The Running Thread--2024

[GollyGadget]

Course St-Laurent 10k race report

I am old and grumpy but that works.

This season’s goal was to work on my speed and improve my 10k time, hopefully below my unofficial sub-50.

I registered to two races, six weeks apart. On February 25th, at the beginning of the plan, I set the baseline at 52:59, an official PR for me. And my first race in the 50-59 category *sigh*

For many reasons (family, work, knee) I had good training days and some when speed was out of the question.

I was so not enthusiastic going into this race. My preparation the night before was make a wash so I have a choice of clothes tomorrow. I didn’t sleep well but it had nothing to do with the event. April 7th was a gorgeous sunny day, I was going to run anyway so I laced my new to racing ASICS Novablast and I went.

The closed course was two out and back in an almost industrial setting. 25 minutes drive from my house, big parking, easy bib pickup, real bathrooms, warm-up, drop a layer in my car, take your marks and go!

I hang around people who seem to have a steady pace that I find comfortable and concentrate on my form, focus and breathing. I have no precise objective or race plan but I do not want to find it hard and hate it. At 1km, I look at my phone and decide that it messes up with my head. I leave it in my pocket and decide to keep running by feel. I push a bit in the last few hundred meters.

I am curiously as detached from the results (50:41) as I was for the entire race except for one thing: I really improved in those last six weeks despite sub-optimal training because my 10k time is better and this race felt much easier than the last.

Two lessons: I do better when I don’t put myself a stringent race plan or objective (so it’s ok to be grumpy). More responsive shoes do help, at least the morale.

As for being old, it does have its advantages. One of which is finishing third in my age category and getting a bronze medal.

I am old and grumpy and I am embracing it for today, because it worked.

View attachment 849337

Congrats on the official PR!

 

[pluto377]

This is my plan for the future! I am not fast, so I'm playing the long game.

I'm not even that old! Only 47. Just a weird quirk in the make up of racers today.

 

[steph0808]

Also ran a 10k PR this weekend - 50:22. I am also still chasing that sub-50:00!

Local race on a rails-to-trail - slight uphill on the way out, so slight downhill on the way back.

Weather was OK (about 40 - was only 1 of 2-3 people wearing shorts and short sleeves!) but a decent headwind on the way back at times.

10ks are hard to find around here, so not sure if I'll get a chance to try for sub-50 again before the same race next year.

 

[michigandergirl]

Are they doing that this year? I tried looking for it a while ago, and didn’t see any mention of it. I haven’t looked recently, though.

I haven't heard that they're not doing it. I think it's a summer registration, so hopefully they'll have more info available soon.

How do the virtual spots work? Is it a different lottery? Unfortunately, I got thanks for trying, but not this year email yesterday…

The NYC Virtual Guaranteed Entry is not highly advertised. You have to keep a close watch on their social media in June. They will only post one time with the date and time to register. And yes, it's like registering for runDisney - have multiple browsers open, it will sell out in minutes.

This is how I got in for this years race.

 

[The Expert]

Totally OT but I had to share a few of the eclipse photos I captured today! I am so grateful for clear April skies and the unexpected move to Vermont that put us here for this. The full solar eclipse is truly a rare and uniquely magical experience.

 

[Cabius]

Totally OT but I had to share a few of the eclipse photos I captured today! I am so grateful for clear April skies and the unexpected move to Vermont that put us here for this. The full solar eclipse is truly a rare and uniquely magical experience.

View attachment 849628
View attachment 849631
View attachment 849632

Gorgeous!! We had a great experience in Dallas -- cloudy all day, but then cleared up about 10 minutes before the totality. I didn't get any decent pictures, but these are stunning. And it was a great experience!!

 

[flav]

Congratulations @steph0808 for your 10k PR!

@The Expert you took superb (expert) photos of the eclipse. We were just the other side of the border from VT (near Lake Memphremagog) and what gorgeous weather for this amazing event. We were really impressed that you just don’t look at an eclipse, you feel it too (temperature drops, flowers close, shadows are crescents and your body knows it is not night). My picture are far from serious though…

 

[jmasgat]

@The Expert Great pictures including the solar prominences (the reddish dots around the outline of the sun. I saw them as well (but crappy internet where I was means I didn't get to look up what they were til now).

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/red-dots-around-total-solar-eclipse-explained/

 

[The Expert]

Gorgeous!! We had a great experience in Dallas -- cloudy all day, but then cleared up about 10 minutes before the totality. I didn't get any decent pictures, but these are stunning. And it was a great experience!!

So happy the weather cleared just in time!

Congratulations @steph0808 for your 10k PR!

