Christmas Park Challenge 2015 - 19th December Tufnell Park

[RJSRdg]

More like the "Mild Spring time Park Challenge" this year

Here are the results of the 9 challengers in 7 teams

7th at Elm Park - A2 (Andrew) - 8hrs 53mins 52secs
6th at Woodside Park - palkanetoijala31 (Andi) 8hrs 3mins 7secs
5th at Newbury Park - tracktakid (Andrew) + nozzacook (Damo) + GU (me!) - 8hrs 0mins 42ecs
4th at Elm Park - crypto (James) - 7hrs 47mins 55secs
3rd at Elm Park - greatkingrat (Peter) - 7hrs 44mins 31secs
2nd at Elm Park - The Orange One(Hugo) - 7hrs 32mins 13secs
1st at Elm Park Steeevooo - 7hrs 25mins 40secs

Pretty close between the top 4 places with Elm clearly the place to finish and apologies to my team mates for bad route planning decisions, slow running speed and poor door positions
Also to missing James result in the pub

We had a nice gathering and a few games of darts in the Angel in the Fields with Nozza bossing that double 1

Thanks for all this in attendance and dreading next years already, I still maintain this is far worse than a full network

That's why I decided I wasn't fit enough!

I would probably have been looking at something like an 08:26 finishing at Newbury Park (assuming everyhting running smoothly and some very tight connections were made).

I'm guessing there may be an optimum circular route for visiting all the parks and finishing back where you started (which of course you wouldn't do), which could be 'rotated' depending on where you start - though some finishing points are clearly better than others (Moor Park, Elm Park, Newbury Park) as avoiding a lengthy double back.

[Steeevooo]

Was a good Park Challenge as always, and it appears that starting slightly later due to travelling via Upper Holloway to see a steam train run over the GOBLIN worked in my favour. For the record, my route was as follows:

TUFNELL PARK (by bus) Archway WOODSIDE PARK Camden Town BELSIZE PARK (run to) Finchley Road WEMBLEY PARK CANONS PARK Wembley Park NORTHWICK PARK Harrow-on-the-Hill MOOR PARK Northwick Park (run to) Kenton STONEBRIDGE PARK QUEEN'S PARK KILBURN PARK (bus to) WESTBOURNE PARK Hammersmith (run to) RAVENSCOURT PARK Turnham Green (run to) CHISWICK PARK Ealing Common PARK ROYAL (run to) Hangar Lane HOLLAND PARK Notting Hill Gate WIMBLEDON PARK Earl's Court ST JAMES'S PARK Victoria Green Park HYDE PARK CORNER (run to) GREEN PARK Oxford Circus REGENTS PARK (run to) Warren Street FINSBURY PARK Blackhorse Road Leytonstone High Road (run to) Leytonstone NEWBURY PARK Stratford West Ham UPTON PARK ELM PARK

Bumped into a fair few challengers during the course of the challenge - picking up Kev, Nozza, Andrew C, Hugo, Peter and James at Kenton, finding out that they had had a 9 minute wait there having sprinted there from Northwick Park. Hugo and I managed to lose the crowd on the trip to Westbourne Park, having alighted the original bus that we boarded and instead boarding a second bus which ran quicker (due to being less crowded) and hence got us a train up at Westbourne Park. By this point Peter was already a train ahead of us having wisely decided to run instead of using the bus. Then bumped into the others a few other times during the rest of the day, and completed the whole of the section from Wimbledon Park to the finish with James, which was good to have somebody to chat to!

Finally, Chiswick Park must be one of the most depressing stations on the network. Especially when you are sitting there for 15 minutes waiting for a train, watching wave after wave of Piccadilly Line trains whizzing past as you desired District Line is nowhere in sight...

[The Raven]

Competed the challenge on the Friday with a time of 08:57:09 starting at Moor Park. Quite poor!

[The Orange One]

This was substantially less sad and sorry than last year's attempt. My route:

TUFNELL PARK Archway (134 bus) WOODSIDE PARK Camden Town BELSIZE PARK Edgware CANONS PARK (186 bus) WEMBLEY PARK NORTHWICK PARK (Uxbridge train) MOOR PARK Northwick Park Kenton (9 minute wait) STONEBRIDGE PARK QUEEN'S PARK (London Overground) KILBURN PARK Random bus stop (328 bus) Second random bus stop (run) Westbourne Park bus depot (328 bus) WESTBOURNE PARK (run) Ladbroke Grove HOLLAND PARK (run) Hanger Lane PARK ROYAL Acton Town CHISWICK PARK Turnham Green (run) RAVENSCOURT PARK Earl's Court WIMBLEDON PARK Earl's Court HYDE PARK KORNER GREEN PARK (22 bus) Victoria ST JAMES'S PARK (I maintain it is faster to take the Tube than to run) Victoria Oxford Circus REGENT'S PARK Warren Street (run) FINSBURY PARK Blackhorse Road Leytonstone High Road (London Overground) Leytonstone (run) NEWBURY PARK Stratford West Ham UPTON PARK ELM PARK.

- I should have waited for the later bus
- Reversing the earlier decision it is now allowed to take a picture from the top deck of a passing bus at the start
- Lost James/crypto at Belsize Park (he ran to Finchley Road), met him again at Wembley Park
- Used back entrance at Northwick Park just for fun
- Moor Park is lonely as ever
- Genius temporary staircase design at Kenton (truly inspired jumping challenge)
- Used my well honed bus switching and prediction skills to lose most of the other challengers between Kilburn and Westbourne Parks. Was lost by Peter who ran all the way
- Camera failed just outside Westbourne Park, took ages to switch on, just made train by seconds (thanks Steve!!)
- No bus at Ladbroke Grove!! Classic!! Time to run up the hill then.
- Hanger Lane to Park Royal in 3 minutes to catch up with Peter
- Lost Peter between Chiswick Park and Turnham Green. Result!
- Peter caught up by Wimbledon Park
- Proved that the train is faster between Green and St James's Park because I beat Peter. He turned up seconds later though.
- Lost Peter again between Regent's Park and Warren Street through traffic light timings
- Fast turnaround at Newbury Park
- Upton Park has a really badly placed sign
- Waited at Elm Park for some others, then we all went back to the Tudor Rose/Angel in the Fields