We have reached the finish line of the marathon and everyone should have completed their team marathon times and 26.2 minute race. If you haven’t yet submitted results, please do so here. We will be gathering together the entries for the alternative marathon for voting later in the week.
See all the league details at: Virtual Race League
Week 7/8 Challenges – Tuesday 5th to Monday 18th May
We are staying on multi-week challenges for now so there are 2 weeks to complete these challenges.
Our next theme week is MILE WEEK!
66 years ago on 6th May 1954, Roger Bannister broke the 4 minute barrier for the mile. We are going to celebrate this by doing mile themed challenges.
On Wednesday’s virtual club night we will be doing a viewing of the first sub-4 minute mile to see how it is done. Please join us on Wednesday at 8:30pm to watch with us.
Challenge 1: Sub 4min-mile attempt!
The first challenge is to try and run a mile as quickly as Roger Bannister. You need to run 1 mile (1609m) and record it with your GPS to make the result available on-line. The catch is that this week you are allowed to cheat. You can stop your watch as many times as you like so the mile distance does not need to be covered in a single effort. Will anyone be able to get a sub-4 min mile?
How you reach a mile is up to you. You could do 4x400m (plus 9m) or 16x100m (plus 9m). Anything goes as long as you are running (no cars/bikes) and you record the run as single activity (and don’t forget the extra 9m!).
If using Strava, please submit your moving time for the mile distance. Points will be awarded for your time using GP scoring in divisions with a maximum of 20 points.
BONUS POINTS! As there are some people doing other mile races at the moment. A few bonus points will be thrown your way if you also complete an honest mile race (no pausing your garmin!). If like me you think the thought of doing two mile efforts is horrendous, don’t worry, their won’t be a lot of bonus points (shall we say 5?) but it will be interesting to see the real mile results that people post compared to their cheating mile.
Challenge 2: Progressive miles.
Our second challenge is to complete a progressive run. This is one where you start slower and gradually increase the pace until you are pushing hard at the end. We are looking for a consistent progression in pace across 3 miles. You are welcome to do this as part of a longer session, but we just want 3 miles splits for the results.
Points will be awarded for consistency in improvement between the mile splits and the difference between your first and last split using GP style scoring within the divisions.
Challenge 3: Strava Art
Not mile related but wanting to continue stretching your creativity, our third challenge is a request for some Strava art. You have the freedom to draw whatever you like with your run. The run can be long or short, fast or slow and cover any area you choose. As long as you can send us a pretty picture of it afterwards that is all that is needed (pictures can come from other GPS aps, not just Strava).
A few people have already done this recently for other challenges or just for fun. Some people try to make art with local roads, others make use of open spaces to go free form. Here is an example by Tony Ruff done for the alternative 26.2 challenge:
Although we have said draw what you like, we do have one request … please keep it clean!
Strava Art will be voted on by your peers to decide points. There will be a further 20 points using GP style scoring in positions on offer for the Strava art.
Additional points
As usual we will be collecting the number of runs completed in this period. A maximum of 8 points are available for the period, 1 point per run.
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