Nearly 3 years of playing the game. 16,207 attempts in total. Countless hours of attempts and practice. Dozens of sub 3s and eight runs in the 2:4x range. 15 runs on sub 2:45 pace into level 11. And many, many attempt sessions that went nowhere. At long last, it's done. Red Ball 1 in 2 minutes, 43 seconds, and 226 milliseconds.

This run is nothing short of phenomenal. There are only two mistakes in the whole run, that being a missed Resetless 4 and a missed jump to the flag in 5, which combined cost about two and a half seconds. Apart from those two errors, I executed the run near flawlessly for the strats I do, and I even managed to execute the difficult compound jump strategy in 12, coined "3x Choker" for its ability to kill runs on 2:3x pace entering the level, at the end of the run under immense pressure, saving an additional second and a half over the route I normally do.

There were many times during this latest low 4x grind where I doubted my consistency and ability to perform a run that I would be truly satisfied with, especially when it came to level 11, the train level. Frame-based setups are notoriously difficult in that level for a variety of reasons, and it has become a dreaded run killer for a lot of people. Some people have dozens of runs into the train before they are able to get the run they want, and I have been no exception. Interestingly enough, train has become less and less of a mental barrier with each grind I've done, and in this latest grind, I was able to get several 2:4xs that were either too slow to realistically PB or didn't hit the fastest variant of the strategy I was going for. Any run that makes it past train on pace is often a rare opportunity, a chance to close out a grind that may have been frustrating you for weeks or even months on end.

Other levels were problems as well, such as 7, 8, and 9, which are either levels with weird/difficult frame perfects or, in the case of 8, a level that can screw you over with no mercy. However, with all of these levels, I knew it was just a matter of consistency, and with tons of practice, I was able to get that high enough to get a low 2:4x. In the case of level 10, a previously difficult level due to the nature of the setup, I got a major boost in consistency thanks to a strategy that Starline developed, where you could set the repeat rate of your keyboard to a level that made 8 frame releases far easier and more consistent, though it still isn't quite 100% due to a variety of factors that I can't really explain. With this, 10 became a lot more consistent, which definitely allowed me to get runs on low 4x pace with more regularity.

Two days before this PB, I achieved a 2:46.065 that hit everything in 1-11 but missed the 12 compound jump setup and then proceeded to miss the freestyle stair corner jump later, all told losing about three and a half seconds. After that run, I was unsure how long it would take to get a run back there on good enough pace, thanks in part to the aforementioned consistency issues in other levels. However, I knew that I couldn't give up so close to my goal, and I was encouraged onwards by others in the community to keep pushing forward. With all of that in mind, I indeed kept going, and this perseverance was part of what allowed me to get this 2:43 on the very next attempt session.

Shoutouts to Starline for finding the keyboard repeat strat in 10 as well as Star 6 and ABC9, both strats that made the optimal times in their respective levels far easier to achieve. NotVeryGood, BirdBanana, Pearce, InsaneJetman, and Connor P deserve mentions as well due to finding the other frame-based setups used in this run, such as Bird 3, Connor 7, Resetless 10, Pjet, and 3x Choker. Additional shoutouts to Maximum for getting me and countless others into the Red Ball speedrunning scene- this run and countless others would not have come to fruition without his incredible documentation of Red Ball and other flash games in the scene. And finally, shoutouts to everyone else who runs this game at a high level for supporting each other and helping push this game as far as possible, turning what was a simple flash game into one of the most complex and optimized speedgames out there.

With both 4 and 5 cleaned up, a 2:40 is possible with the route I take. From there, you can implement other strategies, such as TAZ 3, Mug 7, Pl8-8 (though this one is questionable because my keyboard sucks at 1 frame taps), and 11fa jump strat in train to push the run to a sub 2:40. I may or may not return to the game to achieve such a monumental time in the future, but due to its extreme difficulty and how so few people have achieved it, it would take yet another incredible effort on my part to achieve. For now, I can rest easy knowing that I have a time and leaderboard placement that I can be proud of, and I can move on to other categories in the Red Ball series that I am interested in exploring.