Free Your Soles
Plan your perfect running adventure. And see how RW fared when we ran the London Loop Relay
In the spirit of adventure, camaraderie and learning just how far human beings will go for a free craft ale, an intrepid RW relay team battles sleep deprivation, rogue wildlife and the occasional inability to follow directions. Their mission? To run the 150-mile London Loop in under 24 hours for the first time ever. Rick Pearson tells the inspiring story
Before i see it i hear it. A rustling in the undergrowth. Then a bolt of black-and-white hurtles across my path, over my feet and back into the bushes. It is a badger – the fourth I’ve seen on this deserted 10-mile trail. Where am I? The rolling hills of the South Downs? The depths of Epping Forest? Actually, I’m in Croydon, running a section of the London Loop. It may be the greatest trail you’ve never heard of.
Rather unappealingly nicknamed ‘the M25 for walkers’, the London Loop was opened in 2001 and is far more of an aesthetic feast for the runner’s senses than that description suggests. Largely unknown and unused, it offers a corridor of tranquillity in one of the most populous cities in Europe. It is best known as a walking path, with a number of ramblers having completed its 150 miles across a number of months, or even years. But it also begs to be run. Or at least we thought so.
Having created and completed the London Peaks Relay in 2018 (runnersworld.com/uk/ londonpeaks), which involved running to the highest point in each of London’s 32 boroughs, we were on the lookout for another way to turn the capital into a running adventure playground. As with the Peaks, we would attempt to complete the Loop in less than 24 hours – although given the offroad nature of the route, doing so would be a significantly tougher challenge.
A call went out to runners from far and wide, and soon a crack team was assembled, as talented as it was diverse. Participants included Andy Baddeley, Olympian and parkrun world record holder; Sophie Raworth, BBC newsreader and Marathon des Sables finisher; and Kate Carter, aka the fastest woman to run a marathon dressed as a panda.
We divided the 24 sections of the London Loop into 15 running legs, each roughly 10 miles in length. The ‘baton’ would be a Samsung phone tracked using Strava Beacon to plot our progress. Having recced several of the legs, I was aware that the Loop would present a number of navigational challenges. Although officially a signed route, several of said signs are either missing, hard to spot or have been turned in the wrong direction by local scamps. Granted, a wrong turn is unlikely to prove fatal in the wilds of Zone 6, but staying on track would require mental focus as well as physical fitness.
Going loopy
The route began, as all great adventures must, at Erith station in the London borough of Bexley. In the 16th century, Henry VIII established his naval dockyard there, and in the 19th century Erith was popular among tourists who came to see its famously long pier. Today, it feels as quiet and overlooked as the Loop itself.
From here, our runners headed south along the River Cray, in the general direction of Bexley station. Making the most of the flattish terrain and the last of the daylight, they arrived ahead of schedule, and celebrated in style: by sinking a couple of cans of hops-based recovery formula on the train back to central London.
With the sun having set and the big hills of the south beckoning, staying on schedule would be a huge challenge (not least because some runners’ hydration strategy appeared to consist of having a pre-run pint in a nearby pub).
A late cancellation had meant I was drafted in to tackle leg 4, a largely uphill 10-mile stretch from Hayes station in Bromley to Whyteleafe station in Surrey. Along the way, we would climb the Addington Hills – which afford the greatest views in London – and crest the highest point on the route, a dizzying 172m peak in the southernmost reaches of Croydon. The hills I could prepare for; the wildlife I could not. So when the aforementioned badger hurtled into view, I was not my usual vision of unflappable calm, offering instead a high-pitched scream followed by a series of questions relating to my odds of having contracted TB.
Even when it’s not playing home to less-than-reclusive wildlife, the London Loop has the capacity to surprise. Who knew, for instance, that there are lavender fields in Sutton? Or that the Hogsmill River, a feature of the Kingston section, is pictured in
John Millais’ Pre-raphaelite masterpiece ‘Ophelia’? Who would have expected to find farms in Barnet or fields of bluebells in Enfield? Only those who have looped the Loop.
Chasing our trails
Less surprising, perhaps, was the news that we were falling behind schedule. By 3am, the baton had made its way to Kingston bridge, where Will Dupré and Ben Bailey resisted the lure of the nearby Viper Rooms nightclub in favour of running 13 miles. In return, they were greeted by deer in Bushy Park – home of the original parkrun – low-flying planes at Hatton Cross, which is close to Heathrow, and, finally, the Grand Union Canal, where the next two runners awaited.
The following two legs mostly hugged the canal, meaning, you would think, flat, fast miles and simple navigation. However, in an effort to make things a little tougher on himself, Isaac Williams decided to take a one-mile detour, creating his own loop-with-in-a-loop, before gratefully passing over the baton to two top- class loopers, Andy Baddelely and Anna Mcnuff at Moor Park tube station, in northwest London.
Baddeley is a former Olympian and current parkrun world record-holder, while Mcnuff is presently running the length of Britain barefoot (she began on June 5, in the Shetland islands). So it seemed only fitting that they were given the toughest leg of the day – a largely uphill 12-miler across the highlands of Harrow, involving muddy trails and chest-high stinging nettles. (Mcnuff had, wisely, decided to wear footwear this time.)
To team RW next, as editor Andy Dixon, commissioning editor Kerry Mccarthy and columnist Paul Tonkinson crested the hills of Barnet and Enfield in the name of DIY adventure. A lung-busting effort saw them claw back a whopping… two minutes. Heroes, one and all.
Onwards to Cockfosters, where a team of ultrarunners awaited. Susie Chan, Sophie Raworth, Laura Fountain and Cat Simpson made easy work of this long and rural section. Along the way, they took in Trent Park, once the home of the Sassoon family, and Maidens Bridge, where Sir Walter Raleigh is supposed to have laid down his cloak so Queen Elizabeth could cross without getting her feet wet.
By this point, with the hills of Epping Forest still to conquer, the dream of finishing inside the magical/ entirely arbitrary target of 24 hours was slipping further from our grasp. Regardless, we pressed on, passing such commanding sights as King George V Reservoir – which supplies more than a quarter of London’s water – and Gilwell Park, the home of Scouting in the UK. With the finish approaching and the tension building, those who had already completed their sections of the Loop headed to the London City Runners clubhouse bar in Bermondsey to calm their nerves courtesy of the carefully curated beer selection. When the baton was handed to the final pair, Jeff Pyrah and Peter Hutchinson, they had only an hour and 35 minutes to cover 13 or so unfamiliar offroad miles. And my, did they give it a good go. At one point, the dot on Strava Beacon was moving so quickly that the only reasonable explanation seemed to be that our runners had saddled up a couple of horses and were galloping them to the finish. Alas, as the clock struck 7pm, marking 24 hours since the London Loop Relay began, we had come up tantalisingly short.
Were we disappointed? A little. Do we want to try again? Absolutely. Mostly, though, the mood in the bar was one of excitement. Isn’t the London Loop a hidden gem? Isn’t the capital far wilder and greener than you’d ever imagined? What similar urban treasure trails are hidden in Britain’s other cities? And are badgers supposed to be that big? It had been an inspiring and lifeenriching 24 hours and 22 minutes for all involved. Proof, if it were needed, that when it comes to running adventures, what is truly important is not the time you ran, but the time you had.