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Paddaman

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Everything posted by Paddaman

  1. Defeat......
  2. I think there is a sublime message hidden in the socks and shoes.....
  3. What bike?
  4. She was a tennis player behaving badly. She was not professional in her actions, actually very novice and her ethnicity, skin colour, socio-eceonomic conditions, motherhood, poor dress sense, and size had NOTHING to do with her threatening, invasive, intimidating, borish behavior towards a sport official, doing his job. It is interesting to see that her opponent, also an oppressed minority of mixed race did not behave in such a poor manner. If Serena's behaviour was standard for all oppressed minority groups, then her opponent should also had threatened and screamed at the umpire, just because he was representative of the "white male minority" which oppressed both "black"and "Asians", ERGO Serena was grandstanding, got put in her place and resented that. Secondly, "There is no hierarchy for oppression and suffering.", but you chose to deny the suffering of other minorities by blandly saying "Either you're joking or your sarcasm is in bad taste." Please take your woke whiteness somewhere else.
  5. This is offensive. Gingers have also been discriminated against for much longer. It started with the Roman's building the wall, keeping us out of England. Then it was the Norse that arrived and Pillaged our villages and Churches. Then it was the Angles and Saxon. Then after that the English banned the bagpipes and shipped us off to Nova Scotia, and forced us to fight in endless wars against our darker brothers. Do not forget our Irish Cousins that were sold into Slavery in the US of A and the Caribbean Sugar estates. Also do not forget about the potato blight and the depopulation of the glens of Scotland. Then the troubles of Ireland where Irish were pitted against Irish. You talk about your discrimination, Amateurs. Despite this we gave you macadamized roads, Macintosh's, Adam Smith, Iain Ferguson, the Haggis, Whisky, Bagpipes, the kilt, blue face paint, Robert Bruce, tartan, Irnbru, Gordon Brown Gaelic Forever.
  6. I did not realise that Serena was South African!. BEE is not a US policy, but rather AA is a US policy within limits. Also Serena was playing against a mixed race player of Japanese and Haitian, so if the race card was to be played, her opponent has a stronger claim on that. Serena is spoilt and thought her power of incumbency would overwhelm her opponent and intimidate the judge. Also to use the gender excuse is laughable, as it is "ladies" tennis and yes more lady-like behaviour is expected. Though I can see the days of John McEnroe antics in men's tennis is also going to come to an end as a result of Serena's jibes and groans. In the end she messed up her race to glory and made another player, one with her own racial demons suffer unnecessarily. Also she only provided evidence to outdated biases and opinions. Stupid is what stupid does.
  7. I also believe in the double sessions on a day. But I only clock 4-6km in the morning and 6-10lm in the afternoon. Morning is normally about a minute/km slower than the afternoon pace. After five days of this I rest and then occasionally do a 15-20km club run LSD on Sundays. This also allows additional rest day or half day a week so that I can attend business meetings and not commute run to work.
  8. The most interesting thing for me is that in the day of big data and analytics, as well as massive data sets available (strava and garmin ext) that no mathematical/statistically based training app/ programme has been developed, where you can either enter your desired distance and speed and get a 26 week training programme, or that your last 26 weeks of training can be numver crunched to give you a prediction of race time. I know a lot of number crunching has been done post facto after comrades ext to show the relationship between total mileage vs final time, and I know that garmin has some analytics to predict times based on fitness, but I have yet to see a algorithm that can crunch numbers on the fly and then give a tailored programme. It seems that training programmes remain a bit of an art form rather than a science.
  9. So a 4:30 cut off would exclude the G and H group, which is where the DNF's grow almost exponentially. So maybe the idea of using a sliding entry fee for after 4:30 may incentivize these athletes to seriously consider there commitment to the entry or to start to serious review their training methodology. Obviously there are those in the group that will deserve a bronze, but they are more of an outlier than a mainstream issue. These runners could then "use" their bronze to "move up" the starting order the following year. (much like Argus uses the previous years Argus results to determine race seedings). It is interesting that the Vic Clapman medal only really starts to come into consideration in group D which is incidentally the sub 4hr batch.
  10. I agree that the Comrades Association should indicate why it wants to review the entry system. It is always good to know the full extent of the problem definition before one starts on working out possible solutions.
