RR10, Wilverley Inclosure

This was a new course and it was well-designed... a great mix of technical sections and good gravel track, and even better, no laps.  I was nervous at the start that my road shoes might prove to e a bad choice, but all was well.

A guy at the start stood on a crate and told us it was an 8k course.  I set off cautiously and spent most of the race happily picking others off.  I kept Dan Powell firmly in my sights and I geared myself to stay close behind him and let him do the pacing.  However, suddenly there was awful swearing and Dan was hopping about on one foot, the other stuck in mud.  (Apparently this happened to him twice.)

7k on the GPS and we were heading uphill towards the finish.  I was trying to pace it carefully.  At around 7.4k, Jim Davies from Lordshill passed me (Jim overtook me in the dying seconds of the Stoney Cross race two weeks before).  A few paces later I went around a bend... and there was the finish.  I had just been gearing up for a last push and felt a bit swindled that it had finished early and I still had more to give.

Still, 21st place was OK.  I'm now 20th in the league, in between Jim and Dan.

The Eastleigh 19-minute barrier

Over the last few weeks I've become increasingly focused on running the Eastleigh parkrun course in under 19 minutes.  It's an interesting 5k course with lots of turns and some respectable slopes.  I've recently completed it in 19:04 and then 19:03, which made the challenge inevitable.

I managed to fumble the stopwatch again on Saturday morning which meant I hadn't a clue how I was doing time-wise.  However, it was a fascinating race.  I very soon found myself head-to-head with Dave Maule from Eastleigh RC.  Dave, distinctive with his tattooed arms and Vibram footwear, has beaten me twice in the Hursley 10k.  At the end of lap 1 (of 3) we were dead level.  I was hoping that he would pace me to a sub-19.

However, soon afterwards I became aware of runners catching from behind.  Soon after I could hear runners talking... yes, talking!  At the same point that Dave slipped back, I was overtaken by a young boy, accompanied by a guy who was coaching through the race.  They both slipped past me, shortly before the end of lap 2, with the older guy saying 'that's it, now you can start to open up'.  Soon after this another runner overtook me, and I tried by best to keep the pressure up, now in fourth place.

An un eventful third lap, but I really had to labour over the hill and it was a proper lie-down-and-gasp job at the finish.  I went to congratulate the winner; he's Archie Ives, aged just 12.  A real privilege to run with such a talented athlete.

I had to wait till the afternoon to see the results... and I finished in 18:59.  I was thrilled - it had been a terrific race.

RR10 2013: Stoney Cross

This was the second of the 2013 series.  I was late getting there and I went haring down the hill to the start, or at least where the start had been in previous years... before it dawned on me that there wasn't another runner in sight.  I charged up the hill again and looked around - and there were the club flags, way over on the other side of the car park.  Three minutes to go - I ran over and got into position with  just a minute or so remaining.

The first mile was all downhill.  I ran quickly and easily, but all too aware of the drag home that was in store.  The middle section of the race involved a lot of turns within the dense woodland and some exciting soft ground which made for quite a technical course with no real clue how much further there was to go. 

Nice and quick on the downhill...

And then the drag home... at this point a few people overtook me and I could feel myself slipping.  I cursed myself for setting off so fast and panted as I struggled to hang in there.  Out of the woods, on to the high ground of Stoney Cross, to the finish line... and to my astonishment I was 22nd, 3 places up on the first race.  Fantastic!  My calves were in bits and I was a heaving wreck - but it was a good result.

...but it soon got tougher

Next race target - sub-20th, or first Hardley (I've been second both races) or both.

Chasing the clock at Eastleigh parkrun

Last weekend I ran the Eastleigh parkrun with the aim of finishing in under 19 minutes.

Southampton is a much flatter and faster course but I like Eastleigh as it's smaller and with more interesting terrain... in the depths of winter it was really a mini cross-country course with plenty of mud around.  My best time at Southampton is 18:22, while at Eastleigh I've been chasing the 19 minute barrier.

Last summer I ran my best time of 19:05.  A few weeks ago on 6th April the ground had dried out and it was a faster course again.  To my great surprise I came over the line in first place with 19:04.

On Saturday I set off fast and after a minute my legs were sore and my breath ragged.  three people overtook me in the first km and I struggled to hang on.  I pushed hard with no stopwatch to guide me (the battery failed 30 seconds after the gun) and I had no idea how I was doing.  I finished in 3rd place (not sure what happened there - one of the runners can't have been placed - I was 4th really )and awaited the results email - 19:03!  After a struggle and a race where I didn't feel strong this was a very satisfactory result.

Next time - another second will be fine, another 4 seconds will be fantastic.  And then I'll have another crack at Southampton and see what I can do on the flat.

The distance decay factor

I've become intrigued in recent days by race time predictor formulae.  This interest was sparked by an  article from the Fetch website about the limitations of the classic Reigel formula, which is:

T2 = T1 x (D2/D1)^1.06 

D1 = the distance you've already run

T1 = the time it took you

D2 = the distance you're about to run

T2 = the predicted time.

This means that as a standard rule, your running performance drops by 6% when the race distance doubles.

I was intrigued by this, on 2 counts:

1 - is the distance decay factor different for everyone?

2 - does the decay factor apply across all distances?

I don't have much good data to work with because relatively few of my races are of the flat road variety.  After thinking a bit, I dug out 2 comparative sets of times:

From 2006... I ran the Bath half marathon in 1:21:24 and the London marathon in 2:45:48.

More recently... My most recent Southampton parkrun time is 18:22 and my Eastleigh 10k time was 37:35.

I then found an excellent web resource on the Good Run Guide website .  It allows you to play with different decay factors.  I bunged the results above in and got the following:

Half-marathon to marathon: decay of 5.2%

5k to 10k: decay of 3.8%

Interesting on both counts.  I'm not remotely surprised that the marathon performance has a higher dip, because the last 6 miles of a marathon are debilitating like nothing else and only the superhuman can keep going at the pace of the previous 20 miles.

I'm also intrigued about the age factor... do runners generally get a lower decay factor as they get older, reflecting a lower overall speed but a relative improvement over longer distances?