JUNE 2018 RUNNERSWORLD.CO.UK 039If youâre inspired to create
your own running adventure
please get in touch to tell us
about it at rick.pearson@
rw.co.uk. And send us
some pictures as weâd
love to share your story
and spread the word on
runnersworld.co.ukrun in the dark and that all them would be unmarked and
involve numerous road crossings it was no easy undertaking.
But this wasnât about setting a FKT (fastest known time) or
indeed an OKT (only known time). This was about adventure â
in its purest silliest form â and about the shift in mindset that
can unlock the hidden potential in all our towns and cities. The
molehills were calling...
At its outer limits London doesnât feel very much like London at
all. Large parts of the night route were testament to this. We ran
across muddy fields forest tracks and empty roads: the stuff of
the countryside not the city. But to run to Londonâs summits is to
be continually surprised. Who knew for example that someone
has constructed a tree fort at the highest point in Croydon? Or
that itâs possible to climb the
Alps without leaving the M25
or venturing higher than 35m?
(Thatâs the Beckton Alps in
case youâre wondering the
highest point in the borough
of Newham).
Just ahead of the runners
trundled our state-of-the-art
support vehicle â a minibus
borrowed from a south London
Methodist church â which was
stocked with the latest in
performance sports nutrition:
cold Co-op pizzas and a multipack of crisps. Powered by such
attention to marginal gains we bagged Bromley Croydon
Sutton Kingston Merton and Richmond before sunrise and
were five minutes ahead of schedule. However with Horsenden
Hill next to come followed by the highlands of Hillingdon and
Harrow keeping on track would be a test of our runnersâ
endurance and navigational skills.
Not that this was a clock-watching exercise. On the contrary
focusing your run on a geographical feature â in this case a
summit â forces you to truly engage with the landscape in a way
you donât when your only concerns are distance and time. Small
changes in elevation are registered; innocuous high points
become places of celebration.
To Barnet and Enfield next following the northern fringes of
Monken Hadley Common before the baton was handed over at
the summit of Pole Hill the highest point in Waltham Forest
(91m). Now on the outskirts of Epping Forest â former hunting
ground of highwayman Dick Turpin â the route became even
more rural causing one runner to almost lose a shoe in the
muddy foothills of Havering.
From the hills to the tunnels as our runners crossed under
the Thames via the Greenwich foot tunnel re-emerging south
of the river to summit Shooters Hill. At this point we were
scheduled for a 10:45pm finish but with the packed pavements
of the inner London boroughs to come there was a good chance
our pace would drop.
But it did not. In fact by the time our runners had
reached the crest of Crystal Palace and then the high
ground of Haringey we were 15 minutes ahead of
schedule. Excitement began to build at our race
HQ The Washington pub with many forced
to calm their nerves by imbibing that ancient
medicinal combination of a pint and a Jägerbomb.
Tracking the dot on Strava Beacon we knew
our runners had left Kensington & Chelsea and
were headed to the final peak in the City of
Westminster. A sudden bout of altitude sickness
notwithstanding they would surely get the baton home
on time wouldnât they?
Then we saw them charging up the final hill to the pub door.
I glanced at the time on the iPhone: 22:35:36. Weâd done it! Cue
huge celebrations a few more pints and the unbeatable feeling
that we had in our own small way made history.
So what has the London Peaks Relay proved? Certainly it
proved that a lot can be accomplished in 24 hours if you have a
wonderful group of people and industrial amounts of caffeine.
But more than that we hope it shows that adventure is really
just a state of mind. If you can reimagine London as a mountain
range you can do something similar in any UK city. It neednât be
based around peaks either: you could just as easily theme an
event around following rivers forgotten pathways or favourite
pubs. Or you could of course try to beat our time...Alison Hamlett and
John Carroll set o
from Horsenden
Hill; James Poole
and David Smyth
cross the M11LONDON PEAKS RELAY