Gear Rush/Leveling Rush

Okay so me and some friends are going to do a little tournament style thing for fun..

We are going to give ourselves like a 2-3 hour window, we start fresh, no giving it gear or gold from stash, etc and grind/level whatever we please and then we are going to duel and stuff for fun.

I know I can level up, then spam Trist runs... BUT... I also need to be focusing on gear drops? Or set pieces runes, so I thought about spamming Tower for Countess rune drops too make some low runewords...

I also want to make sure I get into Act 2 and get the Sewer quest because obviously thats another skill point.

Anyone have any tips/suggestions? They have been playing for YEARS vs my "somewhat new ness"