The entire London Underground, London
Team members: Sam, Matt and Johno
Honorary tubers/support crew: Kate, Laurence and Scott
"Mind the gap" chimed the robotic voice for the umpteenth time. The doors parted and three weary pairs of trainer-clad feet bounced onto the platform at Heathrow Terminal 5.
The time was four minutes past midnight. The London Tube Challenge was complete.
18 hours, 51 minutes, 42 seconds and 269 tube stations earlier (or 249 miles of train line but who's counting...) the day had begun at Chesham tube station in Buckinghamshire. The team stood shivering outside the locked station door waiting for the 5.12am tube to arrive. A handful of sleepy commuters arrived, offering puzzled looks at the unusually high amount of lycra being sported at such an early hour. Suddenly, the locked door clicked open and the race was on - once bank accounts had been emptied and houses remortgaged in order to fund the exorbitant cost of the nine zone travel card required for the day's proceedings....
The route was carefully planned having been painstakingly researched and put together by Matt and Sam. The challenge itself leaves very little room for manoeuvre with time being of limited supply - the tube only running from 5am to around 1am. The aim is to visit/pass through every single tube station on the network in the quickest time possible - overground and DLR stations don't count, but can be used to get around, as can legs in the form of running. Bikes and taxis are strictly forbidden.
Whilst we would love to walk you, dear reader, through a detailed station-by-station commentary of the day's events, in the interests of space, average human attention spans and most of the day being simply a blur, we will endeavour to shorten the tale somewhat.
North to south, east to west, the team went, ticking off stations on route. Battling rush hour commuters, day trippers and mouthy school children, slowly but surely the team made solid progress through - quite remarkably - an almost entirely delay-free underground system!
Special thanks must go out to Kate & Laurence who joined the team for "a couple of stations" which later became 100 such was the cylindrical metal box-based camaraderie on offer. Later in the day, Scotty popped in to say hello and replenish the team's supplies - including some alcoholic beverages to toast their success at the finish line.
After covering 249 miles of train track and over 10 miles on foot, the welcome sight of the Terminal 5 sign brought much relief and celebration....slightly curtailed by the jobsworth station attendant who refused to take our photo as it wasn't allowed.
Not to worry - another challenge completed for LLR and a fantastic, if slightly odd adventure was had.
There are now just two more events left in the Challenge 2014 calendar:
7th December - Grim Challenge - 8 miles of mud, fancy dress, icy puddles and some more mud.
13th December - Eton Glow Run - a glow stick lit 10k run around Eton Dorney lake
Thank you to everyone for their support!
C14 x