CENTRAL LINE: Shepherds Bush to Bank

Given today’s tube strike I’m sure many of you are now familiar with getting around London by alternative means! I thought this new found interest in alternatives to the Underground provided a convenient excuse to update you on our tube map training for our marathons (now 14 weeks and 16 weeks away!).

You’ll notice from our progress map that since the last blog post it has got a lot more colourful. Prior to Christmas, Anna and I decided to tackle the Circle Line. All in one go. The idea being that we wanted to end the year having run more than half of the marathon distance. Back in November when we ran the District line, we got very frustrated having to stop every half mile to take a selfie, so to prevent this same frustration on the Circle, Anna came up with the inspired idea of filming us on the GoPro. We hope you might have seen the resulting video documenting our efforts.

So we did the same for our latest instalment of the Central Line- Shepherds Bush to Bank. We met in Caffe Nero where Anna attached the GoPro to her new chest strap, looking like some sort of intrepid explorer ready to tackle a journey she could in fact have made in 18 minutes on the tube. Assuming the tubes were running of course....too soon?!

As Anna was designated camerawoman for the day she isn’t visible in most of the footage but just pops up at the beginning and end, instead you are treated to me prancing around in front of the stations we pass. I hope you enjoy our latest film, which you can watch here: https://youtu.be/eCW6MUxSqaY

But I wanted to take a quick minute to just remind you all why we are doing this. On the 9^th of April Anna will be taking on the Brighton marathon to raise money for four charities that mean a great deal to her (Bloodwise, The Children’s Heart Foundation, OCD-UK and Prostate Cancer UK). You can read more on her fundraising page (www.virginmoneygiving.com/annashields).

And on the 23^rd April I will be running the London Marathon to raise money for the RNIB and there’s more on my fundraising page too (www.virginmoneygiving.com/jessford).

Whilst the marathons themselves will no doubt be challenging, we really wanted to give you guys a bit more of an inkling on just how much we’re running to train for this and that concept of distance inspired our tube map training. So here’s a little run down of where we’ve got to since we began this tube map endeavour back in November and for those who like more regular forms of distance measurement (metres, miles, furlongs…) I’ve included a few of those too!

LINE SUMMARY

Circle: 100% complete

Northern Line: 30% complete

Central Line: 66% complete

District Line: 55% complete

Jubilee Line: 40% complete

Victoria Line: 50% complete

Metropolitan Line: 75% complete (by stations...not distance!)

Piccadilly Line: 0% complete

Bakerloo Line: 0% complete

Total Underground Distance Run: 62.9 miles

Total All Training Miles since Nov 6^th: 158.5 miles

Tube Map Training as % of Running: 39.6%

If you're suitably impressed, then please head on down to our fundraising pages (above) and give whatever you can to support some incredible causes. If you're waiting until there's a few more 100%s in the list above, then that is completely fine too! Just keep reading and keep supporting us...our training is really going to hot up over the next few weeks and having you all behind us means a lot.

Jess x

NORTHERN LINE: Hendon Central to London Bridge

We’ve been pretty spoilt up until now with sunshine and crisp, wintery afternoon runs, so it only seemed fair that we should take on our longest run to date in the pouring rain… and dark.

 

Having spent two hours carol singing with our Starling Arts gang at the Royal Free Hospital to raise money for their ICU, it seemed sensible to make the most of being in north London to tick off a chunk of the Northern Line. So we hopped on the tube from the hospital up to Hendon Central and began our trek south.

The weather has been milder lately, so all day we’d been debating ‘shorts or leggings?’. We opted for shorts, much to the horror of some of our choir pals, but we were confident in our decision as we safely stowed away our leggings in our backpacks.  Our bare legs did encourage a lot of stares on the tube (unless they recognised us both from The Period Song video…) but we had just over 10.5 miles to run and didn’t fancy being bogged down by wet leggings. I lent Jess my head torch (it stayed on her head better than mine!) and we set off looking like two girl guides on an orienteering trip.

