The Running Thread - 2018

[OldSlowGoofyGuy]

ATTQOTD: I know I'm jinxing myself, but I can't remember the last time I got a cold. I believe that is due to running (and washing my hands a thousand times a day).

I won't say the SR word, but running seems to keep your nasal passages clean.

But summer colds are worse, mostly because they are more unexpected.

 

[PrincessV]

I HAVE A LITTLE BLUETOOTH SPEAKER!!!! DON'T TEMPT ME!!!!!!!!!

Dooooooooooo iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!!!!!

When you’re waiting to go for your Sunday run but there’s a pesky area of rain that just won’t move out. It’s been raining all day so far. The temp is only in the 50s so even though it’s not pouring rain, it’s steady enough that I don’t want to go out in the cool and wet. Hoping it moves out by 4:00 or so like they’re saying and there’s a long enough break that I can fit in my 4 miles.

If it makes you feel better, I've been waiting for rain for three days - not a drop so far and the heat is just unreal now because the walls/roof/ground hasn't cooled off!

QOTD: Which do you find to suck more, a cold during the winter or summer cold?

ATTQOTD: Both suck equally... but a cold in August, with fever, in FL, when the AC died and the indoor temp hit 96? Truly the worst EVER!

On a personal side note I watched my first Star Wars film in theaters this weekend. I dont know why people are so down on Solo as I really enjoyed it! I still need to watch the Last Jedi... Also watched Ratatouille on Sunday and thought it was a good little movie as well.

I loved Solo! So much fun.

 

[KSellers88]

ATTQOTD: Summer for sure.

 

[TheHamm]

QOTD: Which do you find to suck more, a cold during the winter or summer cold?

Summer colds are by far worse. The added silliness of not knowing for the first part if it is a virus or just allergies means I fail to take any action to alleviate any symptoms.

 

[Capang]

ATTQOTD: winter colds definitely suck more. Summer colds are more of just a buzzkill, but I recover from the summer ones faster.

 

[Jules76126]

Friday Question - I am a huge Pooh fan. I really love the classic pooh style. I think these are two of my favorites -

My mom is already telling my husband we should do a pooh themed nursery - and we are no pregnant nor have plans to be this year. He loved this.

Today question - definitely a summer cold is worse.

 

[JBinORL]

Oh man...just spent an entire weekend laid up sick, missing three total runs in a row. May and June have just not been my friends

 

[cavepig]

Colds suck at anytime. I feel in the winter they linger longer, but then I haven't had a summer cold in a very very long time.

On a side note I out ran a horse for 1.5 miles today, I felt like Justify...Okay it was barely trotting and pulling a cart, but it felt cool not letting it pass me.
Oh & I loved Solo!

 

[jennamfeo]

ATTQOTD: Winter cold because all the cool holidays are in the winter and I don't want to be sick during that time. Plus summer colds tend to be milder.

 

[TCB in FLA]

Friday Question - I am a huge Pooh fan. I really love the classic pooh style. I think these are two of my favorites -

My mom is already telling my husband we should do a pooh themed nursery - and we are no pregnant nor have plans to be this year. He loved this.

Today question - definitely a summer cold is worse.

The nurseries for my boys were Pooh themed. Seems like yesterday (they are 15 and 17) — thanks for the trip down memory lane.

 

[TCB in FLA]

QOTD: summer colds suck most. I had the worse one last year right after vacation, then had a huge rush order come in that I couldn’t afford to turn down. Miserable.

 

[PCFriar80]

ATTQOTD:
Winter for me, especially when it interferes with marathon weekend training or the runs themselves! I save the Summer for allergies!

 

[tigger536]

For those of you that ran Hotlanta this year and in past years (I think there were a few of us), how did you feel about your race this year vs. last/ previous years? I finished 2 minutes slower than last year, which is disappointing given that with my current PR times, i should have been faster than last year by quite a bit. It felt hotter this year though, so I'm interested to hear what others thought.

 

[Sailormoon2]

QOTD: Which do you find to suck more, a cold during the winter or summer cold?

Definitely winter, because I'm already freezing and being sick just makes me more sensitive to the cold temperatures. At least in the summer I can sit out in the sun to try and heal myself.

 

[Sailormoon2]

DIVA'S HALF-MARATHON: RACE REPORT!

Location: Centre Island, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

I was going to do a "Good, Bad, Ugly" but I really feel that the things I liked, others might not and what bothered me would be fine for others, so I'll just recap as I experienced it.

We caught a FERRY BOAT across to the island for the race-this was a cool experience as I had never taken a boat to a race start before. I get nauseous standing on a dock, which meant Gravol (Dramamine for the Americans) was required ahead of time-spoiler, it didn't affect my race. Because the ferry did not start running until 8am the official start time was 10am. Great if you don't like mornings. I am a total morning person, awake at 5am without an alarm most days, so I was a little worried about the impending heat.