@The Expert you took superb (expert) photos of the eclipse. We were just the other side of the border from VT (near Lake Memphremagog) and what gorgeous weather for this amazing event. We were really impressed that you just don’t look at an eclipse, you feel it too (temperature drops, flowers close, shadows are crescents and your body knows it is not night). My picture are far from serious though…
View attachment 849638
View attachment 849639View attachment 849640

This is so much fun! And yes, the experience is kind of indescribable. DH saw the 2017 eclipse from totality in Idaho and tried to convey what it was like. Such a magical thing!

@The Expert Great pictures including the solar prominences (the reddish dots around the outline of the sun. I saw them as well (but crappy internet where I was means I didn't get to look up what they were til now).

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/red-dots-around-total-solar-eclipse-explained/

I'm a bit of an astronomy/space nerd, so I was looking for them. This is a great explanation.Thank you!

 

[dis_or_dat]

@The Expert wow those pictures are amazing!

 

[Dopey 2020]

Totally OT but I had to share a few of the eclipse photos I captured today! I am so grateful for clear April skies and the unexpected move to Vermont that put us here for this. The full solar eclipse is truly a rare and uniquely magical experience.

View attachment 849628
View attachment 849631
View attachment 849632

Fantastic! I went a different route than most as I love small planes and have my private pilot certificate. Flew from western MA to just southwest of Burlington VT near lake Champlain. Saw an amazing show at 6000’. Flew into totality then turned west. Not sure what I captured on the GoPro yet but random pictures captured an instant favorite for me, managed to get the actual difference between night and day as the shadow of totality approached




Edit: Lake Champlain, not Lake George

 

[The Expert]

Fantastic! I went a different route than most as I love small planes and have my private pilot certificate. Flew from western MA to just southwest of Burlington VT near lake George. Saw an amazing show at 6000’. Flew into totality then turned west. Not sure what I captured on the GoPro yet but random pictures captured an instant favorite for me, managed to get the actual difference between night and day as the shadow of totality approached

View attachment 849733

That is incredible! Great capture!

 

[azrivest]

Fantastic! I went a different route than most as I love small planes and have my private pilot certificate. Flew from western MA to just southwest of Burlington VT near lake George. Saw an amazing show at 6000’. Flew into totality then turned west. Not sure what I captured on the GoPro yet but random pictures captured an instant favorite for me, managed to get the actual difference between night and day as the shadow of totality approached

Just wow!

 

[Naomeri]

Because I’m bored, and my running playlist is “only” 11h25m long and that’s not quite long enough for me to not repeat some songs when I run Dopey in January

QOTD: people who run with music, what are the last 5 songs you listened to while running (or pick 5 random songs you like to run to if you don’t remember the last 5)?

ATTQOTD:
Can’t Stop The Feeling — Justin Timberlake
Tell Me Baby — Red Hot Chili Peppers
Right Round — Flo Rida
I’ve Just Seen a Face — Jim Sturgess (from the Across the Universe cast album)
Come On, Come On — Smash Mouth

 

[LorrieAnn5]

QOTD: people who run with music, what are the last 5 songs you listened to while running (or pick 5 random songs you like to run to if you don’t remember the last 5)?

What a fun question! These are my top 5 pump up jams from my race Playlist.

1. My house, Flo Rida
2. Famous friends, Kane Brown & Chris Young
3. Timber, Pitbull
4. Last night, Morgan Wallen
5. I'm the one, DJ Khaled

 

[avondale]

