distance of almost 500 miles, or half a kilomile (a brand new unit of measurement I'm hoping will soon hit the mainstream)! Admittedly, these responses are mostly tentative and no one has yet shotgunned any particular leg, but it's an amazing start! I'd quite like to run the first and last legs alone, which leaves just two more potential spaces to fill. If you're interested, I'd love you to get in touch.

Finally, I’ve decided to bring forward the dates of my challenge by a week. I’ll now depart from West Ruislip on 24th April and arrive at Epping on 19th June. Check out the map for more details and stats (you can click on it and stuff).

Blimey. Long post. Thanks for reading.

Training (part II)

2010-03-15T17:03:00.002Z

Hello readers and welcome to the second edition of my weekly training roundup. Let’s dive straight in.

This week I ran 1.5 miles on Monday and Thursday and then 3 miles on Saturday.

As expected, the 1.5’s were easy enough. So far I’ve managed to better myself on every 1.5 run, including an improvement of 41 seconds (!) this week. I’d like to continue this improvement without fail for the remainder of my training but I don’t think that’s sustainable. We’ll see.

The 3 miles was more difficult but not painfully so. I was punished for underestimating the temperature and wearing trousers instead of shorts, but apart from that error it didn’t go badly. I felt like I could have managed another circuit at the end of it which can only be positive.

Spring is here. Annoyingly, the daffodils have noticed and have begun sprouting from the ground like nobody’s business. Running (more accurately: lurching) through them is similar to running through a minefield but with a reduced risk of instant death/limb detachment. I guess they must train army recruits on similar terrain?

To end with, here’s a lovely picture of Belvue Park looking unnaturally green.

Oh and by the way, I was meant to post this yesterday but forgot. I promise next week’s will appear on time.

Cheers folks.

Training (part I)

2010-03-08T20:25:00.002Z

I’ve definitely peaked early. Three blog entries in four days? Jesus. Now I’ve got the daunting task of holding your interest with very little material for a whole two months before I actually depart from West Ruislip station.

Now, I could fill this space with mundane crap about my day-to-day life, or with my thoughts on current affairs, but that would destroy what little readership I have. Besides, I’d much rather keep this blog focussed on the challenge in hand.

So I’ll talk about training. Every Sunday I’ll write a report on what I’ve done during the week and how it went. This week’s edition arrives a day late. Sorry about that.

My chosen training route circles Belvue Park, a relatively small park that I pass through on my way to work that attracts the usual mix of dog-walkers and alcoholics. Handily, the distance between my flat and the park is close to ¼ mile and the distance of the park's circumference is almost exactly ½ mile. This means I can run nice round mileages using the equation:

n = 2d – 1

where:
d is the required distance in miles and
n is the number of circuits.

Last week, following the judicious advice of my brother, I ran 1.5 miles on Monday and Wednesday and then 2.5 miles on Saturday. To summarise: everything went okay. I was surprised at how easy the 1.5’s were, though admittedly I ran more slowly than I have done in the past. The 2.5 was tougher but I felt brilliant afterwards and my pace was only marginally slower than with the 1.5’s. Although it doesn’t seem like much, I think 2.5 miles is the furthest I have ever run in one go, so that’s an achievement! I was expecting ache city on Sunday morning but it never arrived, which was a pleasant surprise.

An easy start then. Roll on week two.

Running and Maps

2010-03-06T00:19:00.001Z

Today's entry concerns an issue which is important (you could even say central) to my challenge: Running.

Running is brilliant. Sure, I don’t run anywhere near as much as I would like to and should (hence this challenge) and I certainly don’t claim to be an expert, but running really is awesome.

I think it was probably my brother who inspired me to start running. He occasionally runs for Suffolk, you know. What? You don’t believe me? Read it and weep. Of course, there’s no evidence that this completely anonymous human is even related to me, but we’ll brush over this minor flaw in my argument, okay?

I love running for a number of reasons: It takes you places, it improves your mood, it keeps you healthy, it doesn’t require any special equipment, it gives you a sense of achievement, it’s more interesting than walking, it gets you on imminently departing buses and it helps you escape from rabid hounds. There are few skills that have been so fundamental to our survival as a species as running so it seems a real shame to abandon it just because we’re no longer under constant threat of attack.

The strange thing about running, however, is its inefficiency. Compare it to cycling. You can cycle a given distance much quicker than you can on foot, and what's more, you’re likely to be less out of breath at the finishing line. Now it’s not really science, but I don’t think it would be unreasonable to suggest that because you’re less tired, you’ve probably burnt less calories. The thing is, your bike doesn’t add any energy to the system (unless your cycle happens to be a motorcycle); it just improves your ability to transfer it efficiently. I suppose it comes down to the wheels. Wheels are really good at minimising the effects of friction and preserving forward momentum. It begs the (perhaps stupid) question: Why has nothing evolved wheels? Why do we need a man-made harness to get the most out of our bodies?

