As a child of the suburbs, ever since I got into trail running the London LOOP has been something I've dreamed of. I had planned to take it on in 2025 but got injured in the build-up and deferred it to 2026. I managed to assemble a crack team of pacers and crew to support me, as I knew that having a good strategy was going to be essential to beating the record. I was targeting a 33-hour finish.
Day One
Not wanting to start sleep-deprived, I opted for a 9AM start. The actual start of the trail is the Riverside Gardens in Erith but wanting to honour the existing record I started at Erith station. Leg one through the marshes and riverside trails passed smoothly - with Chris, Michael, and Noemie pacing we were bang on schedule. They handed over to Henry, Laura, and Richard at Orpington for the second leg, a long hilly slog over to Coulsdon. I met my partner Emily twice as crew on this leg twice - once at High Elms Country Park and again at Farthing Downs, where I picked up a hydration vest with some kit for the night shift, as I wouldn't be seeing crew again until Uxbridge. The heat of the day kicked in on leg two but thanks to my ice bandana I managed to stay in zone two, walking the bigger hills. This is my favourite section of the whole trail - arguably the most trail-heavy bit - and it was nice to run on familiar terrain.
Coming into Coulsdon I was now ahead of schedule. I picked up Aurime, Andy, and Jules for the pacing shift into Kingston. This is quite an urban section with lots of streets and tarmac. We passed through the 50-mile mark in 9:21. The net downhill made it fly by. The tracker played up a bit for a brief stretch through Ewell and people thought I was off-course but eventually it recalibrated. When we got to Kingston I was starting to feel it a bit, and I had to remind myself that I'd already run 55 miles and there's no way to do that without any discomfort. At Kingston Riverside the sun was starting to go down and revellers were enjoying themselves, some clearly bemused by the sight of a bunch of runners. Richard and Anna swapped in as pacers - two previous Thames Path 100 champions - for the long, flat slog from Kingston to Uxbridge. A mix of parks, streets, and canal towpath, all pancake flat yet deceptively uphill. This was a real slog for me as the darkness set in and I focused on plodding as best I could. At the A30 crossing we stuck to the trail as waymarked, heading west to cross at the traffic lights rather than chancing it across the main road.
At Uxbridge I met Spencer, who was crewing from here on out. I had maintained the half hour or so gap on the 33-hour goal. I picked up Ali and Mark just before midnight and we continued up the canal for 8km or so before the trail finally veers right and onto familiar territory for me, as I grew up in Bushey on the London/Hertfordshire border.
Day Two
I knew leg five would be a tough leg given it was the middle of the night and it's one of the route's hillier sections, but I didn't account for the inclement weather. Throughout this section we were hit by waves of rain which at times got quite intense. Thankfully, it was a mild 18 degrees or so, so I never felt at risk of hypothermia. The only layer I was carrying was a thin windproof but it was sufficient. The rain just made it miserable though, and I found myself getting confused as I thought of this section as one I was deeply familiar with yet I kept wondering where the hell I was. When we finally left Oxhey Woods and crossed Oxhey Lane, the usually familiar trail through the scrubland into the golf course simply vanished. For five minutes we wandered about in overgrown thorns and weeds, my legs getting scratched to bits, trying to find the trail, before turning back on ourselves and realising it had been fenced in by a couple of temporary fences, presumably to protect it from the overgrowth. This was a frustrating episode, but I think my efficiency with everything else meant that the five minutes we lost was not a big deal in the grand scheme of things.
Passing through the golf course I noted the gate on the left hand side which leads to Merry Hill - a 2km hike and I could be in bed at my mum's house. I put that thought to one side and found myself enjoying the trail once again as we passed through the section most familiar to me, Harrow Weald Common and Bentley Priory. We met Spencer again at Warren Lane - the car park strangely packed at 3AM, who knows what goes on there - and I picked up Kris and Rich, who himself completed the LOOP back in June but sadly missed out on the record, on account of attempting it during a heatwave!
