Random 15 Championship 2019/20: Round 3

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hopeful traveller
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Re: Random 15 Championship 2019/20: Round 3

Post by hopeful traveller »

Someone left a phone in the pub - Tangy has it in his possession.
1 FNC Completion (PB: 17:18:18 with G Bryant, A Chilcraft, I MacNaughton)
4 Zone Ones (PB: 03:00:35 with G Bryant)
15 R15s (PB: 01:55:48 with T Cooling and R Jackson)
11 All Lines (PB: 00:44:03)
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RJSRdg
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Re: Random 15 Championship 2019/20: Round 3

Post by RJSRdg »

That'll be mine, then! :-) Realised I didn't have it when I got back to Paddington.
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EastActionWoman
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Re: Random 15 Championship 2019/20: Round 3

Post by EastActionWoman »

RJSRdg wrote: 11 Jan 2020, 21:39 ... Also at Central were Kev and A2 who had caught a bus from Bethnal Green LU, and Jenny (not sure how she got there).
I was on the bus too. This was a lucky mistake - I thought I was getting a bus down to Bethnal Green overground, but had come out of the wrong exit of the LU station. I was puzzled as to why everyone was running off in the "wrong" direction :oops:
Not a plus one :wink:
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EastActionWoman
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Re: Random 15 Championship 2019/20: Round 3

Post by EastActionWoman »

Proper write up time:

My route: Stratford -> Bethnal Green LU (bus 106) -> Hackney Central -> Hampstead Heath (bus 168) -> Belsize Park -> Camden Town -> Tufnell Park -> TCR -> Bank (walk to) Cannon Street NR -> London Bridge -> Stockwell -> Oxford Circus -> Paddington -> Bayswater -> Paddington (walk to) Paddington (H&C) -> Hammersmith (H&C) jog to Hammersmith (District) -> Stamford Brook

Good things:
  • Ambling to the platform at Hackney Central with Kev and A2, then watching all the fit guys running towards us
  • In retrospect, having 15 mins at Cannon Street, so plenty of time to go to the loo and fill up water bottle
    Rob and Hugo waiting for me at Paddington so we could swagger down platform 8 together
    Amazed to get 4th in 3:31:06
Mistakes (which probably cancelled each other out):
  • Wrong exit at Bethnal Green - had been aiming for a bus to Bethnal Green overground, but ended up on bus directly to Hackney Central instead.
  • Getting off at Gospel Oak instead of Hampstead Heath - too busy chatting to the fellas (coincidentally about people getting off at the wrong station :) ) and not paying attention.
Lessons learned:
  • Talking not thinking - I have the same problem when playing live poker. So apologies if I appear antisocial in future :)
  • Don't get stuck on one plan. Because of the 10 minute delay at Gospel Oak, I knew I wouldn't make the connection at Cannon Street. Therefore, from Tufnell Park, I should have gone Euston -> Stockwell -> London Bridge -> Cannon Street -> Bank -> Oxford Circus, which would have taken about 15 minutes off my time. Though probably would have been busting for the loo and dehydrated.
Loved every minute of it and hope I can make the next one in March (we're away a couple of weekends so fingers crossed there's no clash). In the meantime, Sarah and I are seriously considering Hugo's bonkers IKEA challenge ... I've never been to IKEA.
Not a plus one :wink:
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michael_churchill
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Re: Random 15 Championship 2019/20: Round 3

Post by michael_churchill »

EastActionWoman wrote: 13 Jan 2020, 11:21 In the meantime, Sarah and I are seriously considering Hugo's bonkers IKEA challenge ... I've never been to IKEA.
If you've never been exposed to IKEA before, I'm not sure five in one day is good for your health.
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EastActionWoman
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Re: Random 15 Championship 2019/20: Round 3

Post by EastActionWoman »

michael_churchill wrote: 13 Jan 2020, 12:32
EastActionWoman wrote: 13 Jan 2020, 11:21 In the meantime, Sarah and I are seriously considering Hugo's bonkers IKEA challenge ... I've never been to IKEA.
If you've never been exposed to IKEA before, I'm not sure five in one day is good for your health.
Luckily, Sarah is a veteran IKEA shopper. Just hope our relationship survives the day :D
Not a plus one :wink:
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hopeful traveller
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Re: Random 15 Championship 2019/20: Round 3

Post by hopeful traveller »

One of my worst ever days on Tube Challenge, I felt. I was a little bit of an idiot with the route planning, which is harder to take than not being fast enough on foot, as I know I could have and should have done a lot better.

