Found you on Strava at 21.03km - the people "who ran" with you on Strava are between 21.01km and 21.33km...

That's a pretty wide range and I'm not sure it's a certified course... best thing would be just to ask the organisers.  Total Sport run a lot of trail events so they may not be the most reliable when it comes to measured road events.

 

That's a pretty wide range and I'm not sure it's a certified course... best thing would be just to ask the organisers.  Total Sport run a lot of trail events so they may not be the most reliable when it comes to measured road events.

I've noticed trail races, and trail runners, seem a lot less concerned about precise course lengths than road racers are.  Perhaps it's the difficulty of measuring a trail route where the hills can be too steep for a bicycle and the course surface too irregular for a measuring wheel, not to mention it can be hard to stay within a foot of the apex of every turn on narrow, twisty paths.

What else? Still injured plus a nasty case of COVID on top of that. No idea when I can even think of running again. When the time comes, I'll be back to posting regularly.

Good luck to everyone!

Nah, you’re the deluded clown who continues to run short courses.

For your loved ones sake, I hope you are not as much of a bully in real life as you are behind the keyboard.

Fred - yeah I can see how that 2:00:02 would been VERY annoying! Hopefully that race is a good confidence booster. I'll have periods where I'm not full of energy or the workouts are coming out slower than I hoped, you just have to keep at it but also listen to your body if you do need a bit of a rest.

Me - pretty reasonable sort of a week.  I did Saturday's track session in flats just to challenge myself a little.  Boy, shoe technology has come a long way in 6 years.  The lack of bounce compared to even something like the Endorphin Speed was really noticeable - probably made worse because the track was a little wet.  I paid for it a bit on today's long run and noticed a lot of muscles in places I hadn't noticed in a while, but that was kind of the point and my calves weren't nearly as smashed as I expected.

Weekly for period: From: 20/02/2023 To 26/02/2023

Total distance: 95.78km (59.5 imperial brass didgeridoos)

FebApple Frozen Fifty, South Mountain Reservation, 2/25/23

This is a trail race on a 10-mile loop through a park with about 960' of elevation, mostly on three climbs (the start/stop/aid station is on a plateau and the course drops down to lower elevation three times, only to climb back up).  The day hosts 4 races:  50M, 50k, 20M, and 10M. The four races start an hour apart, with the 50M at 7:00 and so on until the 10M starts at 10:00.  This spreads out the fields and gives the longest distance runners time to finish before sunset.  I ran the 10M in 2019 (1:49:58) and 2020 (2:01:00), and again this year.  The course is always a little different and 10 miles +/- a little bit.

I was planning to meet up with a coworker, Chris, who's a good two decades younger than me.  With a forecast in the mid-20's I'd be going alone as I didn't really want any family members standing around in sub-freezing temps for hours.  I got to the site a bit more than an hour ahead of time and got to see the 20-milers getting ready to start, including one woman who was shivering and blowing her hands as she waited.  I cheered the 20-milers as they left and hung out talking to the RD and his wife, looking over the aid area (cookies, fruit, snack bars, etc.).  The longer distance runners will often finish a 10-mile loop and hang out for some food before heading out again.  Chris showed up around 9:15.  We caught up a bit and I told him about the course from what I remembered.  His plan was to go out relatively fast and see what he could achieve.  He headed back to his car to warm up a bit.  I went on a warmup run, then put my extra layers in a bag before heading to the start with about 5 minutes to go.  There would be 61 finishers, though with chip timing I'm not sure they were all there at the start.

The RD said "go" and off we went.  Chris went off with the lead pack and that's the last I saw of him.  The lead pack thinned out and I felt like I was at the end of it, watching it pull away from me.  The first mile is flat, but this year it was on a path rather than a paved road, so a little slower.  I passed one runner on my way down the first hill (three times in a row I've taken that down hill too fast), dodging ankle-twisting stones on my way, lamenting the cold that caused my eyes to tear up a bit, which made spotting the loose stones a bit harder.  The bottom of the hill was just before the 2-mile mark, then followed a brief flat run and then back up the hill: 300 feet in ¾ mile.  I learned in my first time here that there's no point in me trying to run the steeper hills, so switched to fast walking as soon as I hit the steep parts (the people in front of me were walking and looking back, I could see the people behind me doing the same).  Three people passed me while we were running on a flatter part of the climb, they guy I passed on the downhill, one in blue, and one in a jacket with white panels.

