Life is an ultramarathon

To content | To menu | To search

Keyword - sub

Entries feed - Comments feed

Sunday, February 27 2011

Hyde Park Relays 2011

By Julien on Sunday, February 27 2011, 23:01 - Events

In a hope to maintain some of the running "tradition" in my group despite having left Imperial College last week, I attempted to motivate a few colleagues to run the Hyde Park Relays (teams of 6) on Saturday and/or the Cambridge Boundary Run (marathon and half) on Sunday. With an amazing 14 people acknowledging to run 5.16km for the Relays a month ago, I optimistically decided to pre-register 2 teams.

Alas, runners dropped out little by little as time passed, and on Friday only 8 runners had finally confirmed to come. I gave up on the Boundary Run.

On the day, I registered teams "Legend" and (wait for it...) "Dairy". Whilst Dairy was a proper 6-runner team, Legend only featured Alessio and I, relaying each other 3 times alternatively.

In a final bad luck strike, a last-minute defection meant someone had also to run twice in Dairy...

The race went on relatively well given my lack of training, and I managed to run my laps in 20:42, 21:04, and 22:17, with Alessio running in similar times. The last lap was a bit tricky, especially in the (slightly) uphill sections. It was an odd feeling to run fast for 20 minutes and then cool down, feeling my legs seizing up for 20 minutes before running again, starting with jelly legs :) And again! Anyhow, we finished 45th/95 overall, and 4th/38 internal team. Not bad.

After a lot of tergiversation between a few of us, Dan decided to run the extra lap for Dairy. Well done!

Full results.

Ultra short (of runners)

one comment

Monday, February 22 2010

Hyde Park Relays 2010

By Julien on Monday, February 22 2010, 15:27 - Events

The week-end before last I ran the first leg of the Hyde Park Relays, as part of the team "Baton Tossers". I managed a 19.25 time on the 5.164km loop. This is not too bad given my current general lack of serious training, especially at high speed/short distance. This is the shortest race I've run since my first ever race more than 10 years ago. Using the Riegel prediction formula, that would give me a marathon time of ... 2:59:58! I guess I can keep training.

Not so ultra.

PS: quite a few people, like here, say that the formula means that the "speed declines by around 6% when the distance doubles". I cannot really agree with that. Consider Riegel's formula t2=t1*(d2/d1)^1.06, and assuming d2=2*d1, then t2=t1*2^1.06. The speed v2=d2/t2=(2*d1)/(t1*2^1.06)=v1*2^-0.06=~v1*0.96. That is a reduction of speed of 4%, not 6%. Am I missing something here?

one comment

Monday, February 2 2009

Watford Half-Marathon 2009

By Julien on Monday, February 2 2009, 11:52 - Events

A couple of us went to run the Watford Half-Marathon yesterday. The weather was quite chilly, especially in the areas exposed to the wind. A couple of snow flakes on the finish line. The route was pretty good, slightly undulating, much more in the countryside than what I expected.

I've not trained much after the winter break so I didn't know what to expect from the race. I took the first half rather easily (49'30) and it felt quite good. So I decided to push a bit the second half, I felt like flying and it took me only 45'40. Total: 1:35:10 with a very negative split, ranking 367/1958 finishers. Not too bad for what is my longest run since October. The negative split also means I could have run at least 2 minutes faster, and maybe even gone for a PB. Oh, well...

The race would have been much more fun with today's weather: there is about 10cm of snow in central London. They don't seem to be able to deal with snow here, as none of the pavements are salted and even fairly important roads haven't been treated yet. Can't wait to get my fell running shoes on and go for a decent run in the snow tomorrow!

tube + snow


Ultra start of the season.

6 comments

Tuesday, August 19 2008

Ufdance Runners Quest Half Marathon 2008

By Julien on Tuesday, August 19 2008, 15:25 - Events

On Sunday, I ran the Ufdance half-marathon in Hackney marshes. Needless to say that I did a PB (personal best), as this was my first half-marathon :) I ran the 6 laps in 1:32, ranking 29th out of 242 finishers.

Ufdance Half-Marathon 2008


Everything went on globally well, I pushed it the whole way to try to get as close as possible to 1:30. I just had a mild hypoglycemia at the beginning of the fifth lap (15km), that I killed with a Honey Stinger under the tongue. I'll come back later on these gels on this blog. Without that incident I might have been able to shave off another minute.

Lap 114:43
Lap 215:02
Lap 315:02
Lap 415:08
Lap 515:56
Lap 615:05
Finish01:00
Overall1:31:56

The race organisation was very good, friendly and cheerful. I particularly appreciated the "full meal" goodie bag at the finish line (bread, cheese, fruits, sweets, ...).

Ultra not so long race.

3 comments

Powered by