Anyway, I’m a man of my word, and in my previous entry I promised that this entry would include a map. Well, you certainly won’t be disappointed. Here's a map detailing my planned route:

View Tube Run in a larger map

As you can see, it consists of nine legs, which I will tackle over nine weekends, beginning on May Day and ending on 26 June. I'd love to hear from anyone with an opinion about my route. Can it be optimised in any way (running along the tracks isn't an option)? Does it pass through any notorious ghettos or other areas known for their hostility towards athletic endeavour? Does it pass your house, even?

Finally, in the highly unlikely event that you are a fellow Londoner and are interested enough in this challenge to want to join me for one or more of the legs, please get in touch! I'd definitely appreciate the company. Also, with another person around, there's less chance of my digital camera getting stolen.

Thanks for reading.

Motivation

2010-03-04T18:48:00.002Z

Before I talk about what motivated me in my decision to run the Central line, I should give you some background information about my situation for the sake of context. Some readers (look! I’ve embraced the possibility that more than one person will read this entry!) will already know about this stuff. Just bear with me.

I’m not a proper Londoner. I’ve lived in London for eight months and will continue to live here for less time still. The reason for my brief residency is that I’m currently undertaking a year in industry, which forms part of my degree at the University of Nottingham. I’m working for a defence company in Greenford.

Anyway, this fact, exacerbated by the further fact that London is an overwhelmingly massive city, has meant my geography of the area is fairly appalling. Strangely though, my knowledge of the London Underground system is pretty good. If someone were to approach me in the street and ask, I’d know without having to look at a map how to get from Charing Cross to Victoria on the tube, but I wouldn’t have a clue about how to walk there. I treat my Oyster card as I would treat Floo Powder: as a tool to teleport me between seemingly disconnected locations without having to worry about what happens in between. I associate famous landmarks with individual tube stations and am genuinely surprised when I realise they’re also accessible from the next station along the line. On the rare occasion that I use forms of public transport other than the tube, I come close to seizuring at the amount of times this revelation hits me. It’s pathetic.

So, motivation number one is about discovery and fitting the jigsaw pieces together. A tiny number of the pieces, at least.

Motivation number two is a bit more simple. I love running and wish I ran more often. I figured there’s no better incentive to go running than to have the constant crushing fear of failure weighing heavy upon my shoulders.

The final push towards me undertaking this challenge came from one of my favourite comedians, Mark Watson, who proposed the Ten-Year Self-Improvement Challenge. It’s pretty self explanatory, but for the extremely short of time (frankly, I’m surprised you’re here), it’s a drive to get people doing stuff they’ve always wanted to do, and talking to one another.

I don’t know when I’ll next make a post, but it’s likely to contain a map. So you’ve got that to look forward to.

Introduction

2010-03-03T22:15:00.001Z

Hello reader(s)! I’m Simon and this is the blog I’ll use to document my new project, which is to run the entire length of the Central line.

Before I continue, I should point out that mine isn’t an original pursuit. I stole the idea from these guys and heavily watered it down to suit someone with significantly less time/ability to run long distances. While they are ambitiously planning to traverse each of the twelve London Underground lines, I shall restrict my efforts to my “home line”, the Central line. While they are covering each line in a single day, I will spread the pain over several legs (pun intended – but instantly regretted). While they are raising hundreds of pounds for charity, I’m just not.

Here’s how it will work: Every Saturday, starting some time in early May, I will run from station to station in an easterly direction. I will start at West Ruislip and end up at Epping. My intention is to run between four and five miles on each leg, passing on average five stations along the way. I’m not a fit man and this isn’t something I can currently do without dire consequences, hence the much needed training gap between now and May. At each station, I will entrust a friendly looking stranger with my digital camera so I have evidence of me standing outside the station looking out of breath. I estimate it will take me eight or nine weeks to cover the whole line.

To be clear, I will only be visiting the stations along the longest stretch of the Central line (between West Ruislip and Epping). I will discount the Ealing Broadway branch and the Hainault loop. Look at the map to see what I mean.

To close, here are some interesting facts about the Central line:

The Central line's 74 km (46 miles) make it the Underground's longest line. It serves 49 stations and requires 72 trains to operate the peak period service. Its total fleet of 85 trains, each of eight cars and known as 1992-tube stock, were manufactured by Adtranz in Derby.
The longest journey without change on the London Underground can be made on the Central line between West Ruislip and Epping (54.9 km, 34.1 miles), taking 1 hour 21 minutes.
Chancery Lane Station has the shortest escalator 9.1m (30ft) on the London Underground system, with just 50 steps.
At Greenford Station, an escalator takes passengers up to the trains a feature unique on the Underground.
The platforms at Redbridge are the shallowest on the tube lines, only 7.9m (26ft) below the road.

Source: TfL website.

In my next post, I’ll talk about my motivations for this project.

Cheers.