The Running Thread - 2016

[LSUlakes]

Congrats to all of the races this weekend! This weekend was the Fat Boy 5k with the theme being the fat boy with a Darth Vader mask on. I was excited about that! I ended up with a finish time of 22:35 and finished 75 out of 884. I was happy I ran the race and pleased with my time given that I haven't put in many miles over the last few weeks.

QOTD: Have you ever had a friendly running competition with money on the line? (Or something of value)

ATTQOTD: So, a running group I once trained with posted a summer challenge with money to the winner. I thought, man that would be great and I need some motivation to get my butt out the door. So the rules are as follows: $10 buy in, $2 fine for each missed run, and $10 for missing the long run. I signed up for running 5 days a week, 4 of the runs have to be 3 miles or more and the long run has to be only 6 miles. The challenge starts today to the end of July and we have 18 folks signed up. The person with the fewest runs missed gets the pot, in the event of a tie, the pot is split. Pace does not matter, only miles put in. There is a buyout, but has to be approved and cost $40. What this means for me.... NO MORE SLACKING!!! I think the "pot" could get big and could be nice to have if we make another trip to Disney!

 

[Dis5150]

Congrats @Dis5150 ! So is he hooked now?

He is! We are doing another 5k in 2 weeks. He is so funny! After we finished the race, a couple of young girls who we had been back and forth with and ultimately passed got by us at the end. When one of them was getting her age group medal, DH whispered to me "We should have beat them, if you hadn't let me walk up that hill"!

 

[DopeyBadger]

My advice is to set some smaller sooner goals. You could sign up for some other races between now and February and give yourself some intermediate goals. Or, you could just make your own races up as training runs. Or, you could set a goal of completing X number of runs in a month and you can reward yourself with something. Then, decide you have a time in mind or a set distance you'd like to conquer and then make a reasonable training plan for your schedule. Depending on where you live the weather should be turning around soon, I know it's about to here in Wisconsin. Even getting out there for as little as 20 minutes can help maintain some of the progress you've made. Truly look at what you are doing each day and decide if there is literally no where you can squeeze a 20 minute run into. Is there a tv show you really don't need to watch (thanks DVR or on-demand or Netflix...)? Or something that doesn't have to happen that you can switch out for a 20 min run?

Trust me I understand, I'm motivated to run yet this weather recently in Wisconsin has really been draining on morale.

ATTQOTD: I've never been a part of something like that, but boy would I partake in it. I'd consider it easy money for myself. I'm highly motivated when it comes to competition and money. I've also considered paying someone slightly faster than me to race against me on a certified course, but if I win I get double what I payed them. Never done it though. Good Luck with the challenge and congrats on the race @LSUlakes!

 

[Barca33Runner]

QOTD: Have you ever had a friendly running competition with money on the line? (Or something of value)

My sister and I had a mileage challenge for a month last fall and had our valuable pride on the line. Nothing more high stakes than that.

 

[croach]

I've been losing steam. I started off really well, but my goal is kind of far away (Feb next year), it's super busy for me right now, and the weather has been cold. How can I not lose all of my progress?? Any tips to get myself motivated? I barely even have time to go out for a run right now, and it's really hard to use that spare time to do it.

Sign up for a local race coming up in the next few weeks. Give you something short term to look forward to while you work on the long term goal. Or just go for a couple short runs for fun. Running can be as much a mental chore as a physical one and we all struggle to find that motivation sometimes. Or just take a week off and recharge. Breaks aren't the worst thing.

 

[opusone]

What is it call if you don't run a positive or negative split???

Let's call it "perfect pacing."

 

[CheapRunnerMike]

QOTD: Have you ever had a friendly running competition with money on the line? (Or something of value)

I've never been part of a competition like that but it would be a great way to stay motivated! One of the running guys here in town put a PB challenge together, but I didn't join because I didn't figure there were any PB's waiting for me in 2016 other than ones that would have been considered sandbagging.

You pick a race distance and a PB time.....which can actually be setting a PB, or if you don't have one, you can identify a running time that you feel is a 'stretch'. You can pick two race distances if you want. You put $10 in the pool for each goal. At the end of the season everyone who made his/her goal splits the pool. Any result has to be set in an actual timed race.
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Does it count if a race has prize money? I have actually looked at some races that I've done to see if they are offering prize money for top-3 and I will use that as a motivation to push just a bit harder if I know I'm near the money...I've won a few bucks before and that's always a nice bonus

 

[FFigawi]

QOTD: Have you ever had a friendly running competition with money on the line? (Or something of value)

In Doha, we used to place bets on our times in races. $10 per person, closest to predicted finishing time takes the pot.

