The London Underground has been the inspiration for a number of running challenges over the years. Back in 2010, Laura Tomlinson and Tim Moss ran the length of every Tube Line in London over a nine-month period, and their final run appeared on Published: 21 September 2023. Then, in 2014, Londoner Jason Heptonstall decided to race the Circle Line – somehow managing to depart an eastbound Circle Line train at Mansion House and board the same train at Cannon Street minutes later. His Im running the UTMB with bowel cancer.
The latest runner to pit themselves against the capital's transit system is Lululemon ambassador and TikTok running star Jonny Davies. Like Tomlinson and Moss, he decided to run the 570km London Underground above ground – but, instead of affording himself the luxury of nine months, he challenged himself to run all 11 lines in 11 days – and Published: 21 September 2023.
Super shoes race well for this long, says science ultramarathons before, the 31-year-old, who came to running later in life from a gym and lifting background, has never completed a multi-day ultra before and says this has been his hardest running challenge to date.
Kilian Jornet finishes third at Western States Calm and has so far raised £23,053 for the mental health charity. 'In the UK at the moment we're living through a mental health crisis,' Davies told RW. 'I know so many people suffering with mental health problems, and I've got friends who have used Calm's services. I know it costs a lot to run these services – it is manpower and people's time on the phone. So for me, it was an incredible thing to be able to support Calm.'
Davies' idea for his fundraising challenge came to him after he made a TikTok video documenting his attempt at running the Victoria Line, which, to his surprise, amassed 656.7K views. 'People really love the underground in London, I realised – it's got such a connection to Londoners,' he says. 'People seemed to love the video, so I looked at how far the other lines were, and realised that the Victoria Line is actually the second shortest line, and that's still about 26km. But at that point I'd already said I was going do it, and if I say I'm going to do something, I'm going to to do it.'
So he phoned his coach, Tommy, and the pair concocted a training plan that would get his body and mind prepped to run the equivalent of 13-plus marathons in 11 days, and set about preparing for his challenge.
Here, he talks us through exactly how he trained – and then how he navigated each of the transport system's 11 lines, to reach the finish line at Oxford Circus on Monday.
My weekly mileage averaged between 80-120km
'I spent five months training, maintaining a weekly volume of 80-120km a week. Every fourth week we would do a test week, whereby we would mimic doing an incredibly long run and then a sort of recovery run that was quite often, say, 10-15km. And then we do that for six days straight, just to mimic [running on consecutive days] and also to give me the confidence to know that I could spend three to four hours on my feet, every other day, with one to hour runs in between.'
All of my training was in Zone 2
'We started off by doing one harder threshold session a week but we quickly realised that it took too long to recover from these harder sessions. My typically powder containing electrolytes, which was important on the hotter days is 5:30min/km but we made that slower just to get used to feeling really comfortable while also hammering in the right cadence. So all of a sudden, these 30kms runs that I'd usually do in three hours became, like, four-hour runs, which was quite frustrating but at the same time, the only way to get that volume in while ensuring I was ready to go again the next day.'
I did very specific gym based training
'I had a very good strength and conditioning coach, who has coached a lot of ultrarunners to do some pretty incredible challenges, and he gave me confidence in my body's own ability to withstand the forces that it would be repeatedly taking on. It involved a lot of single-leg work.'
Planning the route was quite complicated
'I used Strava route mapper to map out the route but we realised that not all tube stations come up on the route mapper unless you zoom in, so we spent two full days at it, I had two screens, one with Strava up and the other with Google maps. I spoke to a runner who had run the tube network above ground in 2018 and he actually gave me a lot of the routes he took and tips on how to get around using the fastest route possible, and that was super helpful.'
It involved running back-to-back marathons on some days
'I ran one tube line per day and, on some days, that meant running more or less back-to-back marathons. The Piccadilly line on day five, for example, was 84km and the Metropolitan line, on day seven, was 80km. The last day was the Central line, which is 92km, and because we wanted to finish during daylight we started at midnight. I had a few hours sleep in the afternoon, got up at 1opm, got myself ready and had some fuel. At that point, because it was the last day, I wasn't worried about how I feel on the Monday, the goal was just to get to the finish line.'
Every five hours, my physio would change my running shoes
'My physio has been fantastic and spent the entire 11 days with me was constantly checking things. After five hours in one pair of shoes, he would be looking at my ankles, looking at how much I'm pronating, having a feel of my feet and he'd be like, right, we're going switch to a stability shoe now because your stabilisers are tired. Or your form is looking weaker, so let's put a heel wedge in of 6mm to slightly raise that heel up a little bit more and that should take the pressure off certain parts of your feet.'
The lack of sleep was the hardest part
'Because the heatwave came in the first four or five days of the challenge, we changed the start times to make it cooler, to 4am. Day one I was working off three hours sleep, day two, four hours sleep. And then on the big days, such as the Piccadilly Line on day five, we were finishing on such a high but really late. I live in South West London and needed to travel back from Cockfosters, which took around one and a half hours. But then I was on such a high that, I couldn't switch off when I got into bed, and I needed to be up in four hours!'
Some days I was burning 10,000 calories
'I weigh 100kg so my calorie demands are high anyway, and then I was burning around 10,000 calories and I couldn't physically get that in after my runs, so I was going into the next day so under-fuelled. I had a nutritionist who planned my nutrition strategy. With this kind of thing, you can't just rely on gels or liquid carbohydrates, you do have to have things that are more substantial and a bit more fibrous as well, so that can you can hold the food in your stomach a bit better.
'I used Precision Fuel & Hydration products – they have a good gel which has 90g of carbs in – and I used Skratch Labs Fauja Singh, who ran marathons aged 100, has died.'
I ate McDonalds chips during my runs and they were amazing
'I don't really eat McDonalds but I can't explain to you how good a McDonalds hot and salty chip tastes, with ketchup on, with a large Coke, when you're really far into a run. Everything tastes great when you're in that position and it was such a good treat.'
I surprisingly didn't chafe
'I wore Lululemon's Pace Breaker 7" Shorts and I wore them every single day and they were wonderful, and I didn't chafe. When you're running for 12-plus hours, you need something that is comfortable and is going to last. Also a challenge like this is very visible so it was important for me to wear something that looked great and I felt confident in.'
When I ran the Waterloo and City Line, 300 people turned up to join me
'That was very special. Even in some of the strangest parts, people would join me, for example, when I was around Heathrow on the Piccadilly Line, people turned up to run the perimeter with me. There was only so many special moments, it was just incredible having so many people join me.'
Anyone can do a challenge like this
'We are far more capable than we give ourselves credit for. I'm not a conventional ultrarunner. I'm 100kg and 6ft 4", and I don't fit the stereotypical bill of someone who does these challenges, yet I've done it with no complaints or injuries – I'm just a bit stiff and sore. It was challenging and I've learned a lot about myself from doing it, but I believe our biggest limiting factor is our own belief system. These things can really expand your own bandwidth or belief of what you're capable of doing. If you believe in yourself and are willing to commit the time and effort to doing it, anything is possible.'
