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Attending; GU, RJSRdg, michael_churchill, The Orange One, xcooler123
parkrun (Roding Valley); GU
Spoons (The Last Post, Loughton) GU

Attending; GU, RJSRdg, michael_churchill, The Orange One, xcooler123, crypto
parkrun (Roding Valley); GU
Spoons (The Last Post, Loughton) GU

RJSRdg wrote:I'm trying to work out how someone gets half a R15 time.... (Hugo's signature)

That should probably read challenges!! It's a reference to this, this also being the reason why I'm not going to run for any BERC election.

Fingers and toes crossed the engineering gods don't play havoc with you next weekend!

Elsie wrote:Fingers and toes crossed the engineering gods don't play havoc with you next weekend!

I believe Tangy has checked (and I have as well) on here and here and here. Nothing is closed, though some stations (e.g. Paddington, St. Johns) are somewhat harder to tick off.

Attending; GU, RJSRdg, michael_churchill, The Orange One, xcooler123, crypto, DrainBrain
parkrun (Roding Valley); GU, DrainBrain
Spoons (The Last Post, Loughton) GU, DrainBrain

DrainBrain wrote:parkrun (Roding Valley); GU, DrainBrain
Spoons (The Last Post, Loughton) GU, DrainBrain

Hoorah wont be on my own for brekkie

Going Underground wrote:

DrainBrain wrote:parkrun (Roding Valley); GU, DrainBrain
Spoons (The Last Post, Loughton) GU, DrainBrain

Hoorah wont be on my own for brekkie

Last Saturday was my first parkrun in ages. It's quite possible I'll be with you for the whole parkrun too - assuming I can keep up.

DrainBrain wrote:

Going Underground wrote:

DrainBrain wrote:parkrun (Roding Valley); GU, DrainBrain
Spoons (The Last Post, Loughton) GU, DrainBrain

Hoorah wont be on my own for brekkie

Last Saturday was my first parkrun in ages. It's quite possible I'll be with you for the whole parkrun too - assuming I can keep up.

Well I did the full monty over Christmas had a fair old cold and crap on my chest and on some tricky courses so my time have been in the 34,35,36 minute range... My money is still on you

I'm not surprised you got a cold if you did the 'Full Monty' over Christmas!

Attending; GU, RJSRdg, michael_churchill, The Orange One, xcooler123, crypto, DrainBrain, alexmcmotor +1
parkrun (Roding Valley); GU, DrainBrain
Spoons (The Last Post, Loughton) GU, DrainBrain

Also, if anyone fancies an early meet-up that isn't in Loughton, my friend & I will be sat having brunch in the Blackbird pub, directly across the road from Earl's Court from 11-11:15 onwards. Feel free to join us if you recognise me!

Good luck to all of you taking part today!

I'd like to do one of these but I have an anti HS2 meeting at 11 (it's planned to smash through my village & we've already lost 30% of the house value), Notts County vs Mansfield at 1pm (always a good rivalry) and my team, Leicester City playing Chelski at 5.30. Busy day!

Rather a disaster for me I'm afraid.

I ran down on to the platform at Earl's Court intending to use the spiral staircase down to the Piccadilly Line. Wrong platform! So a quick sprint along and down the other set of steps. Nice run up to Covent Garden, back to Leicester Square and on to the Northern Line where I met up with Alex and Cat. Down through Charing Cross and Embankment to Kenningon, then changed to another train for Oval and on to Clapham North. All going well so far - 4 stations (not counting Earl's Court) in 33 minutes. Round to Clapham High Street where things started to go downhill. Next train 16 minutes! So Alex, Cat and I chose instead to walk/run to Wandsworth Road. Next Eastbound train 15 minutes - in which time of course, the westbound train we didn't wait for at Clapham High Street arrived. The other Richard got off and joined us there, staying with us round through Peckham High Street to Whitechapel then on to Stepney Green, where he presumably carried on to Mile End. Alex, Cat and I doubled back to Whitechapel with the intention of heading to Bethnal Green (LO) on foot. The footpath in the obvious direction was closed so some messing about was needed to get to Bethnal Green where we met Andrew C but disaster really struck as I discovered I had lost my wallet (including my Travelcard and £50 I'd taken out of the cashpoint this morning!)/ been pickpocketed somewhere after exiting the barriers at Whitechapel. I doubled back there and was quite surprised to find Andrew there again! No sign of the wallet, he and I both headed back to BG, where he purchased me a new Travelcard (thanks, Andrew!) and I rang the bank to cancel my cards while we waited almost another 15 minutes for the next stopper to Hackney. Over the footbridge to the other Hackney, then round to Camden Road, Camden, Archway. My original intention was to catch the Thameslink from Kentish Town, but Andrew advised that we'd just missed one, so we went via Euston and Oxford Circus to Baker Street, up the Jubilee to Kilburn, got slightly lost on the way to Brondesbury and finished at Brondesbury Park in 4:06:20, which wasn't enough to get us in the points. Had it not been for my incident with the wallet, we would probably have both finished joint 6th with Alex and Cat.

So not the most enjoyable challenge I've ever done but big shout out to Andrew for effectively ruining his own challenge to (unsuccessfully) help me find my wallet and for buying my ticket home. Thanks, mate!

Glad you managed to get home Richard. Sounds like an awful situation to be in

It was an interesting challenge. No national rail stations, but a few overground stations to add some flavour.

I started with (seemingly) everyone else by heading to West Brompton, then took the approaching northbound Overground to Brondesbury. Hugo and I managed to get a train up at Kilburn, and I left him at Baker Street to head down to Embankment. Up to Archway [via Leicester Square and KXSP for Covent Garden] (abrupt substitute for Upper Holloway, which was closed), then back down to run from Camden Town to Road.

Looking at timings, I was facing a ten to fifteen minute wait at Hackney Central, so I bailed to catch a well timed Northern City Line train from Highbury and Islington to Moorgate (worth it for all the 70s novelty). It didn't look like the subsurface lines at Liverpool St were playing ball, so opted to do London Fields and Cambridge Heath now and loop around via Canonbury and Whitechapel to grab Stepney Green.

From Whitechapel, it was a long slog around the southern Overground circular. I didn't realise quite how slowly it crawls around this line, but there wasn't much alternative at this point. I checked the run from Wandsworth Road to Clapham North and realised that, one: it was short and worth doing over the reverse Overground; and two: there was a much easier route I could've gone for ending at Archway. Platform to platform was six minutes, and I ended the whole thing at Oval. 3:21:00 was enough for fifth, which, given the number of entries, was a very good result.

See you for the next R15.

Presumably you went up from Embankment to Leicester Square, then King's Cross and on up to Archway from there, in order to get Covent Garden in.