 

Almost straight away we ventured into Hendon Park. Now I’m sure at 5pm on a July evening, this park is a warm, pleasant place, filled with the laughter of families packing up their picnics to head home after a day in the sun. At 5pm on a December evening in the rain, it’s dark, grey and, well, a little bit spooky! Glad we had each other for company, not to mention that trusty head torch, we navigated our way through the park just about making out the outline of dustbins, slides and fences as we went. At one point the path was narrow and slippery, so we fell into single file and debated who else might be in the park at this time… we concluded that anything dodgy wouldn’t happen at 5pm, surely?

 

Relieved to be out of Blair Witch terrain, we cut down a questionable path by some railway arches. “Will we come out of this run alive?” we semi joked…

 

These Tube Map runs have taken in some beautiful bridges across the Thames, but I have to say that crossing the North Circular on a footbridge in the rain was probably the greatest view to date (I hope my sarcasm comes across in this post). I was quite glad to reach Brent Cross and be away from dark parks, alleyways and fast cars.

 

At Golders Green I couldn’t believe we’d only been running for 20 minutes, it felt like we’d achieved so much. The biggest achievement was still to come, however, as we climbed up the long hill to Jack Straws Castle at the edge of Hampstead Heath and Golders Hill Park. In our head, running south would be ‘downhill’. Feeling like I might throw up, that climb felt like a long, gruelling punishment, but it was worth it for the downhill reward we got into Hampstead, Belsize Park and Chalk Farm; it’s no wonder those next couple of miles were two of our fastest splits of the run.

 

Everyone does Christmas lights very well in this neck of the woods. So many pretty trees, windows and shops to spur you on. We may have been soaking wet, but we weren’t cold and we certainly weren’t miserable. Smug that wearing shorts had been a good shout, we pressed on to Camden Town, passing Mornington Crescent but not stopping (that’s for the Charing Cross branch of the Northern Line!) until we were faced with people. PEOPLE EVERYWHERE. I doubt Camden is ever that quiet, but my word was it busy this evening. Jess and I stopped talking to each other (a rare occurrence on our runs!) as we jumped between the crowd like frogs, splashing in puddles, dodging cars and buses, fighting off the passive smoke (of various kinds…) until we were out the other side. Apologies to anyone who got pushed, shoved, of splashed by us in the process.

 

At Euston it felt like we were on the home stretch, even though we were only just over half way. Stopping to go to the toilet, it took a while to get going again, not least because King’s Cross is so close by! Our tired legs then made the pull up Pentonville Road feel like a massive hill, but there was relief again as we ran down into Angel and then Old Street. Distracted by a quirky station sign (see photo) and the pop-up bars and shops of ‘Silicon Roundabout’, we pressed on into the City, deadly quiet as it always is at weekends.

 

The streets of Moorgate and Bank felt echoey and damp as we swigged the last of our Lucozade ready for the final run to London Bridge.

 

“We’ll pass Monument soon”, I said. “The second station we’ll have run by without needing to stop for a photo.” There was a pause. “And they both begin with M!” said Jess. For some reason this ‘fun fact’ seemed like the funniest thing we’d heard all day. We mused on what other stations began with M (Marylebone, Mansion House, Moorgate, Mill Hill East, Mile End) and then realised that no one had heckled us on this run or told us we looked beautiful. A little despondent at the thought, we concluded that the dark night and wet weather probably meant no one had taken in the stunning creatures running before them. As we stepped onto London Bridge, soaking in the glorious views of a lit up Tower Bridge to the left and St Paul’s to the right, we both whooped out loud as we headed for The Shard, and then it happened: WE. GOT. HECKLED! Our lives were complete. “Come on, girls!” shouted a group of lads. We cheered in response! If only they knew how much they made our day! We sprinted for the finish line, running up to the station with the fastest split of the whole run.

 

Thrilled to have completed our longest leg of the Tube Map so far, we celebrated with a burger and smugly changed into the dry, warm leggings we’d opted not to run in. Jess even fashioned a new bra out of her FlipBelt… running accessories are nothing if not versatile in the resourceful hands of Jess Ford.

