Forums >Racing>2019 3:20, And Beyond
Cobra Commander Keen
Ace - Thanks for the input. I'm considering St. Jude, but leaning a bit towards Houston. They're roughly the same distance from me, but Houston is flatter.
Awesome decision on skipping the run to play with your daughter. Are you using handhelds for those runs, or a vest?
I'd be quite surprised if you got cut. To contrast this, I'd be quite surprised if I did make the cut (47 sec buffer).
5k: 17:58 11/22 │ 10k: 37:55 9/21 │ HM: 1:23:22 4/22 │ M: 2:56:05 12/22
Upcoming Races:
Problem Child
Anybody have any thoughts on my chances of racing on that April Monday? I have a 2:42 cushion. With registration quickly approaching I've been curious about my chances.
I hope adjusting the qualifying times makes it more accurate/realistic to run a BQ and get in so for that reason I'm going to say you're pretty safe and could start planning/discussing going or not. If I had run my 7:00 pace I'd be a little nervous, but expect to get in after the adjustment. I really don't think I could pull off a 3:00 marathon in December and mentally that would probably crush me if I didn't get in.
I was thinking about it and Boston is practically a lottery entry if you run a qualifying time. I'm not saying they should "let everyone in" but I think the qualifying times should reflect the requirements. Sort of like passing the Bar, Professional Engineer, or driving test. Passing the MCATs doesn't guarantee you a spot in med school. It just means you can apply and that sucks. They call the dumbest person graduating medical school Doctor. I work in an office with professional engineers who haven't engineered a single thing in their life. I literally did their job and it didn't require any engineering experience because I didn't have any, but somehow when they do it, it counts as experience.
Many of us aren't sure what the hell point you are trying to make and no matter how we guess, it always seems to be something else. Which usually means a person is doing it on purpose.
VDOT 53.37
5k18:xx | Marathon 2:55:22
Resident Millennial
beryl- nice week!
brew- now seems like a good time for me to note that i've never quite understood the phrase "checkers or wreckers". :shrug:
dwave- lol. no lululemon stuff for me, for a variety of other reasons, but that sounds like a good one for you. got to look through the social media content of the Seawheeze Half this weekend, by a teammate of mine who is a "lululemon ambassador" - it's a good deal for her, since she is a full-time strength/running coach and leading run clubs etc gets her lots of clients and name recognition. anyway, this is a half that lulu puts on in Vancouver. It's like $300 or something, and the reason is it seems to be more of a hobbyjogger party/festival weekend surrounding a 13.1mi run than anything else. pretty painful.
i had a week! so i will dump it here:
M- off because i felt like trash (while running) the wknd prior
T- 12mi@8:04W- 6mi@8:32Th- 9.6mi@8:04 incl ~8x(90sec on/90sec off), on the mellow side, was chatting during most of the ons
F- 6.3@8:23 + 30min prehabSa- 9.2@7:38 incl progression from 8:30 down to 6:55. Failed this one last weekend (for physical and mental reasons) and coach gave it to me again, happy to have done it! started a bit slow just to have more wiggle room.Su- 13.2@8:38 (hilly) chill LR.= 57mi.my peroneus longus muscle is pretty tender right now, i turned my ankle for a millisecond this weekend dodging someone on a narrow sidewalk so i think it's from that. did some self massage. a bit apprehensive about running today.
_________________________________________________mile, 5:26 /5k, 19:34 /10k, 41:00 /13.1, 1:31:49 /26.2, 3:12:58
Pace Prophet
Matt - I'm doing Reach the Beach in New Hampshire the following weekend! Also a 12-person mixed masters team, 3 legs each. Have you run this type of relay before? I did RtB in 2014 and it was a lot of fun, though the sleep deprivation was not so fun.
Lululemon - I actually have two of their bras because a RWOL friend had bought them and found them too large for her; meanwhile I'd bought another brand sportsbra (don't recall the details) and it was too small, so we traded. The Lulus are 34C and I generally wear a 34B in non-sportsbra bras, so I don't know what their sizing actually means. They fit me fine on the largest hook.
Hello all, I'm still lurking. My broken toe seems to have healed and I'm running again.
You go for the win (checkered flag) or your wreck (blow up) trying. It might be easier to understand if you consume copious amounts of Coors Light.
Checkers or wreckers” (or “wreckers or checkers") in auto racing means that either the car will come under the checkered flag (win the race) or go to the wreckers (the car will be wrecked trying, unsuccessfully, to win). The checkers-or-wreckers style is extremely dangerous and risky.
brew- that makes sense! good explanation. yeah, coors lite + cars (racing) are things i try to avoid, ha.
afternoon update: peroneus longus hurts quite a bit walking down stairs. gonna be lazy today and not run (aka stay at work longer...)
Speed Surplus
So, I ended up getting second place in the trail 10 miler I ran on Saturday. Went out with three leaders and hoped that a few of them were doing the 5 miler instead of the 10. It turned out that two of them were (I only saw one person coming back my direction for the second of two loops), so there was just one runner ahead of me for the 10 miler.
Shortly after the turnaround, I couldn't see anyone behind me or in front of me, and there were some fairly large cutbacks so I knew I was basically cemented into 2nd place. But toward the end of that loop, I noticed a guy passing some of the marathoners (who started earlier and were generally at a much slower pace) behind me. And the back half of the loop contains the most climbing, which is my biggest weakness.
