Transform yourselves into a pack of Wolves for mini challenge #2. A virtual variation on Hare and Hounds, our guest goat (not one of your number…) has set a course and your task is to be the first Wolf to catch him by replicating the course that the old goat has set… As closely as possible. Let me elaborate…
First the important part : the purse for the winner is a £5 Amazon Gift Voucher. It’s almost like you have magically turned Pro over night right 😉
The Course
The Dastardly Splits!
The Rules
All wolves are welcome to post (to the Facebook Group) two screen images (as above) from Strava of any run(s) you wish to enter for “Goat & Wolves”. A Wolf can enter several runs (so if you run a second one that is better you can post that too and the best one counts).
Obviously you are trying to replicate the following in your locality… You don’t actually need to rock up in Northampton. Actually right now that would be a really bad thing to do anyway!
To be considered your run as to, at minimum, be the exact same Distance (between 10.4 and 10.5km) and the same Time (between 1:09:30 and 1:10:00).
Of those runs that meet the first hurdle above, the run closest to 92m of elevation will be the winner.
STING IN THE TAIL to win; the run has to meet the Distance, Time and be within +/- 10m (as shown on Strava) of the elevation. So that would between 82m and 102m. So you are going need to plan this before running. If no run meets all three criteria then there will be no winner, the Goat will have escaped, the Wolves will perish through starvation and the pack will have disappear!!
In the unlikely event of two or more competing runs meeting all three of the above, the final criteria will be who has the closest split profile to the one above? And yes I did specifically ask our unnamed goat to run some “interesting” splits – so it’s certainly not the case that our kind volunteer can’t run for toffee!!! And I think you will agree that replicating that profile will be (in VERY technical running parlance) a proper bloody nightmare!
COMPETITION WINDOW
Qualifying runs can be run anytime between 12 noon on Sunday 29th March and 19:00 Wednesday 1st April.
COACHING PURPOSE
Obviously this is a bit of fun! But something that many of us can find difficult, especially in a race, but also when trying to execute a specific training session is running to a plan. And yet if we can do that it is beyond helpful as a skill to have in our running toolkit. This is obviously a complicated ‘plan’ to follow (by design). As you become more fatigued (and possibly even slightly hypoxic – but lets hope nothing more than only VERY slightly!) doing maths and processing the plan become harder. So perhaps worth thinking about what you can do up front to simplify that situation when it occurs.
AND FINALLY, MISSING STRUCTURED CLUB TRAINING SESSIONS?
Idea 1: Are you looking for a session to run next week? And missing your local club structured session, here is an idea for you. Just take the splits from the above and use it as a Fartlek session. Don’t worry about the time, just make a note of the differentials before you go out. Run the first 10k at what you think your 10k pace is, then run the next 10k 30s faster and so on… for maybe 5 splits? No prizes for this but if you have a go I would be interested in seeing your results! Not only do you get the benefit of Fartlek developing different energy systems, you also get to practice running to, and processing, a plan 😉
Idea 2: If you are missing having a structured session but don’t fancy Idea 1 (because you can’t please some people haha), message me and if I have a chance I will put together an individual session plan for you. Perhaps if we have time maybe a quick call or IM chat, to understand what you feel your weakness is, and I’ll put together something appropriate to help you with that.
Prize money and free coaching… can’t say fairer than that. (Obviously I haven’t got much Coaching going on at the moment so I may as well do something useful!).
Enjoy 🙂
