A tale of two record attempts
Posted: 18 Apr 2005, 23:51
Had nothing better to do last Wednesday than run around the Tube all day and try and get my name in the record books.
Decided to go for the alphabet challenge as I have a new start to my route that I don't think anyone else has come up with before. If everything went perfectly I was scheduled to take 4h58m.
Unfortunately although the first few letters went very well the Met decided to collapse. We crawled all the way to Harrow-on-the-Hill on a Watford train and I had to wait 15 mins for the next Uxbridge. I was 25mins down by the time I reached Ickenham and as I had just missed the train back to London I decided there was not much point in carrying on.
I am not going to reveal my route or even where I started because I reckon the record is very much breakable and I intend to have another attempt soon.
At this point it was still only 1200 so I decided to try for a different record. I headed off to Aldgate to try for the Circle line "bottle" challenge. Despite warnings of "severe delays" on the Bakerloo line I didn't have any awful changes although I didn't have too many great ones either. Nevertheless I arrived at Queensway in a NEW RECORD of 2hrs 9min 44sec. I reckon though a sub 2hr time is possible with better changes and someone who can run faster than me.
Route (credit goes to Hakan for coming up with this)
Aldgate 13:14:20
Edgware Road (Cir) 13:57:40 run
Edgware Road (Bak) run 13:59:37
Regents Park 14:03:40 run
Great Portland Street run 14:09:32
Liverpool Street 14:21:00 14:23:55
Holborn 14:30:20 14:32:34
Russell Square 14:33:51 14:36:09
Knightsbridge 14:46:20 14:47:48
Piccadilly Circus 14:53:14 14:57:28
Charing Cross 14:58:44 15:03:25
Warren Street 15:09:05 15:12:57
Oxford Circus 15:14:21 15:18:02
Queensway 15:24:04
Decided to go for the alphabet challenge as I have a new start to my route that I don't think anyone else has come up with before. If everything went perfectly I was scheduled to take 4h58m.
Unfortunately although the first few letters went very well the Met decided to collapse. We crawled all the way to Harrow-on-the-Hill on a Watford train and I had to wait 15 mins for the next Uxbridge. I was 25mins down by the time I reached Ickenham and as I had just missed the train back to London I decided there was not much point in carrying on.
I am not going to reveal my route or even where I started because I reckon the record is very much breakable and I intend to have another attempt soon.
At this point it was still only 1200 so I decided to try for a different record. I headed off to Aldgate to try for the Circle line "bottle" challenge. Despite warnings of "severe delays" on the Bakerloo line I didn't have any awful changes although I didn't have too many great ones either. Nevertheless I arrived at Queensway in a NEW RECORD of 2hrs 9min 44sec. I reckon though a sub 2hr time is possible with better changes and someone who can run faster than me.
Route (credit goes to Hakan for coming up with this)
Aldgate 13:14:20
Edgware Road (Cir) 13:57:40 run
Edgware Road (Bak) run 13:59:37
Regents Park 14:03:40 run
Great Portland Street run 14:09:32
Liverpool Street 14:21:00 14:23:55
Holborn 14:30:20 14:32:34
Russell Square 14:33:51 14:36:09
Knightsbridge 14:46:20 14:47:48
Piccadilly Circus 14:53:14 14:57:28
Charing Cross 14:58:44 15:03:25
Warren Street 15:09:05 15:12:57
Oxford Circus 15:14:21 15:18:02
Queensway 15:24:04