Cherry Blossom 10 miler recap

This is going to be the worse recap, because I mostly zoned out. The weather was perfect today, or as Creigh Kelley kept referring to it “no excuse weather”. It was 46F, sunny, with barely any wind.
As a habitual first RunDisney bus runner, we made sure to leave our hotel with plenty of time to get to the starting area. We walked/jogged over, then made a stop at the porta potties before heading out to the corrals.
Less than ten minutes before the race is supposed to start, I get a call from my mom, who’s at the hotel with my boys. In the background I can hear my 4 hear old, coughing and wheezing pretty bad, which happens sometimes. I explained to my mom how to use his puffer, and tried not to feel too guilty that I couldn’t help him. Right before the start, I got a text that he was feeling better, but they were going to stay at the hotel instead of coming to the finish line like we had planned.
While this was happening, I joined the 9min/mile pacers, which were at the front of my corral. I kept pace with them until around mile 4, when I realized that we were getting further and further behind where we should be (33 seconds behind at this point). I made the decision to just pull ahead and run my own race. I have mixed feeling on the pacers. They weaved in and out of people, without seeming to care about other racers. At one point, one of the pacers tripped someone else over by weaving, and barely looked back to check and make sure she was ok.
After leaving the pacers, I was running between 8:50 and 9 min/miles. I was feeling great the whole time. As I started approaching mile 7, I did mental math to figure out where I should be, which should’ve been pretty simple math - 9x7. Except for whatever reason, in my mind, that was 72. Which meant as I passed the marker, and looked down and saw 1:x3:23, I got worried and sped up. I spent most of the next mile running a bit faster and trying to figure out how I got so far behind, until I finally figured out that I screwed up the math. With that, I was actually ahead of my goal at mile 8. The last km was amazing with crowd support. I sped up quite a bit at that point, and ended up finishing in 1:28:56, 2:03 under my goal of 1:30:59 for a corral A placement at wine and dine.
Overall, while I enjoyed the race, I found the course relatively crowded the whole time, since there were no wide stretches of highway to spread everyone out. I got caught behind people quite a few times, with no safe way to pass. I also found the race etiquette particularly bad. Lots of people weaving in and out without caring about other around them, people squeezing in gaps that were too small, a few people were tripped up, and at one point, someone just kept pushing into me to run the tangent. As much as I enjoyed the race, I’m not sure if I’d come back anytime soon.
I got a 5km and 10km PR during the race, and managed to run negative splits.
View attachment 849226

Congrats on a great race! Crowded is the name of the game for the Cherry Blossom races. At least you managed to keep it from affecting you too much.

 

[avondale]

Course St-Laurent 10k race report

I am old and grumpy but that works.

This season’s goal was to work on my speed and improve my 10k time, hopefully below my unofficial sub-50.

I registered to two races, six weeks apart. On February 25th, at the beginning of the plan, I set the baseline at 52:59, an official PR for me. And my first race in the 50-59 category *sigh*

For many reasons (family, work, knee) I had good training days and some when speed was out of the question.

I was so not enthusiastic going into this race. My preparation the night before was make a wash so I have a choice of clothes tomorrow. I didn’t sleep well but it had nothing to do with the event. April 7th was a gorgeous sunny day, I was going to run anyway so I laced my new to racing ASICS Novablast and I went.

The closed course was two out and back in an almost industrial setting. 25 minutes drive from my house, big parking, easy bib pickup, real bathrooms, warm-up, drop a layer in my car, take your marks and go!

I hang around people who seem to have a steady pace that I find comfortable and concentrate on my form, focus and breathing. I have no precise objective or race plan but I do not want to find it hard and hate it. At 1km, I look at my phone and decide that it messes up with my head. I leave it in my pocket and decide to keep running by feel. I push a bit in the last few hundred meters.

I am curiously as detached from the results (50:41) as I was for the entire race except for one thing: I really improved in those last six weeks despite sub-optimal training because my 10k time is better and this race felt much easier than the last.

Two lessons: I do better when I don’t put myself a stringent race plan or objective (so it’s ok to be grumpy). More responsive shoes do help, at least the morale.

As for being old, it does have its advantages. One of which is finishing third in my age category and getting a bronze medal.

I am old and grumpy and I am embracing it for today, because it worked.

View attachment 849337

Congrats on a great race! And on joining the 50+ age group!

 

[avondale]

@The Expert What fantastic eclipse photos! We were outside of Indianapolis for totality, and it was amazing. I'll write up in my next training log. I'm an astronomer, so happy to take eclipse questions, but I'm not a photographer, so I didn't waste time trying for good photos.

@Dopey 2020, what a novel way to view the eclipse! That photo is stunning and unique!

 

[FFigawi]

Because I’m bored, and my running playlist is “only” 11h25m long and that’s not quite long enough for me to not repeat some songs when I run Dopey in January

QOTD: people who run with music, what are the last 5 songs you listened to while running (or pick 5 random songs you like to run to if you don’t remember the last 5)?

I don’t run with music. I do many of my cycling workouts on my trainer, though, which requires endless hours of podcasts or music. Here are five from my workout this morning, chosen randomly by the new DJ feature in the Spotify app.

Stayin Alive - Bee Gees
Tonight Is What It Means To Be Young - Fire Inc.
Superman - Goldfinger
Sunny Afternoon - The Kinks
Good Luck, Babe - Chappell Roam

 

[gosalyn_mallard]

ATTQOTD: I listen to music only during races and podcasts on normal runs.
Music really helps my mental game during halfs.

- Go the distance from Hercules. Starts off my playlist, calms me down and gives confidence.
- Best Day of my Life.
- You can't stop the beat from Hairspray.
- I want it all by Queen.
- Songs from Sister Act. Always puts a smile on my face. I've had fellow runners ask me why I'm so happy.
- Lady Gaga.