 

39 miles of the Tube Map down. Just a few more to go…

If you're impressed by our progress so far, or our continued inclusion of selfies even when drenched, you can sponsor us here:

www.virginmoneygiving.com/annashields

www.virginmoneygiving.com/jessford

DISTRICT LINE: Victoria to Wimbledon

We were back together again this week, tackling the District Line. Now, anyone who has ever caught the District line (surely a contender for the worst line in London?!) will probably agree that this was probably our best chance of actually beating a tube. In a bizarre turn of events though, it seemed there were no engineering works, leaves on the line or missing members of train staff today and we think the train might have JUST beaten us. We probably had more fun though.

It was back in the carnage of Victoria station that we began our journey. The mixture of confused tourists and considerable construction works causing chaos as per usual. But we found the right exit and nipped up along Elizabeth Street past well dressed west Londoners enjoying a leisurely brunch.

Sloane Square is really not very far from Victoria, in fact that was going to be a theme of the first half of this run. I propose a vote to help TfL close at least a third of these pointless stations, like people living in Sloane Square use the tube anyway...



Running along the Kings Road we felt as out of place as we had on Bond Street a couple of weeks previously, though at least here we had the Lululemon store suggesting that exercise is an acceptable pursuit, although obviously only if wearing insanely priced designer gear. Which of course, neither of us were. We were both in our rejection jumpers again- the cool matching look.


Looking back South Ken, Gloucester Road and Earl's Court are all a blur of beautiful houses, stunning station facades and people better dressed than us. I hate to be repetitive but I cannot emphasise enough how close these stations are; we hadn't even run 2 miles and yet had visited 5 already.

As we were stood outside Earl's Court trying to perfect our selfie (clearly a failure), we finally had some drama as the announcement rang out, "owing to a security incident please evacuate the station". As the crowds flooded out, we wondered if we should offer to escort people along our running tube to their final destinations. It would probably be quicker than waiting for the problem to be solved.


Next we were heading to West Brompton, in fact very close to the theatre where we'll be having our next Starling (choir) show - 1st and 2nd April 2017, be there or be square.

You'll notice our picture here isn't a selfie. This is because we were being chatted up by some absolutely charming builders who offered to take it for us. Apparently, we're beautiful. I mean, I think we'll leave that there.


We got a little bit lost trying to wiggle through the streets avoiding dead ends in order to get to Fulham, but somehow managed it. It's a real mixed bag around this area, the grandeur of West London giving way briefly to the pound shops of North End Road and then back to Whole Foods at Fulham Broadway. London.

I knew this area pretty well from my Tesco days when I did a couple of Boris bike days visiting the copious Tesco Express stores in the vicinity of Fulham so getting to Parsons Green and then Putney Bridge was an absolute doddle.

Running across the footbridge from Putney Bridge to East Putney was a real treat. The sun was still shining down on us and the river looked serene at low tide. Whilst it was still bitingly cold we were filled with gratitude at being outside enjoying our city and getting in a bit of vitamin D! Who needs supplements when you can run!

East Putney was a crouching station. Impossible to get the sign and us in otherwise. Anna thinks we should probably keep a note of crouching stations to support all of you reading this who will almost certainly be inspired to follow in our footsteps! So here's that note, just for you.


For the first time in this run, we finally had a chunky section before our next station. We also had a couple of hills. It was almost like we were doing this for the exercise rather than just to get comedy photos (with the ultimate aim of creating an epic tube map of our faces!). So it was a little bit tired out that we reached Southfields station.

We were on the home stretch now. We'd run 8 miles, and knew it would only be another one before we could get a hot drink and have a well earned rest. Wimbledon Park came pretty quickly and we watched from the bridge as a train rattled out of the station towards our final destination.

And then we went wrong. It was only a matter of time before I led us astray, geography degree or no geography degree. Frankly, its a miracle we'd made it this far without taking a wrong turning, particularly as West London is not my specialist subject. But of course I did it when we were on tired legs, so close to our final station. Thankfully it wasn't a critical failure of direction and we were able to revert to our course quite easily, though not without tackling a brutal, and unnecessary, hill!


As we reached Wimbledon we were really quite chilly in spite of the exercise. Our wrists and boobs were particularly cold, so if anyone has any tips for keeping these warm in the future please do let us know!

Clutching hot drinks, we said our goodbyes after another quality run. We'd taken it quite easy as I had a 10km race the next day and Anna was recording her music video (watch this space) but the point remains that we did it. We ran over 9 miles, explored a little more of our city above ground and coloured in a tiny bit more of our progress map!

Thanks for your support: www.virginmoneygiving.com/jessford www.virginmoneygiving.com/annashields



VICTORIA LINE: Brixton to Oxford Circus (Jess' Perspective)

Hi guys, so we’ve been at it again. Running when we could have just caught the tube all in the name of training! This week though unfortunately we couldn’t quite match up our busy schedules so had to take on the southern half of the Victoria line separately.

For those of you musically inclined, I wanted to make this blog a bit like The Last Five Years, without the emotional trauma, given that we ran in opposite directions and Anna lived my journey backwards… Unfortunately, Jason Robert Brown is a genius, and writing like that is impossible. So you’ll have to make do with a bog standard blog post (musical score potentially to follow in future, eh Anna?!).

I managed to tie this particular tube leg up with a visit to my new flat. So it was on the soon to be home turf of Brixton that I took my first selfie, before going to check out progress on site. Then it was dreaming of furniture purchases that I took off up to Stockwell.

I can pretty categorically say I was having one of the worst working weeks of my career and I probably set off a bit hard for the first couple of miles dealing with that stress. But running past the joyful memories of The Swan (sarcasm), looking like a complete dickhead taking a selfie in front of Stockwell Station and the slightly rebellious feeling of not being in the office at 2pm on a Wednesday was pretty cathartic.

In my newfound zen state, I reached Vauxhall very quickly. I went for a crouch in the selfie here- when sweaty, wearing running gear and getting drizzled on, the angle of the photo becomes even more important, believe me I’m becoming an expert!

Then it was across the river. I love running over bridges in London partly because of the space that suddenly opens up around you revealing a panorama of the city. This was the next stage in my de-stress, literally running over the healing water of The Thames. If I could run over a bridge every day I think my life would be better. If you’ve never done it…trust me you won’t regret it! Try and get multiple crossings into a run if you’re really in need of cheering up!

So it turns out Pimlico is practically on top of the river. I mean, I knew this, but it hadn’t really registered with me just how close. Weird given I sit outside The Gallery (shout out to the Picpoul de Pinet crowd) pretty much every week, less than 500m from the river! And you all know how I feel about the river now…

Victoria was just a short hop away but an absolute nightmare to navigate. I somehow avoided being hit by a bus and then was off up Grosvenor Place. By this point my pace had slowed a fair bit as my legs started to protest at the slight incline and the idea of returning to the litany of problems I had in the office!

Nevertheless, as I rounded onto Piccadilly past Green Park and onto Old Burlington Street, I had another of my favourite running feelings, I call it owning the city! Ladies, if you’ve ever been out without a handbag, with just your Oystercard or phone in London, you might know what I mean. When you’re such a ‘local’ that you don’t need to prepare for eventualities, you’re just popping out in your city and you get a bit of a buzz from it! No, just me?! Well as I weaved amongst the tourists onto Regent Street and towards Oxford Circus, it didn’t matter how many people I was sharing the pavements with, the West End felt like mine, and I was ready to take it by storm back in the office. Don’t try and stop me, I’m a runner.

Thanks for reading everyone! Here's where we're at....preparing for some pretty epic legs over the next couple of weeks so watch this space!

