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038 RUNNERSWORLD.CO.UK JUNE 2018
hat links a toxic spoil heap in Newham a nondescript road by
Kensal Green tube station and a prominent mound on Putney
Heath? Theyâre all the highest points in their respective
London boroughs. How has Runnerâs World acquired
this rather esoteric knowledge? By running to
them of course â 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 âpreviousâ in this area. As part of my
podcast Londonâs Peaks Iâm 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?
Iâd be lying if I said this idea was without precedence. In 2014
ultrarunner Jonny Muir â a friend of mine and veteran of the
more illustrious and less carbon monoxide-fuelled Bob Graham
Round in the Lake District â 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 â 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
Runnerâs World 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 â in this case Bromley southeast London â
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
doesnât 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 Runnerâs World. 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 â 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 âbatonâ â an iPhone X inside a
waist belt â 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 otherâs 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 â the highest summit is a
distinctly un-alpine 245m the lowest a f lood-vulnerable 16m â
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
Damian Hall and Dan
Hallam cross under
the A13; then they
scale the Beckton
Alps; the entire route
on Strava
PHOTOGRAPHS: JAMES CARNEGIE
