DFW running club part 4!! ALL ARE WELCOME!!

becky_rtw

tirlittan wrote: »

Just did mine on the best 5k time I've done. I should be able to do 4miles in 34mins and my best so far is 38 I think.

I'm at home filling my bin with used tissues...:(

But I dont run 5k pbs every week - some training days need to be slow

Plus if you want to get faster over 4 miles you'll need to increase the longer run distance over that length

Hope you feel better soon

tirlittan

Yeah, when I get rid of this cold next year, I'll start increasing my distance when I'm back to running.

beer_tins

becky_rtw wrote: »

No not at all - I was saying targets need to be tough - even if you miss them you will get ruddy fit in the process

Yeah, I know

beer_tins

So, there's my targets for all to see. The 5K and 10K are more ambitious, as I'll have longer to achieve them. Unless I enter an autumn half mara and marathon, of course!

becky_rtw

The 1:45 should be a breeze for you - are you doing that one first?

beer_tins

becky_rtw wrote: »

The 1:45 should be a breeze for you - are you doing that one first?

Yes, that's why it's a fairly soft one. But I haven't enetered one yet! I really should do so soon

RichOneday_2

Just going back to this London Marathon thing again:

".........which can only be good for increasing participation in the sport and provides London Marathon runners with a regular weekly event."

This is where it all starts to unwind. The vast majority of their target market are the people who hang around on RW and the like. It is evident from the endless discussions about which races to enter that the vast majority wouldnt go anywhere near an event that had less than 1,000 runners (safety in numbers kind of thing, which is fair enough).

But, as BT pointed out, Bushy is huge as far as parkruns go with about 400 entrants. In the last 3 weeks we have been to an event with 16 runners and one with 20 runners! The average per event is 124, which is just about right.

So, for the above statement to be true then one of two things has to change a) 'London Marathon Runners' (whoever they may be) have to get used to running in tiny events or b) parkruns have to become much larger.


The former is very unlikely because 'London Marathon Runners' in the main are newbies and need to feel part of a large crowd. Hence, 'Run For Life', Great North Run, London Marathon....Retire. We've seen the astronomical figures for %ge newbies in the LM, this is their market without whom their model fails.


The latter is not possible beyond certain limits eg Leeds starts becoming impractical at 200.




But, and this is the Good News..............if the LM organisers do actively encourage the newbies to take part in parkruns a few times by including them in the spoon fed training plans then they will be exposed to people who are going to tell them the truth and discourage them from getting caught up in the hype surrounding 'Doing A Marathon' and 'Running For Charity'. In other words they will be exposed to regular runners rather than just the marketing machine.

Over time this has got to weaken the charity stranglehold and return the LM closer to its roots of being a race that everyone can enter, not just money raisers.

Well, you never know.................................;)

RichOneday_2

The next thought is that there is going to be a nightmare of a month just after the acceptance packs get sent out with each parkrun getting swamped with, say, 500 extra runners...........thus rendering them pointless.

Dear, dear, dear....I'm cringing already. This could get ugly!:rolleyes:

becky_rtw

500 extra runners behind you though

RichOneday_2

becky_rtw wrote: »

500 extra runners behind you though

Just think of the 2 lap courses (and even worse, the 3 lappers)....:eek:

(I'm going on holiday that month :p)