So I was on a run which was on pace to about 5:05/5:06 (Which isn't good for most runners out here, but damn it was 5-6 seconds faster than my current PB). It was a pretty good run, till I ran into a low podoboo, and died.

Since then I have been wondering that was there something which I could've done differently, to counter the low podoboo, or is it just simply impossible? I am not consistent enough to always land there on the same frame/framerule, so I cannot always avoid getting a low podoboo by the means of title screen delay. Is the low podoboo just meant to kill runs?

So I have recently started practicing pipe jumps, and have become reasonably consistent in it (although still not enough to immediately start using it in runs).

One thing that has been annoying me is the jumping koopa in 8-1 between the 2 pillars. Somehow, more often than not, I am not able to clear it. I believe that some patterns are really tough/impossible, while some others are a lot easier. Is that the case? If so, are there any tutorials available which can help to clear any pattern of the koopa? I do not see it being referred as a tough point in the level anywhere, so I am puzzled about it. Maybe the patterns are not that tough, but its me who isn't playing it well enough?

I have been speedrunning by using fire mario since I am too bad with pipe jumps and 8-3 hammer bros. Also, the big size helps with easy wrong warp in 4-2. I was able to achieve a time of 5:16 recently. There is still plenty of scope of improvement in my run. I was just curious to know, as to what would be the best time possible/achieved by being fire mario. I want to know, till what time can I potentially reach while still using the fire mario strats.

Possible timesaves from my run are (without hard tricks) :

1-1 : 1 framerule 1-2 : 0-1 framerule 4-1 : 0 framerule 4-2 : 2-3 framerules 8-1 : 0 framerules 8-2 : 2-4 seconds 8-3 : 0 framerules 8-4 : few seconds (without walljump)

I guess something near to 5:05-5:07 should be possible without hard tricks and with fire mario.

Note that I lose my fire in 8-4 water section, but at least I spent time getting fire...in fact losing fire loses time due to the transition animation.