Two Fruits

Monday, May 24, 2010

48 Hours in France

Today:
Distance: 16.5 km
Time: 85' 50"
Rate: 5' 12" per km
Weather: cloudy, temp 14 degrees, humidity 66%, wind calm
Week: 45.15 km, May: 317.55 km, Year: 1916.65 km

A slow news day in my running world. It looked like rain all day but nothing yet. Ran from home to Theodore on the fire trail to the sub station. Then a short loop to the two reservoirs, back to the sub station and home via the oval & shops.
Gee, Ewen, the oval is in good condition for this time of year.
I have been consistently watching the live video & hourly updates on the 48 hour run in France. It's the same event that Phibes won this time last year with 433.68 kms covering 11 kms in the last hour. This year the winners were both Japanese with the male winner covering 407.966 kms & the female winner covering 397.103 kms. She broke the World record and looked good to go over 400 kms until the last 6 hours when she slowed with just over 6 kms in the last hour.
But if you do a quick calculation, the male winner covered on average 8.5 kms every hour. The female winner covered 8.27 km on average every hour. That is not slow taking into account some necessary stops, plenty of walking, may be some sleep or rest time. The chat on "coolrunning" suggested that most went out too fast.
In comparison, when Kouros ran the current 24 hour world record in Adelaide about 10 years ago, he ran 303 kms in 24 hours at average 12.6 km per hour or 4' 45" per km. That's fast !!
As I mentioned in my previous post, Martin is 3 weeks away from a 6 day event in Europe, forgotten where exactly. He won't be fast like Kouros, but I would suggest he is targetting 1000 kms. Quite a few have done this in the past, it will certainly be a major achievement if he gets it.
However, one must dedicate oneself to the training, a week or so ago he did 240 kms for the week with a 100 km run on the Saturday over the Bush Capital ultra course, followed up with 40 kms on the Sunday. A few short one's thrown in during the week, a bit of tempo running for a change of pace, some long hill sessions on Stromlo. That's an average of nearly 35 kms a day, must have a good job.
Information obtained from standing on top of Mt Tennent for 3 hours with both Martin & John Winsbury, winner of this year's Bogong to Hotham run. John likes running up and down the front walking track of Tennent, same as I do. Lots of fun, but must concentrate, dangerous if you go over the edge, could be life threatening.

1 Comments:

  • I'm missing Calwell. Have been finishing work too late.

    We saw Martin one Sat morning behind Campbell Park - he had a back-pack and wasn't going very quick. That's an incredible run by the Japanese lady!

    By Blogger Ewen, At May 25, 2010 at 6:24 PM  

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