Comrades 2020

Debra Bourne

PeterDHM: thanks for that link - I'll see what I can see this evening!

marty: well, if it -is- on, perhaps see you there.

Bike It

I'm also a satellite spotter. I used to develop the UK military satellite communications systems as well. Generally skys are clear here so just looking up will do.

I did see a very bright Venus and  also 13 owls on a drive from house to farm. 

Managed to run a bit faster today so things generally positive. Still I'm keeping on my short section of road that is flat and hole free. Still slower than 5 minutes per km though, but thinking I am getting faster. Looks like my target for this year is pace improvement rather than any races 

Southern Snail

We too have been looking at some star/planet in the last week. Am going to pass on that link to Mr SS

MARK A ALDERSON

Monday and Tuesday nights it was a the Lyrid Meteor shower, visible as closest to the light of the sun first time in 160 years, it is also the oldest Meteor shower in history and has been seen by for over 2500 years! Last 2 nights have been more of Mr Musks cheap WiFi sats going up (or so he will tell you, conspiracy of that is connected to his BItcoin foundation or his claim (and probably right) that the biggest threat to mankind and is not actually from man and physical weapons or a virus, but something else man creates -AI) You can see the next lot after blast off from FL at 340 in the morning, then 2110 tomorrow night, then again at 2246, then lastly at 0415 before the leave the low orbit around Earth and settle where they should be located. The reason you can see Venus so brightly is the time of the year, the moon is so closest to reflect the Sun's light onto Venus.

Back to running news, French Sports Minister said no large gatherings as Germany this morning, so next to go is Paris today, then I'm expecting to hear from UTMB that I will not be running that this year neither! Wait till rest of Europe catch up then South Africa will do the same. Meanwhile in Lapland Santa is happy at the prospect of having this Christmas off!

Southern Snail

Mark - That's slander. Santa and his elves are impervious to any virus or diseases 

MARK A ALDERSON

haha

marty74

In any case, when Santa and his elves deliver all their presents, the entire world is practically on lockdown during Christmas Eve anyway. They won't see any difference

MARK A ALDERSON

By Christmas everyone's hair will be that long and we'll all NOW be wearing face masks (from where they are coming from who knows!) so no one will no who to give their gifts to creating the biggest secret Santa ever!

marty74

Southern Snail

Mark you really don't know much about Santa at all do you? He's magical and knows who everyone is (and of course whether you've been naughty or nice) so it doesn't matter if you're covered up!!

MARK A ALDERSON

hahah

baldstan

Debra, thanks for the suggestion, if it's on (and other races are cancelled) I may well give it a go. It was one of my ambitions to do my first 100 this year. At the moment I'm entered for the Amsterdam Marathon on 18th October (optimistically booked as next year's Comrades qualifier) and then SDW50 which has been rearranged to 25th October. I could attempt the full inverse taper by adding the Hallowe'en 100 on the 31st (but for now I won't, and anyway I can't see Amsterdam going ahead even with Dutch relaxed social distancing rules).

Thanks PeterDHM for that link, I'll give it a go tonight. Mark, I'm sorry to have missed the meteor shower earlier this week. I'm usually up in Suffolk for the Perseids in August and have been lucky to have some spectacular clear skies for that.

Max Mladenovic 2

1owrez said:

Right, I am calling the Mars run complete, with a bit of rounding up here and there:-

Momas didn't put any miles in this week and he is a bit too short of the final total to reasonably round up so MeterHDM easily smashed it to take first place Mmax finished brilliantly to take a Milver too MustAnothrRunner finished well to grab a Mill Rowan and I'm crying me eyes out missing a Mobert by a few seconds, but I should reflect this is my first Mronze so I should be dead pleased really. Well done everyone! This indicates we are all putting in plenty of training miles and keeping in good shape for whenever the race gets re-pitched. In particular Mubai should be very pleased with only a swimming pool to repetitively tour; a Mobert is an astounding achievement

Gotta dash and calculate Fruitland now! 

