Gods Must Be Crazy

The Paris Marathon.

When just being a pansy isn't enough.

MarkH said:

Looks like the Paris marathon will be run on the hottest day of
the year so far. It's predicted to be 60F at the start and 71F at
noon. Around 81F later in the day. Figures.

Yep, sounds about right. By the time I hit the 1 mile marker, at the last
pedestrian crossing on the Champs-Elysées, sweat was already dripping off
me. At least there was next to no wind (<=3mph) during the whole race.

Anyway, I got a useful reminder of what "the wall", "bonking" (US
version), "not having a proper strategy so went out too fast" mean. They
mean "big positive split" :-)

That said, I was in good company. Julio Rey was with the lead pack til
about 20miles and finished with a +5' as did Merga with a +7'.

I also got proof that "it's all in the mind" can be true, when I finally
decided not to accept a >=3:00 and pulled out a 42nd km in 4'03" and the
last 195m in 42", to make sure I could say 2:59, even after proper
rounding ;-)

Quoted message said:

Just finished running my second and final race of the weekend. Ran
a 5K last night in 20:28, 1st AG. Tough course. In this
morning's XC 5K at Mercer University (21:58 - another toughie),
got 3rd OA, 1st Master, along with a $50 gift certificate to
[censored]'s Sporting Goods.

More AG wins and OA placings :-) I reckon I'd need to survive to 60yo to
have a hope of winning as consistently as you do. Hats off.

[email hidden] (Miss Anne Thrope) wrote

Quoted message said:

The Paris Marathon.

When just being a pansy isn't enough.

Yeah, Gay Paree at 70+F... pffft. All real runners are at the Boston
humdinger this morning. Only 48F at start, ideal marathoning
temperature, but the heavy rain and a 35 mph headwind might make
things a bit challenging. The stuff of legends for years to come.

MarkH <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

[email hidden] (Miss Anne Thrope) wrote

Quoted message said:

The Paris Marathon.

When just being a pansy isn't enough.

Yeah, Gay Paree at 70+F... pffft. All real runners are at the
Boston humdinger this morning. Only 48F at start, ideal
marathoning temperature, but the heavy rain and a 35 mph
headwind might make things a bit challenging. The stuff of
legends for years to come.

Update from Boston for those not watching live on Versus. Rain in
Hopkinton, around 50F, but *no* wind. Amazing turn of weather. If
the winds don't pick up on the way to Boston, this may not be the
disaster as has been predicted. Wave 1 about to start.

steve common <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

MarkH said:

Looks like the Paris marathon will be run on the hottest day of
the year so far. It's predicted to be 60F at the start and 71F
at noon. Around 81F later in the day. Figures.

Yep, sounds about right. By the time I hit the 1 mile marker, at
the last pedestrian crossing on the Champs-Elysées, sweat was
already dripping off me.

What's interesting is the effect the increased temperature had on
your overall finish time. Based on your posted training times and
race results, I figured you were in a about a 2:50 shape on a good
day. So, presumably, the average of 66F for the duration of your
run slowed you down about 10 minutes.

Some of the running tables predict about a second/mile slowdown for
every degree over 60F. So, in your case, that would be six
seconds/mile, or about only about 2:37 for the entire run. I am
wondering if the equally warm temperatures on the previous day
heated up the urban masonry mass, which radiated additional heat
during the run.

Also, it was a sunny day, no? So the apparent heat on the body may
have been substantially higher than the 66F degree ambient air
temp.

MarkH said:

Also, it was a sunny day, no? So the apparent heat on the body may
have been substantially higher than the 66F degree ambient air
temp.

Yep. Sunny, humid and very polluted. But I think a fair bit of my lost
time was due to poor pacing. I went out quicker than I had thought I
would.

I'd figured 4'05-4'08 was reasonably doable, even with the heat, but I
stupidly threw in a few sub-4' kms in the first 10 (though in my defence,
my HR was only at "normale" marathon level despite the "over-pacing"😉.