  11. This question is like asking a doctor what terminal disease he has, or a lawyer for his criminal record. Having run comrades does not somehow give you great insights into mathematics or statistics, just like suffering from cancer suddenly makes you a medical expert, or being convicted of a crime suddenly makes you a legal expert. The focus is on incentivizing runners to run comrades faster, or to decentivizing "unsuitable entries" from entering at all. If Comrades is over subscribed, and there are genuine health concerns for runners that are back of the pack runners, then one solution is to tighten up the cut off time from 12 hours to 11 hours (which in some people's argument will then disqualify about half the field) or to tighten up the qualification times and thus exclude many of the runners that would have finished in the last hour (or at least incentivize them to train harder). The other option is to use the power of economics to reward the serious runner and "tax" the not so serious runner, by introducing a sliding scale on the entry fee. I suggested two possible solutions (as a point of departure) one set on a linear scale based on qualification times (some have suggested that this should be exponential after 4:30), and another more laborious method which took a "passport/portfolio" approach which used big data analysis to determine whether the athlete was following a structured training plan and thereby rewarding the athlete with a preferential entry. I am confident that big data analytics should be able to be reasonably accurate based on current technology. (At the moment the only incentive to train harder is being able to start in an earlier batch, and this being based on a single data point (qualifying marathon seems a bit outdated). As I have been able to run a 3:40 marathon (at the tender age of 45)(I also finished a number of other ultra trail runs in the interim), after one year of returning to running (I was unable to run a 5km in under 30 min when I started out), I do not see an 4 hour marathon as unattainable for someone who follows a structured programme such as Tim Noakes's 40 week programme or Norrie Williamson's 26 week programme.
  12. https://bedfordviewathletics.co.za/how-to-run-the-comrades-marathon/ Interestingly, if you uses a 4:30 qualifier you would only lose the two back batches (G and H). Some interesting stats in the article.
  13. I seriously believe that the current qualifying times are already to lenient, which results in too many DNF's on the day and the prospects of serious health complications for the back of the pack runners. For something like comrades with the current massive field, they could trim the field by making the qualifiers for a marathon more in the line of 4hr15min, or an average of approximately 6min/km. Obviously on race day that would equate to the back of the pack running comrades around 7 to 8 min/km. entry fees can be increased according to inflation, offset by the sale of branded merchandise and sponsorships. An alternative funding model can also be be considered where entry fee is determined by qualifying time on a marathon. 3Hrs = R300, 4hrs =R400 for example, so as to incentivize faster qualifying times and a more rigorous training regime. Also qualifying races within specific training windows can be given further discounts, so as to encourage the adoption of safer and more structured training. Just a thought. Almost like setting up a strava portfolio, like momentum and discovery, where sound training principles are rewarded. A training/biological "Passport" of sorts. The big data analytics are available to make it a viable consideration.
  14. About right. THe greatest disappointment was to discover that Hazeldean "Cow House" classifies their runs as "trail". It is more like a XC race but without laps. Very sad that there was no real trails, but then there is always the chance to get "lost"so as to include extra km's and lesser seen parts of the farm
  15. e-bike debate, the gift that keeps on giving. and it is not even friday yet...
  16. I have yet to find a poker player that would not prefer having four extra aces up his sleeve at any one time. Obviously his fellow card players would not be so happy about it.......
  17. How do trail runners manage? Firstly, we limit the number of entries to about 200 runners for distances over 30kms, which then reduces the congestion at the tables. secondly, we as runners plan a bit better. We calculate that a 2l pack should last about 15km, so if we plan to run through (or grab and dash) the first two watering points then we can have a "rest" on the later watering tables when refuelling Thirdly, we now carry our own cups/bottles so that when we "grab and dash" there is nothing to throw away. Lastly, when we get it wrong, we get it horribly wrong, and have to suffer horribly until the next feed station. ps ice cold streams are great for cooling down in, but if it is hot and dry, these are not an option then it is back to point four.
  18. Maybe its like waterboarding, but just for singles.....
  19. I run mostly on the pavement (as I commute-run) which is in some places very uneven, which is good to prevent overuse on the knee
  20. If you think the camber on the road is bad, try Fishhoek beach, Nahoon beach, or any other beach, thinking of it.
  21. Enter trail running, park runs and cross country......
  22. Rule one is a bit restrictive, but the logic is sound. Simply do not do too much at once. You should alternative efforts across days and have at least one active rest day a week (and if you feel worn one rest rest day). If you slowly increase your load you can get to run up to 10km a day at tempo and have a 15km LSD on alternative days, but this is a six month build up. Comrades runners starting fro a 100-200km week base in December normally get there by May. Cadency or leg turn over speed is important, especially when training for hills. It is a good practice to do one hill session a week, with the express aim of shortening your pace and increasing your cadency. Cross training is a good idea, largely because if you transition back to the bike after six months running, there are some muscles that will hurt you badly. Physio and Chiro are not bad ideas to sort out alignment and stride issues.
  23. Roadie problem, or more generic cyclist problem. The real issue is too much too fast. Cyclists have rather well developed cardio-muscular fitness, but as a result of being "clipped in" the natural pronation of the foot, and the supporting tendons and bands are not exercised through the full range of their movements. Therefore, when you start running, a number of things are going to happen, firstly your bones are going to have to transform from elastic bands to concrete (shin splints are the symptom that this is not happening), secondly, some muscles in your legs which you forgot you had are going to start complaining, thirdly, ligaments and tendons will have to get stronger, which also happens slowly. When you run according to your lungs and not your muscles, something is going to break. Best advice is to slow down, shorten your runs and possibly do some trail running to counter the camber of the road and place some strain on the full range of movement of your ankles and knees so as to strengthen the full leg.
  24. https://youtu.be/eSKjIriYSjo Rabobi, iPeter Parker
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