Yeah I definitely agree that there’s a fairly big jump from sub-80 to sub-75. I’ve got a sub-16 5k and a 33:02 10k in the bank but still haven’t made it under the magic 75 minute barrier for half marathon. I know that I perform better over short distances than longer events, but hopefully that puts it in perspective a bit.
If you think of it in terms of 10k PB, the jump from 80 to 75 minutes is the equivalent of knocking 2.5 minutes off your time. I don’t know about you, but I’d chop on of my arms off if it gave me 2.5 mins off my 10k PB! It’s taken me 6 years to improve my PB by that much over 10k
Completely agree. Every 5 minutes becomes significantly more challenging. I personally can’t ever see me doing a sub75. I can only just run a 5k at the necessary speed. Multiplying that by 4+ times duration is just unfathomable. Yet I got to sub80 quite quickly.
As Trisam has said, it’s significantly more difficult than doubling a required 10k pace.
I wonder if you ever thought, back in 2014, when you were running 96 minutes, that you’d do a 79?
You also knocked 2.5 minutes off your 10km PB in less than 2 years…
…but yes, I do agree that it is hard, but it interests me.
More so than KQ or the 70.3 Worlds, or doing a 20 minute 10TT.
There’s pro’s and con’s. Certain landmarks in running are just “understood” by the general public. I can speak to mates who’ve done some jogging about being able to run under 40mins for a 10k, or under 90mins for a HM, and they know loosely what that means and realise I’m not slow.
But the drawback is everything is about the time. If conditions are bad, no-one cares. When VLM18 was a scorcher, everyone I knew who’d spent the entire spring building towards a particular time threshold (i.e. sub3 for some of them) largely may have well not bothered running. They’d done VLM before, and for them the sub3 was their motivation. I was the same this year after getting ill. I wasn’t going to finish just for the sake of it, so tried for a time (probably too optimistically), and when the illness caught up with me after about 10 miles, I eventually just pulled the plug at 18 miles. Walking it in for a medal was pretty pointless in my mind.
Compare that to trying to qualify for something, or just simply “racing”, and you can then get so much enjoyment and sense of achievement from any event. As I said in my blog, Nice 70.3 Worlds was probably my best ever executed 70.3. Yet the fact it contained my slowest ever swim and bike splits probably doesn’t really make much sense to joe-public. The only part people do seem to understand is that I ran a 1:25.
Take your first IM that’s coming … you’re not going to set any PB’s at Bolton, but if you managed to scrape into a KQ spot, that’s a real achievement that’s then understandable to joe-public. And would be a benchmark of high success when absolute time is skewed because of the course.
The flip side of that is in Triathlon everyone bangs on about being 2nd in AG (not mentioning out of 3) or ‘qualifying’ for GB! Yes everything in running does become time focused and like you say your forced to quantify everything to Joe public. ‘Do anything at weekend?’, ‘yes ran a 10k?’ ‘PB?’, ‘no, but elevation/weather/illness/shit the bed etc’
To be fair, Joe Public has no appreciation of most. If you run, people ask if you have done a marathon. Short distance stuff doesn’t matter. Same as tri and IM. Like you ‘have’ to do one of those.
The one that gets me is if I race anything short it’s either ‘oh I guess it’s nothing for you to just run 5k’ or the worst is slow/unfit people that think it’s ‘easy for you, cos you’re super fit’. No, i think you’ll find it’s probably harder. Cos I’m not giving up half way through, I’m pushing my body to the limit where I’m close to physically passing out or vomiting!
Even though we talk about these arbitrary numbers, I do feel like I really am unhappy with most of pbs. I know I can beat pretty much all of them. It’s just whether or not that’s enough to get the fire back to train specifically for them, as I’m currently enjoying the stupid long, trail stuff.
Club slots usually depend on the size of your club, I think you’ve got to have 160+ affiliated members to get 2 slots now, it used to be about 4 but they reduced it a few years back.
It’s then up to the club how they distribute them, ours generally stipulates you must have entered the ballot and got rejected and have been a member for at least 1 year with the intention to renew etc.
I’m as obsessed with times, or more importantly, pbs as everyone else yet I seem to be more motivated by x country these days. And at XC I just look at my placing overall/ in my club, never time. Not sure why.
VLM… I know of various people who did get ballot spots this year but there does seem to be a much higher proportion of first timers who are getting them. To the extent that I’m convinced the sponsors lean on the organizers somewhat here. Let’s face it… if I got a slot there is pretty much zero chance of the NEW BALANCE marketing swaying me to buy any of their gear. Far richer pickings out there than the seasoned runners with 7 pairs of running shoes and 3 drawers full of kit…
Edit (I’ve actually got 10 usable pairs currently )
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