Jess x

www.virginmoneygiving.com/jessford

VICTORIA LINE: Green Park to Brixton (Anna's Perspective)

Today I've learned three things:

1- always buy the Pret Christmas sandwich when you see them in stock

2- running with a backpack is hard work

3- taking selfies outside tube stations is weird when you're on your own

Jess and I had to run our latest leg of the Tube Map independently this week because, well, we modern girls who want it all can't necessarily have it all when it comes to running schedules coordinating.

So, Oxford Circus - Brixton on the Victoria Line was the route of choice.

It's been a slightly upside down week, not least because of the US Election result... Having spent most of my day inside a windowless room teaching singing, my lunch break was met with the horror that Pret had run out of their Christmas sandwich. When I'd walked past earlier to the sight of a long queue I'd thought, "That'll have died down by the time I take my break." I was right, but so had the number of Christmas sandwiches. They'd died done to zero. Nothing. Nadda. Anyone who knows me well will know that, aside from the Pret chocolate croissant, their Christmas sandwich is my favourite thing. In fact, the two together make for a heavenly meal in my book. Anyway, all this meant that when leaving my teaching spot just off Piccadilly Circus, the thought of running up to Oxford Circus only to run back down to Piccadilly did not appeal. Sometimes not having the sandwich you want can really alter your day. So, I'm afraid I only ran Green Park - Brixton on this occasion; I'll make up the missing stop when I've had my sandwich fix.

Piccadilly Circus was heaving as you’d expect at 6.45pm on a Friday and the volume of people didn’t die down much as I gently jogged down to Green Park. I immediately felt the weight of my backpack a burden and realised I need to invest in something lighter weight. Much of this Tube Map Training project will involve running back from things, so it’s inevitable that a bag of ‘stuff’ will be in tow. I got to Green Park, which we’d visited on Sunday’s run too, and realised that taking selfies outside stations, especially when it’s obvious you’re a runner and not a tourist, is slightly awkward in the absence of friends. But a cheesy smile and a click later and I was on my way and free of the crowds. 

Passing the Bomber Command Memorial at the nose of Green Park was especially poignant considering its Remembrance Day. A tribute to the 55,573 Bomber Command Crew who lost their lives in WWII, it got me thinking about the pain of conflict and the senselessness of war. The political cloud of this week hanging over my head made the statues seem even more haunting as they were lit up against the evening sky, surrounded by poppy wreaths. 

Turning into Grosvenor Place I was sure I could smell horses in the air. You can take the girl out of Devon… I like to the think the Queen was mucking out the Buckingham Palace stables in the crisp evening air, but if she had any sense (and if she was home…) she’d have been indoors, feet up with a Domino’s.

Coming down to Victoria, which has been something of a maze the last couple of years as it undergoes regeneration, I weaved my way in and out of people, buses and taxis to get through to Vauxhall Bridge Rd, a quick snap of the station facade and the emerald signs of Wicked on the Apollo Victoria theatre nestled in the background. Following the scent of the fish stained streets of Tachbrook Market, I had reached Pimlico before I knew it. Running two choirs in this area means that for me Pimlico is something of a ‘choral stomping ground’. For almost seven years I’ve been coming here at least twice a week, but I’ve never run here, or taken a selfie outside the station… 

I am a lover of London bridges, so had to stop for a quick snap of the moon shining over the many glass-walled developments of Vauxhall. A quick station photo and it was off down South Lambeth Rd to get to Stockwell. I was beginning to get cold by this point, my bag heavy and my stomach hungry, so was grateful I didn’t have much further to go. 