Leg six took us to Cockfosters, en route passing through the 100-mile mark in 20:38 or so, a new PB for me and an 11:20 split for the second 50-mile leg. This gave me just under 14 hours to break David Bone's record, which felt doable but I was now in uncharted territory and felt like I could fall apart at any minute. Kris had kindly gotten some messages pre-recorded from Emily, a mutual friend Ben, and Lucy Bartholomew, no less, which were really lovely to hear. Lucy stressed not letting the record define the experience, and to focus on appreciating what I was doing. That really resonated. As we ticked off the second major road crossing via the underpass below the A1, the sun started to rise and my spirits started to lift as the end of the run was now an appreciable distance away rather than a far-off hypothetical.
At Cockfosters Spencer met us again and Dan and Keijo joined for their pacing shift. I downed a double espresso and some painkillers which helped lift my spirits. I knew the next leg had the potential to be quite fast given it is net downhill, but this is where the lead I had built on my pacing plan started to dissolve. I was really falling apart and struggling to keep moving, my legs seizing up a lot and my knees were in a lot of pain. My feet, which had previously been okay, were also starting to hurt. Dan and Keijo did a brilliant job of keeping the momentum going and not letting me give in to my discomfort. As we left Epping Forest though I simply had to rest, and so I asked for a two-minute time check and lay down on some grass to shut my eyes. Although my legs seized up a bit, the mental relief seemed to work a bit and I was able to trot reasonably well to Chigwell, the final crew stop.
When we got to Spencer at Chigwell, I opted to use the full 10 minutes to shut my eyes again and let my body recalibrate as best it could. Alex and Patrick joined for their pacing shift, and I have to say a massive thank you to them for getting me through the final leg. Alex had just come off a third place finish at UTMR and his insistence that I eat, drink, and stay on top of my electrolytes really helped me turn things around. We kept the caffeine going in and a safe quantity of painkillers as my knees were really giving me grief. I couldn't believe how much of a difference all this made - I wouldn't say I felt good, but I went from feeling that this was completely impossible to actually enjoying myself and having conversations. At Harold Wood Emily joined us for the final 23km and I got a little emotional but had to hold that down. The final miles are quite boring with a lot of fields, bike paths, etc. although the stretch through Ingrebourne Country Park is really lovely. At Upminster Bridge who should show up but David Bone himself, there to usher me in for the final miles. I'm so grateful to him for showing up and although I didn't say much, it felt like a really special moment.
After what felt like an age we hit Rainham station where Aurime and Andy were waiting to join us for the final five miles into Purfleet along the river. I had a bit of a sense of humour failure here, and I should have been more celebratory, but I was right on the edge and I wanted to avoid giving in to that feeling that "it's done" as I still had at least an hour to go. The LOOP signage into Purfleet differs from what is on the map, taking you through a trail section rather than on the road. At one point this trail was literally flooded with what smelt like sewage - a real low moment about 5km out from the finish, dunking our shoes in rancid ankle-deep mud. (Thames Water, sort your shit out.) It then gives way to a bike path along the Thames which is somehow the perfect finish. You leave behind civilisation almost, it's just you and the enormous wide estuary, the stat point in Erith visible on the opposite shore all those miles away.
Looking at my watch I had to run the final 5km in 40 minutes to get under 33 hours. Sounds easy enough but at this point running at 7:30 per km was about as fast as I could go. I did my best to just hold that pace, occasionally giving in to the urge to walk, but when we got to 3km to go I made a pact with myself to just keep running. With 1km to go I let myself put the burners on, and before I knew it we were leaving the river and heading along the road to Purfleet station. I broke into what felt like a sprint for the final stretch (5:41 per km - zooming!) and touched the wall in 32:56:57.
I immediately had a little cry, sat down, seized up, etc. and fell to pieces. A celebratory prosecco made me vomit, but that felt necessary. It was such a relief to just not be running anymore. I could not have done this without the incredible team of crew and pacers who supported me every step of the way.