Spring and Summer Virtual Races

[Coyote Mas Loco]

[this was the Mad Max thread but updating and broadening it to include any kind of virtual running/racing activities in which we might be participating over the next several months]

Here's a summer series I'm thinking of working up. I'm also going to fly this by another running forum that I frequent, in addition to my masters team.

Runners do maximum effort time trials at different metrics. These would be over the summer, about 2 weeks apart, but could be flexible to allow make up weeks if you have to skip a weekend.

Max Velocity - 100 or 200 meter sprint, and go by time and your max speed (latter is variable with our Garmins, but should get an idea in a 20-40 second sprint).

Max V02 - Run 7 to 12 minutes all out (method to be determined, because different physiologists have different definitions) to figure your V02 max.

Max Critical Velocity - Run 30 minutes at the fastest pace you can hold, that's your distance. The layman's definition for CV is the pace you can run for 30 minutes in a time trial.

Max Lactate Threshold - Run 60 minutes at LT. Like CV (for 30 minutes) the working definition of LT is the pace you can hold for about 60 minutes.

Max Vertical - Run as many vertical feet as you can in 60 minutes or 30 minutes. For most or all that would have to be an interval session of finding a 1-3 minute hill and just going up and down over and over.  Not many would have a mount Washington in their back yard, with a low elevation start and steady 10-12% incline. So the interval approach makes some sense.

Runners can chose to run a race distance as close as possible to the levels described above (e.g., 3K for V02 max or 7 or 7.5 miles for LT effort).

Scores by raw time/distance covered and age graded. I, maybe with help from me friends, will set up a Google Docs spreadsheet that we can fill out as we go. 

[Fast Eddie]

 

[diablita]

interesting

[nadra's babydaddy]

Ask me again after a few beers. 

[Coyote Mas Loco]

Update on Mad Max. I'm still planning to set this up, but it's going to be more of a training type endeavor and less of a set of virtual races. I plan to put up a google sheet in June and will just keep it up all summer and then do some tabulating when all is said and done.

See next post for more stuff and a rationale.

[Coyote Mas Loco]

Think I mentioned earlier that at our masters team Zoom call last month several of the runners said they were having a hard time staying motivated to get out the door to run. I have no problem with that, and the hour or so I get is often the highlight of my day. However, the next day I came up with an idea for a virtual race with our rivals in Atlanta and kicked that around with a few individuals, getting some lukewarm interest and I figured we'd have a dozen or so runners from two teams go at it on Memorial Day (Bolder Boulder) and 4th of July (Peachtree 10K).

Our team coordinator wanted me to flesh out my thoughts a little more last week, and kept haranguing me to designate roles for managing and scoring this event--and I was thinking WTF, why do we need roles and such formality? Sign up, run, take a half hour to tally up the scores. So we went back and forth some, and then he sent it to one of the USATF officials who has a pretty good social media following due to his years of blogging the masters USATF championship events. Now these virtual races are going coast to coast with several teams, including some women's teams, wanting to sign 7 to 10 runners each.

We're going to limit this outing just to our age group, but for the next two (also adding in Labor Day), we might open up to all masters age groups. It will have some unique scoring. Now everyone from all these teams want a lot of details, really getting into the weeds on courses, GPS, yadda yadda. Anyway, this is shaping up into something much bigger and more complicated than I had anticipated--which is why Mad Max is going to be downplayed and more do it yourself!

[diablita]

sounds good

And if this is where we put other interesting Spring and Summer virtual races, I just signed up for Rogue Running's Front Door 5K Series

[Arrojo]

As a concept, I love the original idea in your first post. As applied to me, nope. Two months into this social distancing/quarantine thing, and I’ve lost really all of my competitive fitness. I’m just jogging a short distance every other day, trying to throw in a nice little track workout once a week.

My running club is doing virtual races. I get it - they help some people. But if I’m not in a real race, I’m just going to jog. (I did do a virtual 5K in a couple of weeks ago on a track, but I don’t know if I’ll do another). I’m even actually walking while listening to podcasts on my non-running days. <gasp>. It’s where I am. In a way I look at it as taking advantage of some downtime. I’ve been training my ass off for one thing or another for the past 30 years – whether it’s the next marathon, half marathon or the next Master’s track meet. Now I’m just taking it easy and trying not to get too fat.