Zone 1 Race Report - Part 2, Monument to Oxford Circus

...when we left Tom and Ewan, they had caught a District Line train at the first attempt, and were making their way towards a "between stations" over-ground run at Aldgate East... We're all getting ready for the sprint from Aldgate East to Aldgate, made all the more intersting by being able to point out the window while saying to the camera "That's where we need to be" as Aldgate slips past us and we continue on the District. Nicely placed in the rear coach, the doors slide open (and we might have helped them a little bit...) It's the first encounter with some ticket barriers, and the RFID enabled Oyster Cards help immensly. We've all taken a wrong turning at the exit, so we've got a busy 'A' road to cross as well as get to the station. Adham is naturally away like greased lightning, managing to catch the first train out from Aldgate. Steve is next, being a Marathon runner, and takes a second train, while Tom and I are not at optimal running fitness (we're unfit, overweight and know it), so limp onto the platfrom in third place, taking the third train (we discovered the gaps later at the pub). Thankfully, all the trains are Circle line trains, and we know we'll need a Hammersmith train to make both our Paddington stops (Paddington is counted as two stations in the Zone One race, as is Edgware Road). Trailing behind us, Mike and his BBC Camera need us to hold the doors open as he spills into the carriage... only to find out we've crashed a Pub Crawl that's visting the nearest pub to every station on the Circle Line. Now that's one way of doing a race... One of my biggest worries as we went round the Elephant and Castle Loop was that both Adham and Steve would have the same route as us, but because they could run faster, they'd get one train ahead of us at some point in the route and beat us by 3 or 4 minutes. After some gentle quizzing, Steve let us know he was getting of the Circle lin at Liverpool Street to hit the Central Line, and Adham was changing at King's Cross. So I could rest easy on that point. If you're watching that map up there, you'll see that there's a little stutter at Moorgate. That served two purposes. It allowed us to move one train back, and get the Hammersmith train we needed, plus it allowed us a chance for some "TV Trickery" so that Mike could get some footage of us running along a platform, just missing a train, and collapsing in dismay. Which, in response to "How are you feeling" led me to the classic family TV friendly phrase "Oh Fiddlesticks and Fudge." The re-take had the more succient "gutted." There was just time for another of my 'pieces to camera' before Mike had to leave us to go on his long weekend break. Before he left, i asked if we could get a copy of the raw video and audio he'd taped, as well as a copy of the News Report so I could post some clips at my blog. He said yes, so once I get these from him and do some polishing and snipping, expect some clips. Prolly at the end of the month when I get the new PC. It doesn't look it on the map, but we were getting pysced up for the longest run of the day (but not the most important, that would be at Bank much later). As we passed through Edgware Road (Hammersmith) to approach Paddington (Hammersmith), we knew we'd be coming back the same way, but on a deep level line to mark Paddington (Circle) and Edgware Road (Circle) off our Station count. Tom asked "how evil" the run at Paddington was going to be, only to hear the reply "Don't ask" from myself, as I've made this run a few times before in real life - just never in competition. As we went across the concourse at Paddington, we wave at Jody and Mark going the othere way. But no time to waste, wouldn't want to miss our train on the Bakerloo line. Fiddlesticks and Fudge. For real this time. Yes, we just missed the Bakerloo train that was sitting in the platform. So maybe 2-3 minutes of lost time here, and probably the first 'lost' time during the day. I wasn; a particularly happy bunny at this, but given that some of the other teams were waiting up to ten minutes for their connection into Paddington, in retrospect we had a good few trains in this corner of the map. Now Tom and I have 4 or 5 stops to recover as we make our way down to the Central Line at Oxford Circus, and I get a chance to snap some pictures. I'm really missing having the MP3 recorder from the BBC round my neck as I've been chatting into it since we left Vauxhall. Memo to self, if I ever do the Full Map, then wire myself up with a minidisc or two to record everything. So it's into Oxford Circus, and a bit of a dash to get to the Central Line, with some stairs up and down, and then (typically) a little wait on a train. What's great about this train is I'm damm sure that the 6 foot 5 lanky bugger with a pale blue T-Shirt running off the train 3 coaches down is Geoff... this is confirmed later in the pub. So we're on track, and maybe only five minutes down. About now I'm starting to think a sub 3 hour time is going to be possible. Now for the western Central Line, and out to Earl's Court...

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