The pictures are fantastic from every nook and cranny of London and there are so many stories that Nick and I only know a portion. We’re not aware of any station missed and are just looking at photos/emails to check, but we think we’ve become the first running club to get a member to every tube station by foot in one day.

Photos

We want to collect all the pictures taken so we can put together a montage of the lot to make posters etc. We’ve set up a dropbox account for runenrs to send them to. Alternatively you can email choice ones to us or even better bring them on a USB stick. We also have an idea to put together some form of scrapbook of the day, so if you have a story you think we haven’t heard or a photo that needs some explanation please send an email to us.

Stories

We had one Serpie run a marathon (Tash Sheel) from Stratford to the Seymour on the Jubilee line via the Greenwich foot tunnel three times to deal with the river. She’s planning a bid to TfL to build a pedestrian bridge in East London!

We had our Italian friend, Claudio Belotti, fly in from Florence especially and then run 27 stations on the Circle line from Edgware Road back to Edgware Road.

We had quite a few chance encounters of our teams on different lines as they crossed over and chats with Chelsea and Arsenal fans as their games ended; I think a few fans tried to run with our folk for a while. And our Piccadilly line runners bumped into a group of four guys who are running the tube a line at a time for the Alzheimers Society (http://runthetube.com/). We’re not the only ones dreaming up fun ideas!

We had people brand new to the club and those who were members twenty years ago, alongside runners who hadn’t donned a Serpie vest for four years. We were blessed with some lovely long distance speedy runners who filled in when others had to drop out and we had the fabulous Tortoise group who lived up to their name by beating the speedy hares and coming back first. The same group visited the Churchill Arms in Kensington which was the home of the original Serpentine. I shared a beer with people who feel like family and people who I had met for the first time that day.

I only spoke for a short time in the pub because I was welling up with pride at the range of people we had in the room. When Nick and I dreamt this up in a Kilburn pub back last October we had this sort of day in our minds – there is nothing better than having a vision of an event and then seeing it happen.

Thanks

People went above and beyond the call of duty to make this work. A special call out goes to Richard Swinford who I met after his Heathrow adventure. He cycled through the tunnel between the terminal stations (you can’t do it by foot) then ran 9km round the perimeter fence to get to Hatton Cross. He had two drive-bys from security but they decided he was just crazy and not dangerous. Turns out the perimeter fence is a rather nice trail used by runners regularly as it is a half marathon all the way round! As if this wasn’t enough he provided the array of multi-coloured sweets back at the seymour.

He is just one example of many. We were blessed with magic volunteers both before the day and during it – thank you to you all. Yesterday in the pub I particularly thanked the Captains; without them this would not have happened. The branch heads were all wonderful too, and before the event Sally Hodge helped us with communications and Ian Hodge sorted out a sign-up system which was rather less confusing than our first attempt! And Josie and Bev made sure the pub and the Seymour Centre worked out, making sure we could physically bring the club together at the end.

Finally thank you to all of you runners who brought your energy, enthusiasm and creativity to what was essentially a very silly idea!

What next?

So how do you follow that?! Well straight away the Green Belt Relay is still looking for reserves, and the Welsh Castles Relay needs people. Both are wonderful events; the former was the inspiration for the last two relays Nick and I have organised. I can’t recommend highly enough coming to join them.

Well done everyone

We did it! 1 running club, 270 stations, #tuberelay 

James and Nick
jedgar262@gmail.com & nicola.barberis@gmail.com