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There was a second solve just before but I've screwed during LL and had to fix it: 12:xx but it would be around 8. Mega is from SS - not best but I loosed it and it turns good. It need to break and lube.
 
So practice time for Exeter is over, and tomorrow I travel. My 4x4 is plateaued at a fairly consistent 1:10-11, which is OK. Not too pleased with my 4BLD progress though - from a string of 8-9.xx solves a couple of weeks ago, I'm now back at consistently 10-11.xx. Don't know what went wrong there. And those are the only events I've practised. Still, any 4BLD success & PB would be worth 550 miles of driving, wouldn't it? ;)

Here's my PB from a couple of weeks back:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nwg4GkKeqc

Nice solve and I am sure you will get your times back soon. Safe travels and I look forward to seeing you tomorrow :)

@Mark, Nice solve and reaction. Good luck! You got a very long road to drive.

My bld times are down too. I think it's due to I couldnt practice last week. I havent done ao100 for two weeks.

@Chris, I've seen your 5x5 ao5 - it's very nice, no pauses. I wonder how you do tredges after the cross. I used to use Uw R U R' F R' F' Uw and its variations to connect wings and midges but Im not happy with it. It looks like you do something else. I watched unboxing of megaminx and it's very nice. Maybe I'll do few solves? :)

On the 5x5 average I timed for the WC? Thanks but it pure redux, not Yau or Hoya even though I tend to match up the blue tredges first. I use reduction for 5+ but looking to change to Yau for 5 and 6 after the comp this weekend. My edge flip alg is R U R' F R' F' R though as its the same I use for 4x4 where I have to preserve cross (Yau) :)

First timed mega solve since I dont remember: 9:09.35.

More mega in the thread, awesome :D
 
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Today I remembered that when I was young I was able to hold my breath for 2:30 or 2:45. I've tried and got to almost 2 minutes, so I thought "that should be enough to solve the cube (including the time scrambling it) 2 times"... but no, I gave up after 1:30 and 1 cube and a first block solved. I'll try when I can solve (and scramble) it faster or I'm better at holding my breath.
 
Today I remembered that when I was young I was able to hold my breath for 2:30 or 2:45. I've tried and got to almost 2 minutes, so I thought "that should be enough to solve the cube (including the time scrambling it) 2 times"... but no, I gave up after 1:30 and 1 cube and a first block solved. I'll try when I can solve (and scramble) it faster or I'm better at holding my breath.

Hehehe, I have thought of that myself while watching Kevin Hays Guinness WR video. Maybe this summer I will take my old rubiks cube to the swimming pool and try that :)
 
Today I remembered that when I was young I was able to hold my breath for 2:30 or 2:45. I've tried and got to almost 2 minutes, so I thought "that should be enough to solve the cube (including the time scrambling it) 2 times"... but no, I gave up after 1:30 and 1 cube and a first block solved. I'll try when I can solve (and scramble) it faster or I'm better at holding my breath.

I've done a cube underwater on my last 2 holidays and 2 in a dry land breath hold. It gets tricky when panic sets in.
 
Just reviewing what I wrote 2 weeks ago and how it turned out:

My plan for both the Exeter and London comps:
2x2: I don't practice 2x2 at all and don't even know all the OLL cases of the basic method. It's just something I may as well enter.
3x3: Regular Ao25 solves, aiming to do a few hundred solves per week (outside of commuting, where I probably do several hundred more too.)
4x4: Not much practice at all. I'm comfortably within the Hard Cut but a long way from the Average Cut, so working much more on 5x5.
5x5: Lots of practice, hopefully get in 100+ solves a week (which for me is many hours) in the hope of beating the Hard Cut and registering a time.
Clock: I'll probably do a fair bit of this in the final week, just to firm up my solving process and try to register a full Ao5 at the comp.

2x2: stuck with my plans and barely picked it up. Can't even do an anti-Sune on this without messing up.
3x3: started on the Race to sub-25. This will probably be a long process. I had this scramble earlier: D2 R2 F U2 D' B D2 U R L2 B2 F U R2 L B R' F' L' R D' F' D' F' R. Never seen a scramble like that so I spent so long looking at the cross in disbelief during inspection that I timed out. :(
4x4: done way more than I expected to. I won't make the Average Cut tomorrow but I've made some big improvements. The Cyclone Boyz is working well for me although my solving style on 4x4 has somehow changed into a 5x5 method.
5x5: my variance is really high and I get solves anywhere from 4m to 5.45m. Hopeful of logging a time at the comp but realistically I've only got 2 attempts.
Clock: not been picking this up regularly and am showing some rust. Might be able to get a sub-30s solve on Sunday.

I've also been fiddling with 3BLD a bit more. Thinking of learning Speffz as I'm using Colours at the moment which is OK for edges but tricky with corners. Enjoyed using "YGgdrasil" from Norse mythology for Yellow-Green though, made me chuckle when it occurred to me! I'm still a long way from a successful blind-solve. Targetting end of the year.

For those going to the Exeter Open, I'll be at the comp Sat AM and most of Sunday. Have made some plans to meet a pal in the vicinity on Sat PM as I don't see me making the 2nd round of 2x2 or 4x4. Looking forward to the weekend. Should be fun!
 
@Mark: I haven't had time to watch your solve. Nice!!!

@All competing at Exeter: Good luck y'all. Please, bring home lots of PBs for the oldies!!!!

@Andy: Nice scramble!!!! :)

@Grzegorz: Nice to have you also into Mega. The more the merrier.

Kind of left the Mega race on the side and have not done a single solve during the week until this weekly comp scrambles. Currently my PB Ao5 is 3:35.xx and PB Ao12 is 3:43.xx, still a bit far from sub 3:30. I reached the 100th solve milestone since we started some weeks ago the race to sub-5 and then to sub-4. PB Ao50 is now sub-4!!! (3:58) and Ao100 is 4:19 but, of course, there are lots of sup-5 solves at the beginning :)
 
@Grzegorz: Nice to have you also into Mega. The more the merrier.

I've made 5 solves so far. Minx is quite intresting puzzle and it seems to me one can easily improve to sub-5. Solving with comms made me back to LBL on 3x3 - it seems so funny. I've starte even permute edges with simplest edge comm [M', U2] to not use sunes. Just for fun.
 
For those going to the Exeter Open, I'll be at the comp Sat AM and most of Sunday. Have made some plans to meet a pal in the vicinity on Sat PM as I don't see me making the 2nd round of 2x2 or 4x4. Looking forward to the weekend. Should be fun!
@All competing at Exeter: Good luck y'all. Please, bring home lots of PBs for the oldies!!!!

@Andy - I'll get there with my wife and kids about 8:30 tomorrow morning though they are going shopping in Exeter for the day. On Sunday I will be coming on my own as my wife has a degree assignment to write. Closest comp ever to where I live, just 25 miles :)

@Miguel - Thanks. Hoping for PBs in most stuff apart from OH as my hands have aged a lot in the last few years and I find it very difficult to OH despite getting down to sub 40 4 years ago, I barely scrape 50 now.

So anyone else attending apart from Andy, Mark and I? :)
 
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I'm thinking about starting a fund for the next world championship. There's a decent chance that it will be in Europe so I wouldn't have to go too far and worse case scenario is that I end up with some spare cash.

That's a good idea! We should all start a fund for the next worlds. Then we can pool some of those funds for accommodations.. and beer. We shall call it the moldy oldie fund! Lol
 
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