Re: Full network attempt(s) in 2011
Posted: 22 Apr 2011, 16:53
As promised, more detail on my attempt.
The key facts from this challenge were that I started at 0519 and finished at 2309 for an overall time of 17h50m19s.
I'm fairly coy about disclosing too many details about my route, except that I expect that most people will have worked out that I was traditional, by starting at Chesham and finishing at Heathrow T5.
Going into this, I was worried about the state of my calf, the cold I had picked up, whether I could keep going all day, and whether my assumptions were realistic. As it turned out, I had one unexpected big problem all day. I know that some people take Imodium before challenges, but not normally suffering in that department, I didn't consider it. However, throughout the day I was suffering with bowel problems. At first, I thought it was just a little bit of first full network nerves, but they got progressively worse as the day wore on. Consequently, I had to make six unplanned emergency 'pit stops' (amazingly I think only one of which cost me significant time), and had two embarrassing 'incidents' of which I will spare you the details. In retrospect, I'm amazed I carried on – but in the first half everything else was going so well and by the second half I thought I would achieve my objective of completing. You probably didn’t want to know as much as I've said already about this, so I'll try not to mention it again. Despite this ongoing problem, I really enjoyed the day.
As mentioned, my primary objective yesterday was to complete, and test out everything I had planned. It's no great secret that starting an hour and a half later than I did, you would only be an hour behind after the first two changes. So any time achieved yesterday, ought in theory to be done half an hour quicker with a later start (and also I've identified a quicker finish, which surprisingly only works later). I was very pleased with how I had approached route planning. My 'core' route does certain sectors in a particular order which I believe to be optimal, but the order can be swapped round with only slight loss of time if there are problems on lines at certain times. Within any given configuration, I've then got another set of dynamic rules dependent on where you are at what time which try to set up minimal wasted time for doing the bugbears of Olympia, MHE and the Hainault loop. I also have a master spreadsheet, which in condensed printed form identifies which connections have significant knock-on consequences if they not made and those which are probably not worth busting a gut over. Other than this, I'm not going to say any more about my route other than as reported in my Tweets that after the NW start, I went East, then South and then North. Finally, after sweeping up a few loose ends, finished off with the Richmond and Heathrow branches, which seemed to take forever.
The good points from yesterday and things that worked well:
- My assumptions are realistic and the rules I use do seem to work under stressful conditions. I didn't have to wait more than two or three minutes for a train to each of the three 'difficult' sections mentioned above.
- Even though I'm not supposed to run at all these days due a knee injury made worse by a botched operation, as an ex-Marathon runner, I discovered that I've still got the stamina to keep going all day if required.
- In the first half of the day, everything working better than I could have hoped. I've even made a couple of 'negative time' interchanges, including the Olympia train. At one stage, things were going so well, that I was worried that people would think that my Tweets were a spoof by a deluded fantacist.
- My wife and son coming to find me early evening. Without their support, and replenishing my water supplies, I think I might have struggled.
- My decision to try Maundy Thursday on the basis that the morning and early evening peak would be less horrendous than usual, due to some commuters not working, appeared to be correct.
- Even though the network started falling over again late afternoon (both Northern and Jubilee lines suspended), I managed to escape fairly lightly.
The bad points and lessons to be learned:
- Take less food, but more water. As water is heavy, plan where you can top up if you have no support – many platform-level kiosks are closed by the evening.
- Keep all your records in one notebook, not three like I did (one for logging, one with all other key information, plus my spreadsheet printout). I was forever losing the relevant one in the depths of my rucksack when I needed it. Also, I need to be more punctilious about logging train numbers – it still isn't an automatic habit yet.
- Don't rely on C2C for a comfort break. The automatic door on the toilet on the train I caught was jammed wide open. I think I shocked fellow passengers by still using it for a pee, but I dared not use it for what I really wanted to do.
- When the Northern Line High Barnet branch went down, I only had Angel and Old Street on the Northern Line still to do. I could have easily re-jigged and left them till later, but decided not to as it would probably have scuppered my rendezvous with my wife and son, and I didn't think that bit of the City branch would be affected. In the event, after sailing through the first station, I then wasted ten minutes being held at signals because of a backlog of trains.
- Having escaped from the Northern Line, I then lost a further 10 minutes on the very next line because of a passenger alarm being pulled on the train in front of ours.
- After leaving my wife and son, the train I was supposed to connect to in the WTT simply failed to appear – this cost me another ten minutes, which I predicted would become 20 minutes because of the knock on consequences.
- I tried to remedy this by deciding to push myself late in the day on a couple of runs, only on both occasions to be thwarted by trains leaving early.
- Don't take anything on trust. At Wimbledon there was a sign saying that the next train indicators were showing incorrect information, and advising asking a member of staff. I did, and was also given wrong information. This appeared to ruin my chance of making a carefully planned connection with the Olympia service, but thankfully saved by the next District running early and the Olympia train being a few minutes late.
- Don't run down alleyways in the dark. On one of my final runs I cut down an alleyway halfway along which were a couple of Asian youths. I think I must have scared them, as they appeared to pull knives, but then hastily put them away when they realised I wasn't likely to attack them. A nasty moment, which left me shaken.
- Avoid fat people. At one of my central area changes, I got up from my seat a station in advance to get to the correct door position, only for an enormously fat guy who was standing near it to move into the door frame completely blocking it. When the train pulled into the station he took one step off the train onto the platform, and then didn't move. Complete mayhem, while I tried to get round him, and the crowd tried to get on the train.
In conclusion, I think I've learned a lot and will want to try again soon with a later start time. On the basis of yesterday, I also now firmly believe that the current record, although certainly very difficult, is not impossible to beat.
