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Having done lots of Lakeland races over the years, AND the Three Peaks, and having just leglessly dropped out of the Teenager With Altitude on Saturday, I can state categorically that walking uphill is in no way an easy option....Quote:
Originally Posted by Stolly
I think I'll be in the sub-65kg category.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stolly
They're both equally difficult but for totally different reasons. 3p's is hard because the tough climbs are interspersed with long fast flat hard pack/road sections which (as any marathon runner will testify) are hard work because the pace remains high throughout and the same muscles are worked hard continuously (hence whernside being tough after the long run in). However, the lakeland stuff has much longer climbs and descents which tire you out in a different way because unless you live up there it's hard to train for that sort of climbing. Having only run one lakeland race and done very little training up there I don't have a direct comparison, except to say that The 3p's is the only race to date that I've ever DNF'd. I'm intending to do Borrowdale this year so after that I'll feel in a better position to offer a comparison.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fellhound
None of this will mean anything in 10 years time, think of money in 1971, nobody is now talking £.S.P.
But with money, the old system was withdrawn completely. Many people have now switched to using metres for ascent, because maps now all show contours in metres. But the only way of getting rid of miles is to move to km everywhere - road signs, odometers, speedometers, etc - which even if the political will were there, would be far too expensive in the foreseeable future.
I was taught metric measurements from the age of 5 (in 1968) - not sure if we were taught imperial too, but if we were then I've forgotten. But still think in miles.
Wanna bet ten bob?Quote:
Originally Posted by Big Compass
I dont know ten BobsQuote:
Wanna bet ten bob?
People will still use the imperial measurements in 20 years time.
The currency is impossible. You can talk in old money when it doesn't have a comparable face value.
But miles and feet will still be around just like weight is still often discussed in stones and lbs.
It may change in time, but I think we are talking a few generations.
The old measures were quaint, archaic, illogical but they were OURS. They smelled of ancient Britain (if not Ancient Briton) - like the fells do.
The metric measures are logical, cold, clinical, mechanical. They smell of buildings, engineering, and man-made things. And they are indefinably foreign.
No wonder some of us preferred the old ones...
They smell of Napoleon.
I was getting dizzy reading this race description on the NIMRA site. I have never seen such switching between metric and imperial!
.... which is 250 metres before and 100 ft below the checkpoint (2) ....
http://www.nimra.org.uk/events/2012/...rd__commedagh/
It's no good, I'm going to have to put pen to paper and write to the editor of the fell runner. I just cannot visualise races in metric...the race reports in the mag do not have the same impact. I feel disenfranchised, sidelined and walked over by wholly unnecessary 'progress'.
what's that?Quote:
Originally Posted by Wheeze
agree.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wheeze
Just to be slightly mischievous, I liked the 10,000m race in the olympics tonight , would people prefer the 30,000ft (or whatever it is)?
But it's been 10,000m at the Olympics for 100 years?Quote:
Originally Posted by biara
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athleti...s_10000_metres
Are you sure!? I thought 400m used to be Quarter mile, 800m - half mile, 1500m - the mile etc. Its just my perception tho'!?
I need to investigate.....
....seems so! According to Wikipedia, at least! Cheers! for the link Dom.:thumbup:
I may have to join you, I was brought up using miles/feet and want to keep it that way!Quote:
Originally Posted by Wheeze
Going off at a tangent (like I do when I stop believing my compass) and dinosaur though I am (happy that Britain can't afford to metricate its road signs, so we will always have miles). Metric races are here to stay, but FRA could have combined metrication with another and more useful reform of race categories. Race info has always shown length and climb. But race categories depend on length and average steepness. So why show climb in metres? Why not as a percentage of length, and define categories like this? C = 2 - 2.5%; B = 2.5 - 5 %; A = 5%+. Why is this better? Peris Horseshoe 28.2k / 2590m is category A so we know it's 5% or more, but if you really want to know how steep it is, you have to get out your calculator. Much easier with metric of course, but if the race info said 28.2k / 9.2%, you'd be saved the trouble, and we could easily compare the steepness of races.
But isn't that just average steepness? What you really need is average steepness, and steepest steepness?? Is steepness even a real word?
Cors it is! It's "the property possessed by a line or surface that departs from the horizontal" (do people get paid for writing that stuff?). How about "precipitousness" for that other property of a race route that you're suggesting might help runners decide whether they have the legs for it. So a 24k race to Canary Wharf (height 240m), then up it, might have a steepness of 1% (there are, I am told, no hills in south-east England) but a precipitousness of 100%.