We ran flat along the plateau then headed downhill again (this time I made sure not to over-do it), getting to the bottom of the second drop by around mile 4.  I didn't know it at the time, but my pacing through the first four miles was about the same as my previous two races here.The fifth mile covers the second climb, which is even steeper than the first.  Mile 5 ends on the plateau and shortly after the course reaches the start/finish/base.  I didn't need an aid stop, so I kept going.  Three runners passed me in the next half mile or so, including the fellow in the white jacket, so I assume he stopped for a bit to eat.  I passed one of the runners about a mile later, but the white jacket stayed ahead of me and slowly pulled away.  With him for a while was a woman with her jacket tied around her waist who'd passed me just outside the aid station, but she couldn't quite stick with him.

Mile 6 & 7 were tough for me last time as they're a gradual, rolling climb and I was running them alone.  This time I had white jacket in the distance and the woman with the tied jacket a little closer.  I also caught up with a couple of 50k runners on their second loop.  Having other runners around helped me keep going and I was slowly closing on the tied-jacket woman.  At the 8 mile mark the last climb had pretty much ended and we were on the plateau for the last two miles to the end.  Around here, the shivering woman from the 20M start passed me, meaning with only a 1 hour head start she'd finish 20 miles before I could finish 10 (she was either 1st or 8th overall in the 20M).  Knowing the hills were done, I picked up the pace, helped by some of the best trail surface in the loop.  What I had forgotten is there's one, last, brief hill climb in mile 9, which was unwelcome, but it was here that I passed the tied-jacket woman, who was clearly slowed by the hill.  I offered some words of encouragement as I went by.  Maybe they helped, or maybe she would have been fine without them, but she stayed close to me to the end.  Even as I picked up my pace on the flat, hard, smooth trail to the end, feeling the burn in my legs as I heard footsteps behind me, she kept up and finished only 5 second behind me.  My time was 1:45:43, which was good for 23rd of 61, my best time on the course and my best finish in terms of % of the field.

I exchanged some words with the tie-jacket woman, then spied Chris, who had been kind enough to wait for me despite the cold.  He estimated he had finished 10th (and the final results showed him to be correct).  He told me he was glad to have changed his plans to run this race rather than the one he had planned since the field was bigger at this race and he had been swapping positions throughout the race with a few other runners, so he got to truly race rather than run alone.  He ran a 1:29:38.  We hung around the aid area for a short while, but it was cold out and so we headed to our cars and home.  On an age-graded basis, using road factors since there aren't trail factors, I ran 49.47%.  I'm not sure of Chris' exact age, so assuming he's halfway to his next birthday he ran 49.5%, meaning on an age adjusted basis we were virtually in a dead heat with each other.  My legs are really tired today, so I suspect I'll be doing easy runs most of the week and not going right back to workouts.

Fred thanks for the report, great read. Nice of you to encourage the person you passed at the end. How does that age weighted percentage work and what does it mean if you are at 49.5% - i.e. were 50.5% better than you in this case? Can't be, but just asking as I don't understand this.

Mikkey & Mark: don't recall the origin of this beef. What exactly happened between the two of you? Mikkey never came across as a bully, but I haven't followed the forum too closely in the last 2 years. Be nice to each other, boys...

Re Shoes:  Ran in the Asics Magic Speeds, easy run. I have about 100k on them and it was just 12.5k but the caused again blisters on both heels. I thought I had broken them in. But in reality I just need to start taping the entire foot before running. This is terrible....

Re Netflix: I watched all 3 episodes of the Alex Murdaugh documentary. Omg this is so messed up. I don't know if we have anyone from South Carolina on the thread, but I am still shocked; didn't think this could be real.