Monopoly Marathon

Day:         83

Distance: 35.11km

Time:       3:06:30 secs

Calories:  2,670

In my experience it usually takes ages to finish games of Monopoly. So it feels somehow right that the game of running Monopoly that I started last Saturday (see "Collect £200 salary as you pass Go") takes a whole week to complete.

If you haven't read my account of last week's long run a brief synopsis would tell you that over the course of a 33.88km run I ticked off 13 of the 22 'street' squares from the classic Monopoly board. When it came to plotting a route for this week I decided to finish off the Monopoly board by plotting a route that would take in the remaining 9 streets.

Mr Monopoly greets the news of his £5bn bonus in sober fashion.

The first of the remaining streets is crossed off of my list once I cross from South London into the City via Tower Bridge. Heading straight up from the bridge I run up Vine Street which is about as nondescript a street as you're ever likely to find. I have absolutely no idea why it was included in the board game. The only vaguely interesting thing I can say about it is that it is the first of the three 'orange' squares to be ticked off my list.


From there I head out of the City towards Aldgate and Whitechapel Road which, along with the Old Kent Road, is the cheapest square on the board. Whitechapel is home to Tayyabs, possibly the finest curry house in the land, but unfortunately for me it's far too early for the restaurant to be open and I've still got 7 streets to tick off the list. From Whitechapel I head up Brick Lane and for the first time ever no-one tries to entice me into their restaurant with promises of 20% discounts and free beers. Even though it's only 7:45am I reckon I'd have been as susceptible as ever to such bargaining, had it happened.


From Brick Lane I head towards Old Street and then up City Road to my next Monopoly destination: The Angel Islington. As with Mayfair last week it's worth noting that this isn't actually a street, but a part of North London which was named after a coaching inn which stood on the Great North Road. The coaching inn is now a Co-Operative bank and as I pass it I successfully cross the first of the light blue squares from my list. The second of these squares is ticked off almost straight away as I turn onto Pentonville Road. Running down this road takes me past a fantastic pub called the Castle which boasts a lovely rooftop beer garden that is perfectly suited to a nice sunny day like today. The third light blue square isn't far away but as I get to the end of Pentonville Road I can actually tick off one of the four railway stations on the Monopoly board - King's Cross.

The only one of the four railway
stations that actually features
in my two Monopoly runs

Going past the station I find myself on Euston Road, which I follow for a short while. I seem to remember reading a while back that Euston Road is one of the most heavily polluted roads in London, so it's probably a good thing I don't hang around for too long there. At Euston Square station I turn left down Gower Street and head off in search of the next square on my list. 


In all, I'm probably on Bow Street for no more than 8 seconds before I take the first right down Floral Street and head towards Leicester Square. It seems a little wrong to deal with an historic street like this with such indecent haste, so allow me to right that wrong by telling you that Bow Street was home to Oliver Cromwell in the 17th Century and London's first professional police force - the Bow Street Runners - in the 18th Century. I feel better now.


Running across the top of Leicester Square takes me past one of the Aberdeen Angus Steak Houses which litter this area. I'm interested to see that the front of the 'restaurant' is cordoned off with blue and white "Police Warning" tape - at last, someone's called the food police to report the culinary crimes committed there.


After Leicester Square I find myself on Coventry Street which means that I've completed my tour of the three yellow squares. I head down towards Piccadilly Circus, which is relatively free of traffic. I know it's still early, but I find it hard to conceive of this area being anything less than full of traffic. I run up Piccadilly in the opposite direction to the way I ran last week, but the outcome is the same as I turn down St James's Street and then onto Pall Mall. At this point I must confess that I had to cheat a little. At the start of Pall Mall there is a right turn available which takes me down Marlborough Road. The actual square in the board game is Marlborough Street, but its inclusion in today's run would have necessitated running over to Fulham and would have extended this run beyond what I wanted to do.


As I write this a sickening realisation hits me. I've just counted up the number of Monopoly streets that I ran down today and there's 8 of them. As I said at the top of the post there were 9 streets remaining. I look back, make sure that I've counted properly. I consult my route to make sure I haven't missed anything off. I scratch my head and then I check an actual Monopoly board. I haven't been down Fleet Street. I didn't go down there last week either. 


I'm genuinely gutted.


Anyway, let's not focus on that. Instead let's focus on the fact that at just under 22 miles in length this run (which concluded with a run through Westminster, a run down the South Bank and the return home) is the furthest I will run until the big day. I still haven't quite got my head around the logic of this. To my mind, it makes perfect sense to run the full 26.2 miles in training just so I know that I can do it but everything I've read and been told tells me that the furthest you should run during your marathon training is between 18-22 miles. After that you're supposed to 'taper' your runs until the big day.


