Go down to warp zone 8 if you want to do speedrun. It's located on the floating block you step. 8:59 that one. All you have to do is break those blocks until a vine pops out, then climb that to the top, go forward until you see a stair. Under that stair, there's warp zone 6,7,8.
I've never had a problem with the escort missions. Played the game 2 weeks ago and it was just fine. All king bublin fights are cinematic asf and easy. Terrible takes. Anyone who wants to play twilight princess, just play it instead of listening to this goon nit-pick about small shit.
I just recently finished the whole game, if you feel like watching. It was actually harder to play the GaneCube version on my computer than Wii U, but the very high bloom hurts my eyes, so I put up with my incompatible controller.