It turned out to be a perfect day! About 23 degrees celcius (73 F) super sunny but with a strong breeze coming of the lake in all directions!
Bag check was easy as we were given DIVA logo drawstring bags the day before, along with pink tutus and our ferry tickets.
There was a DJ and lots of Expo type vendors giving away free samples right up until start time!

I started in the first wave. Because I have been injured for the last 6 weeks on and off with a strained back and had not run longer than 12K at a time in that period. So, I decided to attempt a 5 minute run:1walk strategy. But after the first two repeats of this my back said "Hell No" to varying the stride that much. So I locked into a 9:30/mile pace for 5 minutes followed by an 11:00/mile pace every 1 minute. This gave me the needed rest while still keeping essentially a running gait. I kept this up for the first 11k.

After that my back was just being a pain so I decided to stick to running continuous at about a 10 min/mile pace.

The course (2 figure-8 loops) was beautiful as we had views of the lake to one side and vistas looking back at Toronto main-land skyline on the other. The terrain varied constantly too, from beach sand, to grass, trail and paved side walks.

There was not much crowd support due to the narrowness of the course (and being on an island) which I was fine with. Because of the loops there were frequently people to be spotted coming back (or heading out) so lots of comraderie all around!

Just before the finish chute we were given tiara's and feather boas!! So

I finished in 2:15:57 and am quite happy with that for the injury and lack of training.

My main take-away is TRUST YOUR BASE! I have been running halves and full marathons for more than 10 years now, some years I train like a demon and sometimes life gets in the way, but my base seems to always be there when I need it.

 

[Nole95]

For those of you that ran Hotlanta this year and in past years (I think there were a few of us), how did you feel about your race this year vs. last/ previous years? I finished 2 minutes slower than last year, which is disappointing given that with my current PR times, i should have been faster than last year by quite a bit. It felt hotter this year though, so I'm interested to hear what others thought.

I have run all five of these races, and it was definitely hotter this year than last year. Last year was the best weather of any of them as it was fairly pleasant. It just felt brutal out there yesterday.

Due to some knee issues the past month, I was unable to do any kind of hill training and minimal running. Yesterday was not easy, but even if I had been in perfect shape, the heat would have done me in quickly. I just do not do well in heat and humidity.

 

[Dis_Yoda]

As the weather is the same for me temperature wise - they both suck.

 

[tigger536]

I have run all five of these races, and it was definitely hotter this year than last year. Last year was the best weather of any of them as it was fairly pleasant. It just felt brutal out there yesterday.

Due to some knee issues the past month, I was unable to do any kind of hill training and minimal running. Yesterday was not easy, but even if I had been in perfect shape, the heat would have done me in quickly. I just do not do well in heat and humidity.

This is what I thought too, glad to know it wasn't just me. Last year did not feel that bad at all. This year it felt blazing from the get go. Congrats on getting it done too! And double congrats on doing all 5! That's awesome. I've run it 3 years now. Its still a good race, I'll do it again next year.

 

[kbenson13]

ATTQOTD: I'll be contrarian and choose winter since I usually get one or two colds every winter and I certainly hate that (one of the many great blessings of parenthood, but my pesky little darlings seem to bring home every cold known to man). There are occasional summers where I don't get a cold. While summer colds are never pleasant, at least for me they have historically been less frequent so I'll choose to dislike the winter ones more since they are more inevitable. Also, it is way more pleasant to train here in the winter, so I really hate having to take time off due to colds....

 

[DopeyBadger]

For those of you that ran Hotlanta this year and in past years (I think there were a few of us), how did you feel about your race this year vs. last/ previous years? I finished 2 minutes slower than last year, which is disappointing given that with my current PR times, i should have been faster than last year by quite a bit. It felt hotter this year though, so I'm interested to hear what others thought.

Something I've done in the past is compare percentile finishes from year to year. For example, let's say there were 1700 runners this year and you finished in 800th place.

800/1700 = 47%

Now look at how many people finished in 2017, let's say it was 1950.

1950*0.47 = 917th place (just round if decimal).

Now look through the 2017 results for the runner who finished in 917th place. What time did they finish in?

Let's say your time was 2:20 in 2018 at a 47% finish and the 917th place runner in 2017 was a 2:16 finish. This would lead me to believe that this year's course was about 4 min (or 2.9% (4 min/140 min) more difficult than last year. Do the last 3-4 years and you get a general idea at the baseline time for the percentile finish and the ebbs and flows to more challenging weather condition years from others.

Using this method has a few assumptions:

1) The race course is the same.
2) We assume that the population of runners from 2017 to 2018 is roughly equal. No real good way to prove this one way or another, but as long as there was nothing special differentiating the 2017 pool of runners from the 2018 pool of runners, then in most cases this is a safe assumption.
3) No extenuating circumstances influenced the pools time other than weather. Example, no train crossed the course forcing people to stop or it wasn't black flagged and many entries weren't recorded, etc.

Doing this helps isolate the actual race day conditions as a variable for how difficult the course was from one year to the next.