When I first planned my marathon training I built in 2 weeks of contingency, as it happens I haven't needed them so next week I'll be running the Brentwood Half Marathon and the week after I'll run today's route again. Hopefully, when I re-run it I'll feel better than I did today as I was running the last few kilometres. I felt absolutely shot to pieces on the return leg of this run and no amount of Carbohydrate gel or rock n' roll seemed to be able to lift me. I've checked the stats on Run Keeper and the last 6 kilometres were considerably slower than the 29 that had preceded them, but the main thing is that I completed the run. My feet won't thank me for carrying on, but I am very pleased to have covered such a distance in what I consider to be a decent time.

Collect £200 salary as you pass Go

Day:         76

Distance: 33.88km

Time:       2:57:10 secs

Calories:  2,581

Week 11 of the training plan ends with the instruction to complete a "165 mins" run. Seeing as I ran for 162 minutes last Sunday I decided to come up with a longer route. As in the past couple of weeks I thought I'd take the opportunity to go on another sightseeing tour round London. After plotting the route last night I realised that, without designing it that way, the run includes 13 of the 22 'street' squares which feature on the classic Monopoly board.

A map of the run I did on 5th March 2011.

The run starts off in much the same fashion as other recent long runs, which means that the very first street from the Monopoly board that I come to is Old Kent Road. By a happy coincidence, this is also the very first square on the Monopoly board and was also where our legendary Monopoly Pub Crawl started a few years back. Such happy, drunken memories. 

After the Old Kent Road I could have gone across Tower Bridge and turned right to go down Whitechapel Road thereby completing my haul of brown squares, but instead I cross the river at London Bridge and find myself in the City. As in previous weeks I head West following the route of the Thames for a short while until I turn up Northumberland Avenue - the second road on my Monopoly sightseeing tour. At the end of this road I briefly set foot on the Strand, run round Trafalgar Square (both of which feature on the Monopoly board) and up Charing Cross Road.

This route takes me past the tourist hell that is Leicester Square and past the offices of Capital Radio. Although I've got the running playlist on for the duration of the run I couldn't tell you what song was playing at this point, there was only one song running through my head. In the words of the legendary Joe Strummer: "Don't touch that dial!".

When plotting the route I'd forgotten all about the work which is currently going on at Tottenham Court Road as part of the Crossrail project. This means that at the end of Charing Cross Road I have to negotiate the building site where the tube station is and turn left onto Oxford Street. Interestingly, this is the 2nd time that I've run down "Europe's largest high street". The first time occurred a couple of years ago when I had a romantic evening planned which included dinner at Claridges. The tube we were on broke down at Holborn and as we were unable to hail a cab I was worried we'd lose our dinner reservations so Varoo and I both ran from Holborn, along Oxford Street and down to Brook Street to get there in time. We arrived at the restaurant somewhat dishevelled but, crucially, were still able to get the table I had booked. It wasn't the entrance I had planned, but the rest of the evening went very well as Varoo said Yes when I asked her to marry me during dessert.

Anyway, enough of that. Following Oxford Street means that I run across Regent Street and past Bond Street tube and New Bond Street. Although there is no Bond Street in London I'm still counting this as another Monopoly square - it's not my fault they made a game with places that don't actually exist. I turn left at Marble Arch and head down Park Lane, which takes me down the Eastern side of Hyde Park. At £350 this is the 2nd most expensive square in the game - and it shows. The most expensive square in the game - Mayfair - isn't actually a street but as I'm now in the area of London known as "Mayfair" I think it's fair to say that another square has been crossed off the list.

At the bottom of Park Lane I turn left onto Piccadilly and run alongside Green Park before turning right on St James's Street and then left onto Pall Mall which takes me back to Trafalgar Square. As with last week's run I turn down Whitehall, which I really enjoy running down as it gives you a good view of the Houses of Parliament and takes you past the Cenotaph and Downing Street. As I'm coming up to Downing Street the gates open and I think for a moment I might catch a glimpse of an important political figure, or even George Osborne, but it actually looks like a removal van. Less than a year into this government I fear it's too early for that, but there is a pleasing moment when I imagine David Cameron's furniture being moved out of Downing Street.

From there the run takes me through Westminster, along the Thames and up to Chelsea Bridge where I turn back and begin the journey home via Vauxhall Bridge.

Obviously, there was more to this run (11 kilometres more in fact) but I've already written about my route home and as I don't set foot on any of the remaining Monopoly squares I won't dwell on it. One thing I did notice with this long run was that I felt far more tired out than I did last week. This was despite eating the Lucozade cereal bar beforehand and consuming the Carbohydrate gels whilst running. The only real difference I can see (other than the increase in distance and time) is that I've done far fewer runs during the week. Last week I managed to fit five runs in, this week I've only been able to fit in three. It's been a busy week, but I think there's a lesson in there for me.

Anyway, to conclude this post I thought I'd note that completing this run means that I have now covered more than 500 kilometres in my marathon training. It's also the first time that I've run more than 20 miles in one go (33.88km = 21miles). Both of those feel like landmarks, which is fitting given how many actual landmarks I've run past over the last 76 days.