Pokémon!

As X/Y draw near, I've started thinking about finally fighting Red in SoulSilver. The problem I face is that while I do have a team put together with which to fight him, it's in the low 60s, and his lowest-level Pokémon is level 82. (His highest-level 'mon is [highlight to read: (skip) a Pikachu who is level 88.])

Does anyone have any advice for how to level from the low 60s to the mid 80s? It was bad enough before Gen 5 spoiled me with Audino and Nimbasa Stadium, but the only ways I can think of to level that high in SoulSilver are a) repeatedly re-fight the Elite Four b) repeatedly re-fight the gym leaders in the dojo c) drag a high-level 'mon with Pickup through several hundred battles to get rare candies d) do the Pokéathlon enough to have enough points to buy rare candies. I don't think there's a fifth option I've missed, and none of those sound like all that much fun. (The Pokéathlon in particular makes me think favorably of sticking toothpicks under my fingernails.) Does anyone have any suggestions on how to make the process less ghastly, or commisseration about how ghastly it was for you and I can just suck it up and soldier on, or anything else of note?