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Moraghan Training - Stevie G
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Resting today, bike tomorrow and probably a few more days off running yet. Filling the gaps with S&C and press ups etc.
Blimey, Jools. That really is hilly for a regular route. Roughly same miles/elevation as my Three Hills of Cleeve and I consider that vertiginous.
Saw a good photo of you at VLM on Facebook today, PMJ.
Reg - yes I remember seeing James Dunne on a lot of the usual podcasts etc a few years ago. Pretty good stuff. Think he was a semi pro rugby player but also running coach. Decided to run a marathon of no specific training - and at 17st, just to see what it was like for some of his clients. Unsurprisingly, he said it was tough!
Don’t necessarily agree with your COVID stance, but certainly do on the need for alternative voices. The starkly divided society seen in the US is in part, in my opinion, due to endless echo chambers found on certain news channels, social media etc.
Going to really upset the apple cart here - I’m a wine man nearly every time. Even a member of the Wine Society 🍷 😆
Oh - and running. 8 easy buggy miles at 8m/m. Sounding a bit broken record on that front. Positively warm. Might crack out the short shorts if I ever get round to this week’s session.
That was the year where Chingo was on the thread and talking about thrashing his club's (pretty fast) marathon record wasn't it?
And unfortunately had an absolute nightmare whereas you put in an incredibly perfectly run race around 2.50?
Anyway back to the running. Was warm & sunny by the time I got out for today’s hilly 10.9M. I was squeezing it in to lunchtime so pushed on towards the end & picked up 6th place on a 0.85M Strava 4.4% climb. Another 1500’ done: should manage another Everest month at this rate.
https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/fastest-marathon-dressed-as-a-fairy
2:49:44
Yes, beat Chingo that day and also Frank Fulcher: he has 25 wins to my 2 and one of those he was pacing Maryse after her injury.
https://www.thepowerof10.info/athletes/headtohead.aspx?athleteids=75021|45112
I know this is a running thread but I am getting the feeling everyone is enjoying my Covid thought for the day
Today there was a lot in the press about excess death records, headlines highest since WW2 etc very sensationalist. ONS quote 80,000 for the pandemic period which ignores weeks 1 to 12 which were -5,000 so it's actually 75,000 for 2020.
According to the ONS data however, 40,000 of these excess deaths were in the home, and most of them (97%) are non-Covid. My small brain is telling me 2020 Covid deaths are about 35,000-40,000. Other excess deaths up to 40,000. What could possibly be causing all these non Covid excess deaths? Not lockdown surely?
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending1january2021
Gloves and two layers on top sometimes though.
One of those things non runners would find it hard to understand I suppose. Like people wearing arm warmers but vests and shorts in races.
9 again today.
I tend to wake at 6, eat and then lie back down for a bit. So a mix of that and the cold wet uninviting January morns often sees the pace be fairly pedestrian for a couple of miles. I threw in a bit of a slippy climb in a new bit of woods today which was pretty slow and then another climb on top of that - so the middle miles were quarter to mid 8s.
But always worth reminding ourselves the non sesh day paces don't matter and that 15milers at low 7s in spring/summer in more usual times are totally irrelevant to now.
I'm not sure where you get your numbers either; ONS excess deaths are about 80k now, the same ball park as Covid ones. The difference Excess v Covid early on in the pandemic was due to Covid deaths not being reported as such, not higher deaths from other causes. Again widely accepted.
Best take this off the thread if you want to carry on the debate (unless others show enthusiasm to join in); sure those looking for running detail like the 2dp lap times from SG won't want us hijacking their thread
Will plot some out
I know you didn't say it was 100k. I am not a Covid denier either, it's a common phrase used by many at the moment to try and discredit opposing and reasoned views, I thought you were better than that? What I am doing is questioning the extent of it.
My exact contention is that the majority of those death are not Covid deaths but I will admit this takes a bit of mental gymnastics, unless like me you're determined to prove it's not as bad as everyone thinks, you're unlikely to follow this path of thinking.
Firstly a proportion of actual Covid deaths and probably a large proportion of them are people that would have died this year anyway. So the very ill and aged. Secondly the dominant respiratory virus will always kill a lot of people, this is Covid obviously but flu deaths are very low because of this. If Covid had not existed then a lot of people would have succumbed to other respiratory infections. What all this means is that the full 85,000 we currently see is not actual excess death. This is indisputable. It also leads nicely into why excess mortality is more the gold standard upon which Covid should be judged.
This is what needs to be accepted in order to understand the impact and just because you see the 'death toll' everyday on the news, doesn't mean it's not misleading. It needs context. How many people normally die in winter for example? What is the total death toll for respiratory disease compare with the last five years. So lump flu and everything else together to get a true picture.
The excess deaths you see as 80,000 in the ONS report is for weeks 13 to 53 of the year so doesn't include weeks 1-12. From weeks 1 to 12 there was no excess mortality, in fact 5,000 people fewer than normal died. Hence the full year is 75,000.
I suspect there is some truth in that some Covid death may have been under reported in the first wave. If you look at the circled area you can see that. However look at the trend as we go through summer, doesn't waver. 900 a week excess death non-covid. Look at Hospital and Care home in that period, it's gone to fewer deaths than expected until recently. That's a strong indication of death in the home caused by lockdown.
Also your point about people having a test and then dying of something else being unlikely ignores the fact pretty much all hospital admissions are now routinely tested for Covid-19, not only that but many catch it whilst they are in hospital dying of something else.
'Widely accepted' is not a useful phrase, it has no weight on whether it's actually correct or not.
OK you've tempted me into some final points (on this thread, happy to debate elsewhere)
1. A COVID denier in my book is someone who does not accept the fact that COVID is a hugely significant virus causing pandemic levels of deaths worldwide and needing strong and targeted responses from governments. You seem to fall into that camp, though of course you are not amongst the (thankfully tiny numbers) of complete cranks that deny its existence.
2. Even if many of the very elderly would have died (and you may be surprised to know that life expectancy even in care homes is typically around 3 years), that does not make a death by COVID, in huge pain and with no loved ones around any less traumatic.
3. The gold standard of measuring is excess deaths yes, but its not as simple as that. After a couple of unusual years of negative trends, mortality improved a lot in 2018 and 2019 and would have been expected to do so again in 2020. The true "expected" level would not be the 2019 figure, but allow for expected improvements and would also allow for fluctuation in size and age profile of the population.
4. The typical number of deaths per week in the UK is around 10,000. Based on yesterday's figure (admittedly 1 day, but expected to rise further in the next 2 weeks) mortality is double the normal level at the moment. If that doesn't justify a tough lockdown what does?
5. Higher summer deaths at home IMO were not due to lockdown per se, but I accept you can argue there is a secondary contributory effect (though not down to lockdown, as there was no lockdown in the summer!). A number of factors relate: reluctance to enter hospitals, cancelled operations (due to resources diverted to COVID patients) and still some COVID deaths at home not recorded as such.
6. In the first Wave people were typically not tested on admission (one of the many failings!) and so very few will have died of something else having had a positive test on admission. Now people are more routinely tested, but that should reduce hugely the risk of catching COVID whilst in hospital for other reasons rendering your 2nd point obsolete.
Jools - They sold Tennents Super in the Students Union for £1, has to be ice cold though, any of those super strong beers are almost undrinkable at room temperature.
I don't think anyone particularly liked T-Bird as such, always a 'means to an end' drink. And the end was usually messy.
1. I appreciate you broadening the definition of a Covid denier to include me
2. We've covered this before and probably won't agree, in my opinion it's the most vulnerable even amongst the subset of the elderly, I think there's a 92% survival rate even for over 80s. It's those that are sadly at the end of their life or close that are dying as a general rule. The trauma of losing loved ones is inevitable.
3. 2019 was indeed a soft season for flu but this provides a dry tinder effect for 2020 because there's a build up of the vulnerable. People are mortal unfortunately so lower excess deaths are down to mild winters and the absence of novel viruses/flu mutations. It's definitely not because the population have all started exercising and eating kale. The population has been increasing and metabolic health is terrible in this country so crude death numbers have actually been increasing the last decade.
4. Not sure what figures you're referring to here Pete (how many was it in one day?) but we can't look at single days when we have a whole year to analyse. Pretty sure it's not double though. I recall reading about Jan-18, I think where there were 64,000 deaths in January. 14.5k per week, let's see how Jan-21 pans out. I am more interested in the whole of 2020 though as it's a good sample size.
5. A lot of the deaths in summer will be caused by lockdown, missed medical appointments, depression etc not just lockdown but on-going restrictions and economic fallout of lockdown so I think you've forgotten about the residual effects here. So yes down to lockdown.
6. People were put down as Covid deaths purely on suspicion of Covid in the first wave even without a test! I am willing to bet testing does very little to reduce infections in hospitals. My Step Grandad has just gone into hospital with a perforated something or other and a shadow in the kidney so maybe cancer not sure. He was negative on admission a few days ago and has now caught it! I admire your confidence though :-)
Let's say you're right and I am putting myself in your shoes....
85,000 Covid deaths in 2020 they all had had three years to live so all 85,000 are excess deaths.
Excess deaths are 75,000 so we have 10,000 fewer non-Covid deaths.
What are you doing with the 35,000 excess deaths at home?
I'm allowed out tonight - yay! But it's been pissing it down all day, so the fields are not a pleasant option and the roads/pavements are wet with the a weather warning for ice!!!! Bastards!
Don't try and do some offroad one that some punk has clearly set on bone dry grass/trail and attempt it in mud/wet.
Have made that mistake before!!
I am going for a run today so I have something else to talk about.
Fused a bit of segging in with a 10x1min effort session.
So basically 2x0.75m or so, one burn down a 0.3m seg and then 10x1min off 1min jog.
Took the 2 main segs by quite a decent margin. Put them in at about 5.32 and 5.45 pace? But the 0.3m one needs quite a sharp pace (4.50 or so?) and is down a road that seems to act like a wind tunnel and breaks into dodgy puddly/rough stuff 3/4 from the end, so not sure I'll actually ever take this one.
But did at last actually correctly record a time on it - for 4th.
Good segging SG - I enjoyed that one on Wednesday I did at the end of my morning run. Measured out 5k yesterday morning, so might do 2 x 5k with 5 mins recovery tomorrow.
Tricky at the moment, I'm basically stuck to the roads. With the kids off the track is too busy - the hill is a muddy mess, the lake is flooded so no path and any grass is basically mud with green on it..
But he's always (claimed at least)that he's a super low mileage guy - 20-25miles a week.
Although I reckon if he did his 1hr 10 or so half pb of such little mileage he could have been a contender!
I did 3x3mile the other week at about 15secs slower than HMP. I dare say 2x3m at HMP is pretty reasonable - and a variant of a peaking HM sesh. But i can imagine any faster than HM for those would be a world of pain!
I did manage a slow 1 x 10k today though, no after effects, beautiful out there too. I ran on parts of the Wokey course today and it's starting to flood so I know it's almost the time of year the race is run!
A guy at our club posted a mad 32miler today at 7.37 pace. He's V55, and it's an absolutely insane run as his pb is 3.12.xx which is 7.22 pace.
So to only drop 15secs a mile on a solo run 6miles further on is one heck of an effort.
Anyhoo - ran last night! How come 4 days off always makes your legs feel like you ran a marathon the day before???!!! Mud and more mud today, with a few hills thrown in for measure. Can't say I can ever remember it being such a mudfest - combination of super-saturated ground and a lot more walkers I guess.