The key facts from this challenge were that I started at 0519 and finished at 2309 for an overall time of 17h50m19s.
I'm fairly coy about disclosing too many details about my route, except that I expect that most people will have worked out that I was traditional, by starting at Chesham and finishing at Heathrow T5.
Going into this, I was worried about the state of my calf, the cold I had picked up, whether I could keep going all day, and whether my assumptions were realistic. As it turned out, I had one unexpected big problem all day. I know that some people take Imodium before challenges, but not normally suffering in that department, I didn't consider it. However, throughout the day I was suffering with bowel problems. At first, I thought it was just a little bit of first full network nerves, but they got progressively worse as the day wore on. Consequently, I had to make six unplanned emergency 'pit stops' (amazingly I think only one of which cost me significant time), and had two embarrassing 'incidents' of which I will spare you the details. In retrospect, I'm amazed I carried on – but in the first half everything else was going so well and by the second half I thought I would achieve my objective of completing. You probably didn’t want to know as much as I've said already about this, so I'll try not to mention it again. Despite this ongoing problem, I really enjoyed the day.
As mentioned, my primary objective yesterday was to complete, and test out everything I had planned. It's no great secret that starting an hour and a half later than I did, you would only be an hour behind after the first two changes. So any time achieved yesterday, ought in theory to be done half an hour quicker with a later start (and also I've identified a quicker finish, which surprisingly only works later). I was very pleased with how I had approached route planning. My 'core' route does certain sectors in a particular order which I believe to be optimal, but the order can be swapped round with only slight loss of time if there are problems on lines at certain times. Within any given configuration, I've then got another set of dynamic rules dependent on where you are at what time which try to set up minimal wasted time for doing the bugbears of Olympia, MHE and the Hainault loop. I also have a master spreadsheet, which in condensed printed form identifies which connections have significant knock-on consequences if they not made and those which are probably not worth busting a gut over. Other than this, I'm not going to say any more about my route other than as reported in my Tweets that after the NW start, I went East, then South and then North. Finally, after sweeping up a few loose ends, finished off with the Richmond and Heathrow branches, which seemed to take forever.
The good points from yesterday and things that worked well:
- My assumptions are realistic and the rules I use do seem to work under stressful conditions. I didn't have to wait more than two or three minutes for a train to each of the three 'difficult' sections mentioned above.
- Even though I'm not supposed to run at all these days due a knee injury made worse by a botched operation, as an ex-Marathon runner, I discovered that I've still got the stamina to keep going all day if required.
- In the first half of the day, everything working better than I could have hoped. I've even made a couple of 'negative time' interchanges, including the Olympia train. At one stage, things were going so well, that I was worried that people would think that my Tweets were a spoof by a deluded fantacist.
- My wife and son coming to find me early evening. Without their support, and replenishing my water supplies, I think I might have struggled.
- My decision to try Maundy Thursday on the basis that the morning and early evening peak would be less horrendous than usual, due to some commuters not working, appeared to be correct.
- Even though the network started falling over again late afternoon (both Northern and Jubilee lines suspended), I managed to escape fairly lightly.
The bad points and lessons to be learned:
- Take less food, but more water. As water is heavy, plan where you can top up if you have no support – many platform-level kiosks are closed by the evening.
- Keep all your records in one notebook, not three like I did (one for logging, one with all other key information, plus my spreadsheet printout). I was forever losing the relevant one in the depths of my rucksack when I needed it. Also, I need to be more punctilious about logging train numbers – it still isn't an automatic habit yet.
- Don't rely on C2C for a comfort break. The automatic door on the toilet on the train I caught was jammed wide open. I think I shocked fellow passengers by still using it for a pee, but I dared not use it for what I really wanted to do.
- When the Northern Line High Barnet branch went down, I only had Angel and Old Street on the Northern Line still to do. I could have easily re-jigged and left them till later, but decided not to as it would probably have scuppered my rendezvous with my wife and son, and I didn't think that bit of the City branch would be affected. In the event, after sailing through the first station, I then wasted ten minutes being held at signals because of a backlog of trains.
- Having escaped from the Northern Line, I then lost a further 10 minutes on the very next line because of a passenger alarm being pulled on the train in front of ours.
- After leaving my wife and son, the train I was supposed to connect to in the WTT simply failed to appear – this cost me another ten minutes, which I predicted would become 20 minutes because of the knock on consequences.
- I tried to remedy this by deciding to push myself late in the day on a couple of runs, only on both occasions to be thwarted by trains leaving early.
- Don't take anything on trust. At Wimbledon there was a sign saying that the next train indicators were showing incorrect information, and advising asking a member of staff. I did, and was also given wrong information. This appeared to ruin my chance of making a carefully planned connection with the Olympia service, but thankfully saved by the next District running early and the Olympia train being a few minutes late.
- Don't run down alleyways in the dark. On one of my final runs I cut down an alleyway halfway along which were a couple of Asian youths. I think I must have scared them, as they appeared to pull knives, but then hastily put them away when they realised I wasn't likely to attack them. A nasty moment, which left me shaken.
- Avoid fat people. At one of my central area changes, I got up from my seat a station in advance to get to the correct door position, only for an enormously fat guy who was standing near it to move into the door frame completely blocking it. When the train pulled into the station he took one step off the train onto the platform, and then didn't move. Complete mayhem, while I tried to get round him, and the crowd tried to get on the train.
In conclusion, I think I've learned a lot and will want to try again soon with a later start time. On the basis of yesterday, I also now firmly believe that the current record, although certainly very difficult, is not impossible to beat.