As with almost everyone else, I piled into the Westbound Central at Stratford - the "envelope first, train later" plan working sufficiently well as usual - and got out at Bethnal Green (Cen) with everyone else. I had no idea there was a bus between Hackney Central and Bethnal Green so I followed David to Bethnal Green (NR) which was a mistake, since none of us knew where we were going. I had a departure board that said it was either a 2-minute or 8-minute connection, so as soon as it got to 12:41 I stopped running, not fully aware of quite how long there was to go. David, I felt, had a decent chance of making the 12:41, so thankfully I saw him at the platform and he was not a train up.

Again, once I saw an indicator board I didn't feel the need to run between Hackney Downs and Hackney Central, and instead used up 4 minutes to look at some rather crippling NLL/GOBLIN delays. My next problem was trying to work out how to do St Paul's, Cannon Street, Stockwell, Tufnell Park, Belsize Park, and Hampstead Heath. Was it too much of a detour to do the Bank bits and then come back up to North London? I, rather stupidly, thought it was. Although, frankly, I ought not to have done.
RJSRdg wrote: 11 Jan 2020, 21:39We all headed west along the NLL towards Hampstead Heath although Jenny and one other got off earlier.
That's me.

I got off at Camden Road to do Tufnell Park first, hoping to do Archway -> Upper Holloway (hope the GOBLIN was working again now) and then pick up the following NLL train at Gospel Oak. Although my progress to Camden Town isn't that first - just missed a train - I made it up to Archway, stop. With my phone telling me no trains were running from Upper Holloway it was time to improvise. I started looking up bus routes and got the C11 to Gospel Oak. Luckily, I picked up a train, which was running slightly late, but by no means a particularly slow change. At Hampstead Heath, getting PTSD of the last R15 I did, I wimped out of the run and instead waited for a 168 Boris bus. It was very nice, I must say. Belsize Park offered up some very slow lifts (didn't fancy a 15-storey building :P ) and instead made the platform just as a Kennington via Charing X train was pulling in. That was a win, as it allowed me to do Warren Street -> Euston Square (I've stopped doing Euston -> Euston Square now, exiting Euston is far too long). The 3-minute wait for a Circle Line train wasn't too bad, but in the most bizarre thing I did all day I forgot S Stocks have 7 cars. So I was one door too far down at Baker Street. I ran down to the Bakerloo Line, which I'd already had enough of given I'd been sat on it from Kenton all morning to get to the challenge, and then got out at Edgware Road, and promptly got lost looking for Edgware Road (Cir). I eventually did make - just - a Slammersmith and Pity line train and then casually sauntered through Paddington (H&C) to Paddington Praed Street, as I was aware no train was due. That was until a Parsons Green terminator arrived after several minutes that had David and Andrew on it!

In one of my lesser-well-done moments I decided to try a little gambit by opting to run to Queensway at Bayswater, and then resurrecting the tube challengers' old favourite which of course hasn't been done since Wood Lane was open: Shepherd's Bush to Shepherd's Bush Market. However, two pieces of utterly bad luck combined here to make sure the gamble was a waste of time in both ways. First, I had double cramp in both calves simultaneously. And the service pattern was completely irregular anyway, so I would never have been able to gain anything. Oh well. I ended up on the same train as David and Andrew, and the train glided into Hammersmith so quickly that none of us were ready for it and ended up sprinting down the train.

I back myself to run over a short distance and keeping within touching distance of these two between the two Hammersmiths was probably the best thing I did all day. It was then hop onto the District Line to Stamford Brook.

Where they finished.

And I was nowhere near finishing.

I still had all the South London bits to do, and whilst studying the timetables for Cannon Street and indeed London Bridge (07, 09, 37, 39 - seriously?!) I considered going off to St Paul's and then finishing at Stockwell, but too late, I was already on the District Line - I felt David and Andrew's schadenfreude ended up with a bit of karma when I made the double back at Stamford Brook running and they had to wait for the next train - but after Victoria followed by Stockwell followed by London Bridge (where a connection was a little bit tighter than I anticipated), I made it to Cannon Street (NR) before disembarking, running to Bank, then to St Paul's, and finish. Very, very slowly.
1 FNC Completion (PB: 17:18:18 with G Bryant, A Chilcraft, I MacNaughton)
4 Zone Ones (PB: 03:00:35 with G Bryant)
15 R15s (PB: 01:55:48 with T Cooling and R Jackson)
11 All Lines (PB: 00:44:03)
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RJSRdg
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Re: Random 15 Championship 2019/20: Round 3

Post by RJSRdg »

hopeful traveller wrote: 15 Jan 2020, 17:06 promptly got lost looking for Edgware Road (Cir).
Easily done - I remember on one R15 I'd got off to a blinding start until I tried to do the ER(Bak)-ER(Circle) run, having never done it before...