Well, I really didn't want to get passed that late after building such a big lead, so I dug deep and held on for the (men's division) win by 15 seconds. It was a really tough effort up those hills, and I was very pleased to have retained 2nd place.
The overall winner was a woman, and she beat me by about 2:30. Looked her up on Strava and her 5k PR seems to be in the 17-and-change realm, so I don't think I could have hung with her on my best day.
5:27 / 18:49 / 40:32 / 88:12 / 3:12
pie man
In other news I am up to 65 on the waitlist for the 100k in October. They sent out an email to see if people were still actually interested and half seemed to say no. They are also offering spots with 24 hours to confirm so I have a feeling a lot of folks will get culled that way.
11:11 3,000 (recent)
Here I am, coming in at 5’ tall, lol. I love lulu, don’t hate me. I’m obviously short for a lot of their stuff but it was awesome during pregnancies. Sports bras I’m like a size 8/10 (2-4 everything else) but well I have a 5 month old. I ran 15 miles last week. Setting my alarm to get back on track this week now that I don’t have a ridiculous travel schedule that involves solo travel with an infant and toddler.
PRs: HM: 1:32:59 (2015); FM: 3:18:36 (2017)
brew- coors lite + cars (racing) are things i try to avoid,
Hahaha. Same.
I was thinking about it and Boston is practically a lottery entry if you run a qualifying time. I'm not saying they should "let everyone in" but I think the qualifying times should reflect the requirements. Sort of like passing the Bar, Professional Engineer, or driving test. Passing the MCATs doesn't guarantee you a spot in med school. It just means you can apply and that sucks.
Their system works best for them, really. They want the fastest runners and they want to fill all slots. If they make the qualifying times low enough so that everyone who qualifies gets in, then they will possibly have a couple or few thousand unfilled slots.
The other extreme would be to not have qualifying times at all, but still only take the fastest times. Then they would be inundated with applications to deal with. By setting the times right on the bubble, they get enough people to fill all slots and only have to turn away a small percentage. And once that cutoff approaches 5 minutes, they move it. This cycle will continue while the demand for the race stays high.
It's kind of like qualifying marathons are "heats" before the actual race. You may win your heat, but that doesn't guarantee a place in the final race.
Ilana - Great that you're getting in some runs again!
SClever - Nice job on that race.
PJ - Movin' on up! You've already jumped quite a few spots, right? Maybe there's a decent shot that you'll make it.
Lulu stuff? I do have one of their shirts and a pair of shorts. Pretty nice stuff, actually. A fewyears ago they did a Strava challenge with giveaways for running a ridiculously low number of miles in a week or two - something like 20 miles get a free shirt and 40 miles got you a shirt and shorts. Just walked right in to the store, showed them I ran the miles, and they gave me free clothes.
Sadly, I think they've only done coupons for the challenge the past couple of years and I haven't bothered cashing those in.
Haha it's so funny you mention this. I remember that challenge- I was annoyed at strava challenge spam or something at the time so I didn't join, but then a bunch of my friends got the free stuff for barely running, as you did, and I was so annoyed! So the next time there was a Lulu thing, they called it the "Ghost Race", I was insistent on doing it. It was dumb, it was a 5mi strava segment (i think they had them in a bunch of cities) that you could 'race' by yourself any day and you'd be on the segment leaderboard. on a certain morning they actually hosted a 'race' there where people showed up in a group. I was using it as a tempo and figured I'd do well based on the crowd. I was 2nd place (though 1st place accidentally cut the course...) and they give me a bag containing swag ... it's a hat (which I sold on poshmark for like $20) plus some Sufferfest, not nearly as good as a full running outfit! So they've definitely gotten "cheaper" with their goodies, and I'm no longer bitter about missing swag/trying to chase it.
What kind of fancy place has this become? Next we'll all admit we actually like grape juice and tonic water with our drinks.
ain't nothing cheap about "LuLuFuFu" stuff.
I remember this one time Strava said if you negative split a marathon before the day after CIM you'd get free New Balance Shoes of your choosing. It was so awesome I wrote a story about it. They stopped making the shoe I picked a year later.
Their system works best for them, really. They want the fastest runners and they want to fill all slots. If they make the qualifying times low enough so that everyone who qualifies gets in, then they will possibly have a couple or few thousand unfilled slots. The other extreme would be to not have qualifying times at all, but still only take the fastest times. Then they would be inundated with applications to deal with. By setting the times right on the bubble, they get enough people to fill all slots and only have to turn away a small percentage. And once that cutoff approaches 5 minutes, they move it. This cycle will continue while the demand for the race stays high. It's kind of like qualifying marathons are "heats" before the actual race. You may win your heat, but that doesn't guarantee a place in the final race.
I'm not sure how letting in everyone who applies with a qualified time leaves a few thousand spots open, but I understand the amount of money the even raises for various organizations is monumental compared to the few hundred bucks someone spends on the race, souvenirs, and buying cheap beer or riding the T. I have nothing against their system of taking the fastest runners for the year. I have something against running a BQ when it's a Boston Applicator in that you can APPLY to Boston but you're not technically qualified to run it sometimes. ya know?
I can't say I've ever participated in an event where they say "top 3 from this race advance" and then find out after it is anyone but who they said would advance. Wrestling seemed simple. "If you pin that guy you win. If you win you advance to the next round. If you lose you don't advance to the championship."