Christmas Park Challenge day II (Eve unplanned 15 POSTPONED)

[A2]

Willesden Green
Paddington (H+C)
Ladbroke Grove
Hammersmith (D+P)
West Brompton
High St Ken
Green Park
Oxford Circus
Embankment
Lambeth North
Old St
Bethnal Green
Mile End
Stepney Green
Shadwell

I think even I could have knocked up a half decent route for that lot. Blimey.

[Starkey7]

That list of stations is great, but for the fact that I can't seem to involve any crazy two-mile runs in it anywhere! Old Street to Liverpool Street might help...

[tpfkar]

About to head off for Woodside Park.

Should be there at 10:30, see y'all later.

Have one bit of incredible slickness planned

[jamesthegill]

On behalf of myself and the other fellow Subways members, I'd like to apologise if we delayed anyone's start at this today. Owing to the fact that we partook in some Christmas spirits last night, none of us felt much like doing anything today. I forgot to let anyone know about this, hence being woken up at about 11ish this morning by a frantic "where are you" call. Once again, I'm sorry that we didn't tell anybody sooner.

Hope you had fun anyway

[Soup Dragon]

James, I'm sure they will all forgive you, as long as you turn buy them all a pint at Kew Gardens tomorrow for the ELL closure day challenges.

I spoke to Ric & Starkey at just after 7 0'clock this evening and they were still on the go. It sounds like they had quite a difficult day with lots of problems to report.

Lets hope tomorrow is better service for the few challenges planned.

[tpfkar]

Just got back to MK after the challenge - the fog was out in force so quite glad to be back.

Also glad to now be clear of the tube for another year - as Soupdragon hinted earlier, we didn't exactly have a great run, and I continued my miserable record of slow times whenever doing a challenge as part of a team (I've usually done OK on my own!) - bet Starkey wished that he stuck with the plan to use his route now...

Not much to say really, just lots and lots of slow connections. The slick bit I mentioned earlier was to pass through Green Park to Hyde Park Corner, then run out of HPC taking the photo, run *past* Green Park to get the picture, and into St James Park, to get three photos at once. Getting into SJP, we just missed a Wimbledon train by 20s or so - and it was probably worth 40 mins given the delays we endured on the District/Picc lines. Just the 24 mins wait at Ealing Common to get to Park Royal this time - still an improvement on last year!

Big delays on Hammersmith & City also, we got to the platform, then went shopping when we heard how long it would be. And not a lot of great connections. We met Kev & the Doctor at Leytonstone, and raced with them to Newbury Park. They wouldn't tell us if they had finished, and we headed into town together, where we ended up taking a bus to Plaistow to finish at Elm Park; in fact the final stretch on the district was one of the few that worked well.

I wasn't happy with the start station either; it meant lots of travelling between park stations in North London which could have been avoided. But it was a pretty poor run, clocking in at 8h 38m 1s.

We got back to the pub, and discovered to little surprise that we had been thrashed, but I'll leave them to describe the victory in more detail.

It's a great challenge, very different from most of the others we do, and a real shame more people couldn't make it.

Comedy moment of the day: Heading into Wimbledon Park, Starkey was eating a sandwich, so had to gather his belongings together quickly. He started to panic about where his watch was, as I didn't have one. It wasn't in his pockets, his jacket, his bag, his bag pockets, or on the seat. Just as the train pulled into the station, I asked if it was the watch on his wrist he was looking for

[Going Underground]

Oops, having already done my write up for the fun 'n' games of the ELL closure I had forgotten about the Park Challenge the previous day...

So just 2 x teams (as The Subways were still in bed following a heavy party session the previous night/same morning )

Ric & Starkey decided to join forces and span up for route choice, this came down in favour of John...

We set off from Woodside Park only approx 16 mins later than I had initially planned and both teams went their seperate ways at Belsize Park, Jamie and I heading North to Edgware......

Things went pretty well until a slow bus from Kilburn Park Westbourne Park follows by a 12 minute wait for an H & C

Neither of us enjoyed the run from Ladbroke Grove Holland Park, slightly uphill in places and painfully long

Still things really picked up from there, the best piece of fortune being a sparkling District Line train straight out of the Acton Town depot smelling of disinfectant.....(makes a pleasant change from the ususal aromas)... So out at Chiswick Park and then straight back onto our next District Line train within 2 mins

We just made a Wimbledon train at Earls Court and had an excellent double back at Wimbledon Park......

Central London went like clockwork, although if we had waited 30 seconds we could have jumped on a route 9 routemaster instead of running Green Park HPK......
We ran from Regents Park Great Portland Street where just like Saturday at South Wimbledon I had ticket trouble
Jamie held the doors and I just managed to squeeze in.....

After completing Finsbury Park we only had Elm, Upton & Newbury to go and depending on the NR timings we had various otpions....the best of these being the good old Goblin, which we took from Blackhorse Road all the way to Barking (passing through two additional "Park" stations which we didn't exit to photo ) rather than running Leytonstone High Road Leytonstone and doing a Newbury Park double back.....

Upto Elm Park we just missed a train heading westbound and spent a few minutes here in the now freezing fog & mist......
Upton Park went like a dream with an H & C 2 mins behind the District we jumped off to take our photo.....

Surprise, surprise we run into Ric & Starkey at Leytonstone and it seems they have more than just Newbury Park to do.....
So we didn't let on that Newbury Park was our last station which lead to the 2 comedy moments of the day.
1) We frantically run out of Newbury Park and straight back down again, they didn't know I had stopped the watch hidden in my pocket.
2) Heading Westbound there were still announcements of Central Line delays and Ric decides they should exit the station and find a different route across to the district line.... We act shocked and say what is there a bus we can catch or something?
So off they dash still not aware that we had long finished...

We had time to grab McD's and a couple of beers in the pub before Ric & Starkey show up (although they did have fish 'n' chips at Elm Park)..

Our finishing time being a most pleasing 7hrs 25mins 07 secs

Thanks to Ric and John for a most enjoyable day and lets see what station we can conjure up to start from in 2008