I managed to run past it, then, not seeing any sign of it in the distance, got on a bus(!), only realising my error when I got to Marble Arch, at which point I had quite a long wait for a bus back again, and of course just missed a train when I did find the station...
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tangy
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Re: Random 15 Championship 2019/20: Round 3

Post by tangy »

Here are the results of Round 3 of the 2019/20 Random 15 Championship held on Saturday 11th January 2020.

This was a twist round with National Rail (and Overground/Crossrail) stations added into the mix alongside the usual LU stations in zones 1 and 2 only.

The stations were:
--Stratford (meet up/start)
--Tufnell Park
--Paddington (H&C)
--Bethnal Green (LU)
--Shepherd's Bush Market
--St. Paul's
--Bayswater
--Stockwell
--Hampstead Heath
--Marylebone (LU)
--Hackney Central
--Baker Street
--Cannon Street (NR)
--Stamford Brook
--Belsize Park

There were 13 challengers in 12 teams:

12th: Kevin Brown and Andrew Baker- 04:10:38 at Cannon Street~
11th: Rhys Benjamin- 03:49:45 at St. Paul's
10th: Richard Standing- 03:36:58 at Baker Street
9th: Richard Graham- 03:34:07 at Bayswater
=7th: Peter Smyth- 03:33:58 at Hackney Central**
=7th: Tangy- 03:33:53 at Hackney Central**
=4th: Hugo Marrow: 03:31:06 at Stamford Brook
=4th: Jenny Sherman: 03:31:06 at Stamford Brook
=4th: Rob Lomas: 03:31:06 at Stamford Brook
3rd: Clive Burgess: 03:17:20 at Hackney Central
=1st: David Edwards: 02:50:34 at Stamford Brook
=1st: Andrew Chilcraft: 02:50:34 at Stamford Brook

**These were the stated times for myself and Peter but as it was impossible for two trains to arrive at Hackney Central (from the same direction) within 5 seconds of each other, it is declared that me and Peter finished on the same train, but did not see each other or realise this until the compilation of the results. It was further ratified that both times should be synced and therefore the official result for both teams is 03:33:55.

The leaderboard after round 3 looks like this:

1st: David Edwards (36 points) [3 rounds attended]
2nd: Andrew Chilcraft (28) [3]
3rd: Hugo Marrow (24) [3]
4th: Jenny Sherman (22) [3]
5th: Tangy (20) [3]
=6th: Clive Burgess (18) [2]
=6th: Kevin Brown (18) [3]
=8th: Alistair Brown (12) [1]
=8th: Rob Lomas (12) [3]
10th: Andrew Baker (11) [3]
11th: Peter Smyth (9) [3]
12th: Matthew Cook (6) [1]
=13th: Damian Cook (5) [1]
=13th: Izzy Cook (5) [1]
=13th: Richard Graham (5) [3]
=16th: Alex Kneller (4) [1]
=16th: Kat Hopper (4) [1]
18th: Rhys Benjamin (3) [2]
=19th: Nick Gardner (1) [2]
=19th: Richard Standing (1) [2]
=20th: Michael Churchill (0) [1]
=20th: Das Stevens (0) [1]

Round 4 will take place in March 2020- date still be to confirmed. Please listen for further announcements.
Last edited by tangy on 19 Jan 2020, 15:15, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: List of stations omitted
Adjudicator of the Alternative Challenges and webmaster of the Tube Challenge "Top Times" website at www.explorerticket.co.uk/tubechallenge

This is a Central line train to "Woodford via Hainault"- sadly, not no more!

Tangy.
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greatkingrat
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Re: Random 15 Championship 2019/20: Round 3

Post by greatkingrat »

Any news on a date for Round 4 yet?
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RJSRdg
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Re: Random 15 Championship 2019/20: Round 3

Post by RJSRdg »

Tangy has announced 21st March on Facebook.
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