TRAIL TIME TRAVELLING
CONCEPT
Grab your trail shoes and follow in the footsteps of our ancestors.
KIT
Trail shoes, GPS device, 20-litre running backpack, waterproofs, food and water, emergency kit.
RULES
None.
As I ran along the chalky surface of Britain’s oldest road, The Ridgeway, passing 5,000-yearold burial mounds and ancient stone circles, and following in the footsteps of monks, soldiers and pilgrims, it felt as if I was travelling back in time.
There are ancient footpaths all over the UK and beyond. The Ridgeway is an excellent example, or you could head further afield to the Camino de Santiago pilgrims’ route across Spain, tackling the 500 miles in one long holiday, or split into sections over several trips. The essence of this challenge is to run or fastpack (backpack at speed) along an ancient trail, learning about its history as you go. Turn this into a running holiday where time stands still. It’s just you, the trail and your imagination.
What links a toxic spoil heap in Newham, a nondescript road by Kensal Green tube station and a prominent mound on Putney Heath? They’re all the highest points in their respective London boroughs. How has Runner’sworld acquired this rather esoteric knowledge? By running to them, of course – as part of the recent London Peaks Relay, a race against the clock to the summit of each London borough.
When we talk about adventure, most of us probably think of places such as the Amazon, the Himalayas or the Sahara. Very few of us think of Bromley...enfield…croydon. But we wanted to explore the idea that adventure can begin at home – or, at least, a short tube ride away.
I must confess to having ‘previous’ in this area. As part of my podcast, London’s Peaks, I’m attempting to walk to the highest point in each London borough with an interesting person from each locale. While hiking in the highlands of Hammersmith and scaling Mount Merton, an idea had hatched in my mind: might it be possible to run to all the London summits in 24 hours?
I’d be lying if I said this idea was without precedence. In 2014, ultrarunner Jonny Muir – a friend of mine and veteran of the more illustrious and less carbon monoxide-fuelled Bob Graham Round in the Lake District – ran to the highest point in each of the 12 inner London boroughs, a distance of 41 miles. However, no individual or group had been brave – or, indeed, foolish – enough to attempt to run to all the London summits in one go. Until now. Our venture soon became known as the Smog Graham Round.
Having the idea is one thing; making it a reality is another. There was no London Peaks map to follow; no Runner’sworld forum on the subject. This was something new: a voyage into the unknown. Having established where each of the summits is located, it was then a matter of picking the most efficient route between them. Undoubtedly, there is a scholarly way of doing this, involving complex algorithmic formulas and highly dexterous mental arithmetic. However, with only a mathematics GCSE to my name, I was forced to adopt a less cerebral approach: pick a peak in one of the outer London boroughs – in this case, Bromley, southeast London – and create a route that corkscrewed inwards, finishing at the towering 52m summit of the City of Westminster. (Or, more accurately, at The Washington pub in Hampstead, about a mile past it, as no feat on this grand scale should end anywhere that doesn’t serve beer, wine and an expansive selection of crisps.)
The route was 150 miles in total. Now, there are individuals who can cover such distances alone within 24 hours, but none of them currently work for Runner’sworld. And nor would a solo effort generate the camaraderie we felt was an essential element of this endeavour. So we began contacting friends, and friends of friends, and the team began to assemble: a disparate group that included authors and ultrarunners, City types, a nurse, even a magician – all united by a love of running in London and a willingness to get involved in a daft do-it-yourself adventure. For reasons of safety and sociability, runners would take part in teams of two, completing two nonconsecutive legs of the relay. At the summit of each borough, the ‘baton’ – an iphone X inside a waist belt – would be passed on to the next pair, and all this would be tracked using the nifty tech of Strava Beacon, a safety feature allowing runners to follow each other’s progress in real time. The London Peaks Relay would begin at midnight on Friday, March 23, and our aim was to finish before the clock struck midnight on Saturday the 24th. While oxygen would not be required to scale the peaks – the highest summit is a distinctly un-alpine 245m, the lowest a flood-vulnerable 16m – we would have to average 9:30min/miles to complete it within 24 hours. When you factor in that many of these miles would be
run in the dark, and that all them would be unmarked and involve numerous road crossings, it was no easy undertaking.
But this wasn’t about setting a FKT (fastest known time) or indeed an OKT (only known time). This was about adventure – in its purest, silliest form – and about the shift in mindset that can unlock the hidden potential in all our towns and cities. The molehills were calling…