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:
