Station to station

An adventure racer friend of mine sent me a link to a DIY animation that takes the mickey out of ultra-runners, and Ironman tri-athletes. It was clearly created by someone with firsthand knowledge of ultra-runners, and the ability to identify the most entertaining (embarrassing) elements of their behaviour. I suspect it was written by my wife.

It included the notion that ultra-runners take futile rail journeys to the middle of nowhere, just to run back. Which made me laugh out loud, since this is obviously true, but I didn’t think many people (ie. except me) did this.

So tonight, I decided to do the opposite; donned road shoes and a vague sense of direction, and set off to run past five railway stations, using roadside pavements only, without catching any trains.

Two-and-a-bit miles to my first destination: Aldershot Station. Since I’ve run here twice already in Janathon, I opted for a slightly different route again, and while working out which way to go, I decided to spice things up by adding a couple of extra micro-challenges to tonight’s mission. I considered that I should complete the whole thing as a pure loop, containing no criss-crossing, overlapping, or doublebacking at all (even little ones). Oh yeah, and that I would have to cross the railway at each station. Simple huh?

On from Aldershot, north through the old military town, to pick up the mile and a half long Queens Avenue, over the Basingstoke Canal, into North Camp, over the bypass, and at five and bit miles, North Camp Station.

A strange little one this. Tucked away at the end of a string of lakes, and sitting at a lower level than the surrounding roads, it’s easily missed. It doesn’t run into London like most stations nearby, but instead is on a direct line to Gatwick Airport. Occasionally you can drive past and see po-faced ex-holidaymakers in shorts and sandals damply loading cases into wet cars.

South east for barely half a mile, and Ash Vale Station is ticked off the list. Equally hard to spot, Ash Vale sits almost thirty feet above road level, beside a bridge that carries the tracks over the B3411, it’s easier to spot the carpark, always overflowing with commuter vehicles.

Turning south, crossing back over the canal, over a small hill, and it's Ash Station, complete with level crossing. The reputation of this crossing for causing rush-hour mayhem reaches almost as far as the queues.

Maybe eight miles in and just the final station to clear. Back over the bypass, then through the suburbs of southern Aldershot, past my brother’s place, to brush past Weybourne (bizarrely pronounced Webbon) via Badshot Lea. And here’s where I realise the payback on my earlier decision. Passing momentarily within a mile of home, the limited choice of pavements between here, Farnham Station, and home again leaves me no option than to cross the tracks at the station, heading in the wrong direction, box round, then back into Farnham, and then up over the top of Folly Hill. Very good for Janathon mileage, not very good for the legs.

Well, the legs survived for another day, and another run. Tonight's route probably wasn't as engaging as some of the recent trail loops, or as satisfying as the occasional “train out, run back” that inspired it in the first place. But if was fairly fast going through the mid-section, and I can hold my head up in the company of normal runners as having done a normal run, and not some ultra-nonsense.

Providing, that is, they’re the kind of normal runners that go out on a Wednesday evening, run past a bunch of railway stations, making up the rules (and therefore the distance) as they go.

Summary:
Today: 16.6 miles, 2:06 hrs, 2317 cals
January: 373.6 miles, 54:04 hrs, 50556 cals