The Charity Run. 07-08/11/25

[Rhys1995]

My second FNC completion and one that I will remember for many reasons...

I decided to start somewhere different, Kensington Olympia and finished at T5 quite simply because once I'd done Olympia I was free to tackle the rest of the route as I wanted.

I stayed at the Premier Inn near Hammersmith, alarm set for 0430 but woke up just before 0400. Standard for me on an early shift. Walked to Ken O devouring a McDonald's breakfast, completely forgot that McDonald's stays open 24/7 inside the shopping centre at Hammersmith. Set off on the 0549 from Ken O to Earl's Court and then it was uphill. Big time. Severe delays on the District Line due to a signalling failure at Kew Gardens, and where was my first destination? Richmond. First train got diverted to Wimbledon and in hindsight, I was tempted to do this but decided to stick to the original plan and waited for the next train. Eventually arrived into Richmond 21 late, double backed and as there was a gap in the service I went up to Turnham Green instead of running needlessly to Chiswick Park. Got into Ealing Broadway, saw a Central Line on the platform, hammered my way up to the platform and the train was departing as I arrived. As there were severe delays on the Central Line due to over running engineering works, I lost even more time. By the time I got West Acton and had run to North Ealing I was give or take 40 minutes down. Painful.

I met up with the other Rhys at Rayners Lane who acted as my wingman for a few hours as we attempted to claw back a few minutes. He headed off at some stations to get some recon. Did a West Harrow double back, headed up to Uxbridge and then back to Ickenham to run to West Ruislip. As the Central Line was all over the place I had either a 4 minute or 11 minute wait at West Ruislip, so I floored it out of Ickenham. Sods law I arrived at West Ruislip about 15 seconds too late as the doors were closing on the 4m connection as I arrived at the gates. Gutting. Rode the Central Line to Epping, back to Woodford and then we somehow managed to get on a through service from Woodford FROM London, to Hainault and then continuing in service up to Leytonstone. At one point it looked like I may have had a 4m connection at Leytonstone to run to High Road but this disappeared down to 1 minute, meaning I had missed an opportunity to claw back 15 minutes, so now I found myself 45 down.

Between Walthamstow Central and Wimbledon things seemed to improve and I had gained 5 minutes. I figured it would be quicker to go back from Morden to South Wimbledon then run to Wimbledon and I had worked out that there was a 1m connection at Morden. The boards said otherwise indicating a 5 minute wait, I jumped on and off 2 trains in anticipation and struck lucky with a train that left after 75s of arriving at Morden. Next up was Wimbledon - Tower Hill - Aldgate - Aldgate East - Upminster. I had 2 minutes to run from Aldgate to Aldgate East and I managed to somehow go door to door within 1m 45. Just as well as the next train behind that was 10 minutes away! Took Rhys B's advice and got off at West Ham to c2c it to Upminster, master stroke. c2ced to Upminster then District back to West Ham where I then went for the Jubilee Line. Ran at full pelt to the Jubilee and ended up on a West Hampstead terminator, not ideal but still a good run nonetheless. As there were no Stanmore services starting from North Greenwich I stayed onto West Hampstead and then up to Stanmore just under 40 minutes late.

There were no buses from Stanmore to Edgware so I trundled back to Canons Park, and got on a bus which seemed to take forever and a day as it was school kicking out time. Amazing how I lost 5 minutes in this time and then it started a chain reaction of events. Despite a 0m connection at Camden Town for a Battersea service I started losing time left right and centre. Had to do two double backs (one I was reminded of on the day!) from Battersea to Kennington, down to Oval, up to Borough and then down to Elephant and Castle. Rhys B noted that in the time it took me to do two double backs, not one Bakerloo Line train had arrived or departed from E+C! Initially our train was going to Queen's Park but got extended to H+W, required. I then jogged to Harrow on the Hill for a Chiltern service out to Amersham and was an hour down due to the Chiltern frequency being 2tph in the peak.

Another McDonald's at HOTH thanks to another mate, I said goodbye to Rhys B and attempted to tackle the rest of the journey, knowing I needed a bit of a miracle to finish this in one day. HOTH - Amersham - bus to Chesham - Watford was next. Relatively uneventful until I got to Moor Park where TfL were advertising a Watford service 4 minutes after I arrived at Moor Park to then mysteriously disappear, thence turning into a 19 minute wait. By this point I was now aware I wouldn't be finishing the challenge tonight and I felt rubbish, won't lie. I crawled back to Baker Street, over to Edgware Road then onto South Kensington on the Circle Line. To add insult to injury I arrived at Edgware Road and an unadvertised Wimbleware service left before my Circle Line service. Took the Piccadilly Line to Cockfosters, up to High Barnet and then Moorgate via MHE. Up to Hammersmith where I arrived in 93 minutes late so I was already hatching a plan out for tomorrow. I took the Piccadilly Line across to Heathrow Terminals 1 2 + 3 arriving in just after 1am and at 270 stations so I headed off to get my head down in a Premier Inn. All I needed to do was HT4 and HT5 the following morning...

I woke up the next day and crawled around the Heathrow loop, with 10 and 12 minute waits at Hatton Cross and then HT 1 2 + 3 again, finishing up with a final time of 27:42:33. As far as I know, I'm the only person to include a Premier Inn stay during a Tube Challenge!

[Rhys1995]

Also, forgot to post the start and end times up.

Start: Kensington Olympia at 0549

Finish: HT5 at 0933 the following day.

Can I have this and my July times posted up please? Thanks!

[ANDY_JS]

Hi, does anyone have a link to the page where I can donate for this? Thanks Andy.

[tubeguru]

Can I have this and my July times posted up please? Thanks!

Remind me of your surname ...

[Rhys1995]

Jackson.

Thank you very much! Please note my surname isn't actually 'Thank you very much!'

[tubeguru]

What was the date you started on?

[Rhys1995]

Friday 7th November, finished on the Saturday 8th.