Monopoly Run Take 2! 30 miles, 22.01.2021

After last week's Monopoly run, it felt like another adventure needed. There was also a major flaw with the Monopoly Run - whilst we have collected all the places on the London Monopoly board, we have not yet collected any playing pieces. Actually, there was another flaw too - doing long runs in London is difficult because there is no jumping behind a tree for a wee when you need one, which is tricky. Oh, and actually, whilst we're focussing on the negatives, it's too busy in the daytime really to do long runs in London, too many people about.

But, unlike winning at Monopoly, here is a problem that I can solve, in one simple solution! Run another Monopoly themed run to collect the playing pieces, run at night when it is quiet, and run in loops around the house (which serves as a luxury checkpoint/loo stop)! So, Andrew and me planned a 30 mile run, and set off just before 8pm on Friday night. 

My quest for learning what the Monopoly playing pieces (tokens) are was quite brief, once I aborted my research quite early on, after I realised there have been literally hundreds of different tokens over the years and versions of Monopoly, and I got quite overwhelmed by it all and gave up. I settled on a list of 11, for reasons I am not 100% sure of, but I chose the ones I remembered from when I've played it (the dog, boot, hat, battleship, car, and iron) and some others that I read had been part of the game at various key points in it's history (rocking horse, purse, money bag, lantern, and thimble).

Armed with a list, a route and a plan, and a headtorch, we set off. 

On our first loop "The River Loop", we set off down the Regents Canal towards Limehouse Basin, collecting a ROCKING HORSE on the way. 

And further the canal we came across our first LANTERN. It being night time, and in a city, our lantern collection grew quite big as the evening went on. 

Running along the canal in the dark towards Canary Wharf was very lovely.

Soon we made it to Limehouse Basin which was also looking fine.

From here, we headed East along the Thames for a couple of miles. So magical down by the water with all the lights twinkling!

5 miles in, we turned around and did the route in reverse, back to the house for checkpoint #1, a celebrated wee stop, and luxury trainer change. 

Loop 2 "The Bridge Loop" started by heading towards Old Street to collect some tokens. First up was THE THIMBLE (London has a distinct lack of thimble related things! But I guess you could get a thimble here!)

Then on to City Road to collect THE DOG. I had been fortunate to find him in the week on my rounds at work, so was confident this would be an easy find. But disaster almost struck! City Road was being tarmacked overnight - there were lorries and steamrollers and floodlights all the way up it. The dog statue was on the other side, behind some extra large lorries and a crowd of workmen! Narrowly avoiding being steamrollered, we sneaked across and got a cheeky photo.

From here we headed south, past THE TOP HAT.

And the made it down to the London Bridge and to the river to collect THE BATTLESHIP.

It was beautiful down by the river. London looks so much better at night time! 

From here, we did a little bit east along the south bank, then back, to do a loop over Tower Bridge and London Bridge, then back over Tower Bridge again to admire the Tower of London.

From here, we headed up through Shoreditch back home for luxury checkpoint #2. 20 miles done, and about midnight, it was time to set off on loop 3, "The St Paul's Loop". I was looking forward to this one the most, as running in the early hours is always exciting and I love St Paul's at the moment, I run here all the time. As it turned out, walking about 10 miles in the day and getting up before 7 meant I felt a bit sleepy by the time it got to this point and it was a bit hard, but still magic none the less! And there were still a lot of tokens to collect, so best crack on!

Ran down to Bank, to collect THE MONEY BAG first of all.

Just across from Bank is a statue of the Duke of Wellington, known as THE IRON duke.

Such a great spot!

Also collected an EXTRA THIMBLE!

Then, it was along towards St Paul's to collect THE PURSE.

St Paul's was looking even more splendid than usual.

Just down the road from here, we collected THE CAR.

And from here it was a short run along Fleet Street, to collect the last token, THE SHOE.

We were a bit short on miles still, so made some of these up around the Aldwych.

Then Andrew was starting to get cross, so we headed home, taking a wiggly route to make up the miles.

Best Friday night of Lockdown so far! Thanks Andrew for a great run, and for all the photos!