The Underround

Hi all,

The Underround is a race around the Streets and tube stations of London. Roughly a marathon in length it, takes in 42 tube stations with the aim to get to a platform (runners choice) within each station using stairs or escalators (but no lifts). It's an anytime event due to practical reasons and its fun based nature. Brief results below:
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Position - Joint 1st
Time - 5:17:59
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Well this was great fun and a great excuse to get to London to see some friends :) The day started with a wake up call from Dave at 05:45 so that we could eat and let it digest in time for an early start. It was -3 degrees Celsius outside and so we were eager to start, so after a quick photo at the start we were off!


The exact route is a closely guarded secret, though all the stops are in zone 1 thankfully! On the date we did it only two others had attempted it, and so the time to beat was 5 hours, 24 minutes and 20 second (which Dave nick named RCT - Rory Coleman Time in honour of the organiser). Given Rory's pedigree as an adventure racer (check his site out) I knew the time would be a challenge even if he had been taking it easy. Dave and I were a little to enthusiastic early on as we rattled off the first several tube stations in double quick time, and we were on for 3:30 marathon time, which was clearly to fast and we knew it so slowed down before any damage was done.

Dave's knowledge of central London and tube stations was excellent, and it meant that there was only about a third of the course that we needed to use the map to navigate. Along the way we encountered one or two minor bits of trouble with certain tube entrances being shut, but that only made it more fun (the urban version of a stream flooding forcing a small course change).
As we approached the half way mark we had the 193 steps of Covent Garden to negotiate. A real tough one, and it took its toll on the legs that stayed with us for a while. We were ahead of RCT at this stage and things looked great for a new course record. There were some enthusiastic members of the public who twigged what we were doing when they saw us run back past them on the underground, and we got a shout of "118" from one :)

Whilst out on the course there where a few times we didn't manage to take the shortest route either due to construction work blocking things, or getting slightly lost, but that was all part of the fun. By the time we'd got through 35 stations things were looking really bad on the RCT front. At the time we hadn't factored in, but from station 26 to 35 they all have large gaps and we'd obviously been working off a simplistic evenly distanced estimation for RCT. Spirits started to sag, but right on queue a quick combo of three stations close together helped restore a fighting chance of setting a new record!

As we started our 1.1 mile run to the last tube station of Russell Square we knew it would be close for beating RCT. The problem is that after the gruelling climb of the 177 steps, we still had to run over half a mile back to Kings Cross to finish. The legs were shot, but there wasn't the time for Dave and I to sit and chat, so we threw what was left into a final sprint to Kings Cross. With a bit of luck from the traffic signals we got across Euston Road and managed to finish in a new course record of 5:17:59! You can check out the video below.


A big thanks Dave for being my partner on this event, without his knowledge of London I wouldn't have got round in anywhere near as quick a time. Another big thanks to Pippa to for cooking a wonderful meal for us all afterwards, the perfect end to the day! Obviously thanks to Rory and George who together thought up this unusual route and put the effort in to open it up to others.

Cheers

Andy