As I entered Stockwell Rd, I noticed it had been shut off by police following an earlier car accident. A Mini that didn’t look in the best of shape sat alone in the middle of a police-taped quadrangle with lots of people looking on. I ran quickly past it all towards my Brixton destination, the glorious diversity of London never more present than in the various restaurants and bars en route. The Stockwell Skatepark looked like a melted Soviet plot, moodily lit by street lamps reflecting off its graffiti-clad ramps. I love London for these changing landscapes. To pass The Ritz, a Royal Palace, MI6, a car wreck and a skatepark in just 4.5 miles of road is what makes London London. As I was bombarded by the hordes of people on Brixton Road, I had reached my finish point. Freezing cold once I’d stopped, I’ll admit that I hopped in a cab home, where I quickly wolfed down a take away (just like the Queen…) 

So much for marathon nutrition.


www.virginmoneygiving.com/annashields

JUBILEE LINE: Canada Water to Baker Street

Today we tackled our first tube line. Now don't go reading too much into the Jubilee line being the first, I try not to have favourites (other than the Victoria, Vicky you know I love you).


Anna and I live in South London, amusingly in the context of this challenge not on the tube, so I tried to find a reasonably straightforward start point and an exciting route. We plumped for Canada Water and met at 11am on the Overground (not included).


The weather could not have been kinder to us with clear blue skies albeit very cold. But we both had our marathon 'rejection jumpers' to counter the chill as we snapped our first pic, got our bearings and set off.

Unsurprisingly, given the glorious weather the runners were out in force and the first leg of our journey saw us running alongside a group of dads and their running pushchair. We had a lot of love for the running dads.


To be honest with you, Canada Water and Bermondsey are really very close together! I'd only just put my phone away before I had to get it out again to snap this action shot of Anna passing Bermondsey.

Look at the colour of that sky. The sun was shining, the sky was cobalt blue and we were navigating ourselves by the Shard. Totally the point I made in my first post, about the everyday beauty that we shouldn't take for granted and the reason I think the work of the RNIB is so important.


London Bridge (where we got chatted up...did he think we had time to stop?!), Southwark and Waterloo were all a bit of blur next. We took a bit of a detour trying to find Southwark station, but were both feeling really motivated and chatting our way round so the extra mile or so wasn't an issue.

We did think to ourselves when we popped into some of the stations to get the requisite selfies, that someone cynical out there will probably think we just caught the tube between all of these! We can assure you, however, we did not...that is authentic sweat you can see in these lovely pics!


Things got very busy between Waterloo and Westminster, in spite of us avoiding the South Bank. We did have a good laugh at all of the tourists taking photos of the Houses of Parliament as they got in our way on Westminster Bridge, wondering why they'd want pictures of Parliament when they could have one of a tube station....

I felt like I was almost back on home turf as we ran up Birdcage Walk, into St James's Park, across my favourite bridge and up to Buckingham Palace, the highlight of my run to work. We did realise around this point though, that we should have definitely done this route the other way, as this 5th mile was particularly uphill. But we powered on up and sprinted the last bit of the hill to Green Park station.

At this point we were still both feeling great! Breaking the route up into stops and running with a friend just makes the whole thing so much easier and more enjoyable! We certainly didn't break our PBs, but our pace was still decent and it was mainly about covering the miles.


Running up Bond Street, we will admit we felt slightly underdressed. Anna wished she'd put on her diamond encrusted trainers, don't you hate it when you leave the house without any sparkle on for a run! As we turned onto Oxford Street we found the road was closed for the Christmas light switch on! *UPDATE We discovered Craig David and Sadiq Khan were there, if we'd known at the time we obviously we have hung around as apparently we looked "beautiful ladies" in our kit!* Instead, after quick stop and asking a tourist to take a snap of us by Bond Street station (she clearly thought we were mad!) we sprinted off along Europe's most famous shopping street (oops, work mode!) and weaved our way up through Manchester Square and Chiltern Street on our final stretch.

As we approached Baker Street, I wished we'd been slightly more ambitious with our inaugural run! We covered the right miles for our training plans, but were feeling good still and the experience had been great! Still, we're 9 stations down of the total 26 on the Jubilee, and I'm pretty excited about the next leg of our great tube map adventure!


From us squinting at Baker Street, goodbye!
www.virginmoneygiving.com/jessford
www.virginmoneygiving.com/annashields

If you're still not convinced of the scale of the challenge, or feel we're cop outs for only doing zone 1-3, check out this progress map (kindly provided by Anna Shields!).