 

[rteetz]

QOTD: Have you ever had a friendly running competition with money on the line? (Or something of value)

I can't say I have.

 

[surfde22]

My sister and I had a mileage challenge for a month last fall and had our valuable pride on the line. Nothing more high stakes than that.

At least in my family pride and bragging rights are pretty high stakes.

QOTD: Have you ever had a friendly running competition with money on the line? (Or something of value)

I've never done anything like this either, but much like @DopeyBadger my competitiveness would be more than enough motivation for me to hopefully make some easy money.

 

[roxymama]

What is it call if you don't run a positive or negative split???

It's called "you are a robot."

ATTQOTD: I've never had a monetary bet on running. But when I used to row crew we would have shirt bets (giving shirts to teams that beat us, getting shirts if we won...a lot of times just ended up being good sports and trading shirts.) We had a big box of shirts in our van/bus so it wasn't like they were sweaty or anything.

Answer to the sub-question about motivation. I echo the people who said find a local race or two to run in between now and Feb. You can make little training plans for yourself the weeks leading up to those races. I'm bad about wanting to take a lot of time off after a race so scheduling little races in between keeps me chugging. Also this weather is lousy...I didn't get any runs outside this week only treadmill. I think a lot of us will be more motivated once we can enjoy the non-rainy, non-snowy spring weather.

 

[IamTrike]

Congrats to all of the races this weekend! This weekend was the Fat Boy 5k with the theme being the fat boy with a Darth Vader mask on. I was excited about that! I ended up with a finish time of 22:35 and finished 75 out of 884. I was happy I ran the race and pleased with my time given that I haven't put in many miles over the last few weeks.

QOTD: Have you ever had a friendly running competition with money on the line? (Or something of value)

Nope it's all been for bragging rights. At this stage of the game for me running races only results in an outflow of money.

I did my first ultra this weekend. It was a 50k trail race over fairly rooty, rocky and technical terrain. Lots of weaving through trees and a lot of short steep up and down hills. Wound up picking up a couple trail buddies during the race who ran with my friend Neal and I for the second half of the race. I don't feel too bad today, but it makes me wonder how people do trail 100 milers.

 

[ZellyB]

ATTQOTD: I've never done any type of betting either, but my competitiveness would I'm sure kick in for something like that. Something to consider in the future!

Congrats to all the racers this weekend.

We ran our Rock the Parkway half this weekend. Really good race with a beautiful course. Weather was wonderful. Sunny with the start in the upper 30s. We finished in 2:27:47. Really no time goal for this one, we just were using it to qualify for Half Fanatic status and we did! If anybody is in the Kansas City area or driving distance, I'd really recommend this race.

 

[BuckeyeBama]

ATTQOTD: I have competed in "olympics" in the military and in sports in HS, but never as a member of the running community. I am not the guy who bets on stuff like golf, either. I am competitive, but only in the business world.

 

[DVCFan1994]

ATTQOTD: No, I have never been involved in a monetary competition related to running. The pool you described though @LSUlakes sounds very motivating, Good Luck!

 

[LSUlakes]

ATTQOTD: I've never done any type of betting either, but my competitiveness would I'm sure kick in for something like that. Something to consider in the future!

Congrats to all the racers this weekend.

We ran our Rock the Parkway half this weekend. Really good race with a beautiful course. Weather was wonderful. Sunny with the start in the upper 30s. We finished in 2:27:47. Really no time goal for this one, we just were using it to qualify for Half Fanatic status and we did! If anybody is in the Kansas City area or driving distance, I'd really recommend this race.

You are very consistent on your half marathon time for not having a goal this last race. Congrats on getting into the half fanatics!


Got a lot of folks with races this week!

 

[opusone]

Got a lot of folks with races this week!

The dark side is a very strong draw. I have decided to take the 10k portion of the Dark Side Challenge a little easier than I originally planned since I really want to reach my half marathon goal on Sunday, so I would like to update my 10k goal to be 53 minutes. I will keep my half goal the same at 1:45. Thanks @LSUlakes!

 

[RunDisneyDad]

No wagering or me, but I like the idea!

Congrats on everyone's races this past weekend and good luck to everyone doing Star Wars this weekend and of course @CheapRunnerMike who's shipping off to Boston!

 

[Miranda]

Re: Motivation... I register for a lot of races! Right now I have 18 races in 2016 on the schedule.

ATTQOTD: No competitions with or without money on the line.

 

[ZellyB]

You are very consistent on your half marathon time for not having a goal this last race. Congrats on getting into the half fanatics!


Got a lot of folks with races this week!

I was surprised how close to our time from last week that we were this time. I really felt better than I thought I would. Thanks about half fanatics!!