Tube Running Companions

This is a post about those 23 people that joined me for part of my 435 mile journey. The first thing that struck me when compiling the list is that there are a lot more of them than I originally thought!  I won’t tell you which people I forgot but inevitably there has been in my mind much more of a focus on tube running post May, for obvious reasons.  Here is the full list.  Oh – look who is way out there in front… Me!

Ok obviously that was just there to illustrate just the total distance.  If we zoom in on just running companions:

I’ve run the most with Ciaran, – just over 31 miles – with whom I’d never met before the challenge started, and we connected via Twitter, and joined up for three runs, including a very long one in the North West.

Next was ‘Commando’ Dan – who escorted me around Epping Forest and along the North/South stretches of the Docklands Light Railway. Apt that 26 miles was covered as he needs to train for a marathon later in the year.

Third was Chris T - a running club buddy with who I journeyed up the Northern Line on a frosty February morning and then who also joined me for the final run.  He also did a great job around Christmas shaking a bucket for a collection at his workplace raising some additional £60 in the process.

Suzie was forth, who in the spring was a newcomer to the running club and is now consistently beating lots of club records being fastest female.  We don’t get to see much of each other but that is in part because I hardly attend running club nights in preference for being at the gym, and doing most of my running at lunchtimes.  But I know that she is still super-speedy.

Next Sanjay took me on a 14-mile tour of his neighbourhood finishing at Stanmore.

Nicola and Sarah H joined me on the long DLR Sunday, Sarah knocking out perhaps her longest training run of all time (11 miles) and Nicola keeping up a respectable 12.5 miles.

Sophie C (also known then as the ‘Qunospotter’) covered 10.5 miles on the tube – as part of a perhaps historic ‘tube versus foot’ challenge back in early 2011.  It was great fun to race her point to point over sixteen stages of the Hammersmith and City Line.

With Sophie T I took one of the most inefficient routes through town on the mid-section of the Jubilee Line but had great fun doing it.

Susan “the Power” Power also notched up a record-breaking mileage on the E/W DLR Run, at nine miles.  She might have been more worn out had I not gallantly carried her rucksack which appeared to contain bricks.

Sarah-Jane “the cheetah” first introduced me to the North-East and demonstrated there and then that it is entirely possible to run beyond any previous limitations. 8.5 miles was the single longest run she’d done and she barely noticed it!

Martyn (Dad) wins the prize for longest cycling companion, as he accompanied me along part of the District Line heading towards Ealing.

Zoe joined me for two runs; one pre-pregnancy and one post-pregnancy.  We had planned that she might cover the Waterloo and City Line in a mid-pregnancy waddle, but an important lesson in life is that things don’t turn out the way you might think.  So if anyone out there is pregnant: don’t underestimate how amazing it is and cherish every moment.

Peter (brother), Chris L (work), Alex F (work), Rupert & Colette (running club) and Dan W (Twitter) all flanked me on my final 21 August run, and for whose company I was grateful.

Helen, a keen Parkrun enthusiast/organiser joined me in the middle of the year and is someone I know through work who also sadly went through the loss of her baby Amber. Her family have raised a good amount of money for the same charity and I was so pleased for her to be able to run with me not long after she’d gone through the trauma of neonatal loss.

Jane also biked her way between Canary Wharf and Stratford on Run 34.

Last but not least, Peri takes the award for most drenched runner as we did a very small run through the middle of town in a torrential downpour but nonetheless in a critical piece of the puzzle – enabling me to finish one of two missing pieces of the Network puzzle.

So thanks to all 23 tube running companions for joining me on the journey.  Some of you I knew before; others I’ve made friends with as part of this adventure.  All should feel proud to have helped spur me on to cover the entire network and in doing so influenced people to think about difficult subjects.

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This is the first post for Running the Tube Lines on my new resilient and super-shiny WordPress platform.  Readers that have been following my travels will see that I have migrated over all my old posts and in due course, I will be tidying them all up so they look good and proper.  I’ve also secured at great personal expense this domain name which is instantly remember-able.  This will help me with the next stage of my adventure.