I haven't logged in for a while. First sorry to hear the inevitable postponement and hope you all make it to the re-arranged race when it comes round. Secondly I can't tell you how pleased I am with my virtual Silver medal !, especially sneaking it with only a minute to spare whilst simultaneously having no idea about it! Well done lowrez, this might be the boost my aimless running needs to get me on track for re-arranged Boston (Lincs) in the Autumn. 

Debra Bourne

Max M: what date has Boston (Lincs) moved to?

Bike It

President CR addressed RSA again tonight. Lock down restrictions will progressively be lifted on economic basis. Numerical grading indicating level of threat and allowed activities. The strongest is grade 5 where we are today. From 1 May we will enter 4 in which limited and controlled economic restart will occur - limited sectors can return to work in limited numbers,.transport reopened but under strict conditions. Borders will remain closed; travel between Provinces in RSA forbidden except for delivery of goods.

The definition of the next phases are unclear, but there was specific mention that large social gatherings will only be supported at level 1. The definition itself is unclear and the time to get there is non-deterministic.

Then I can't really see this thing happening this year. This was not my "2020 vision"

Dannirr

@Bike It: did he say when travel would resume?  What level was that?

Bike It

The President did not specifically mention international travel except that repatriation of citizens is supported and Borders will remain otherwise closed in stage 4. The definitions of the threat levels are summarised in this graphic:




However the specific activities and range of applicability is still to be announced. I'm assuming international travel will be phased back gradually from countries where the virus is under strong control and self quarentine under certain conditions. 

Southern Snail

Bike It - Thanks for that. What are your thoughts on the figures given out for South Africa? You went into lockdown at much the same time as us over there and you've had very few cases and "only" 75 deaths which is obviously taken into consideration when talking about reducing restrictions. I appreciate the country is not as densely populated as some which certainly helps but very little testing has been done and I find it very difficult to believe that all residents of South Africa have been taken into account or that all deaths in the country have been tested. The rest of the world will at some point be allowed back into the country for economic reasons without knowing the full impact Covid 19 has had over there based on the given figures. In my opinion.

Max Mladenovic 2

Hi Debra . 13th September

1owrez

Oh man, gotta correct a smidgen of detail in the astronomical observations there; the moon aint doing anything to Venus. A perspective from someone out there will help; so you can see how miniscule Earth is to Venus, never mind the moon. Venus is so bright because its reaching "greatest illuminated extent" on 27th April, ie as bright as it can get in our skies, a combination of the angle of the sun reflecting off it and its position relative to the Earth, also, there is the coincidence of hardly any moonlight kicking about above us, so the sky is darkest too. But as we say, back to running...

Brilliant result on Mars (hang on this is still astronomy - ha ha) Max - I'm looking forward to figuring out Fruitland final places tomorrow and plotting the first week of Bandworld. I'm aiming to get that charity related 2.6 Challenge in (26 half miles for me) tomorrow in lieu of the London Marathon, it should help boost me along our virtual courses too; hoping carrying what appears to be a machine gun won't end up in me being detained

MARK A ALDERSON

Well I always knew Earth is comparable to a grain of sugar versus Venus the size of a Water Melon from being told at school, but I was sure the fact that Venus is so bright at this time of the year Lowrez is because we are so close to it as with the light from the moon, that being so close to? Not as I perhaps incorrectly worded reflected flight to Venus from our moon, I’d be surprised if the light would even travel that far, but there’s be no justice anyway as the reason Venus appears to have light is actually only from the clouds of moisture surrounding it which reflect sunlight, as is the Earth looks to be lit (depending on the time of day / earths position to the Sun) from space too. Plus when we Venus at 20:02, what we are actually seeing is Venus just before 20hrs as it takes over 2 mins for our evening stars light to reach us. 

Now how long before the latest map is updated and we know if we’ve reached Furban or not? Or do you keep us in suspense until you’ve safely arrived into the stadium? 

Perhaps next week’s course could be a cosmic one? Lol

Bike It

Yes Snail not much testing has been done. 150k tests IIRC with around 4000 positive . We are still in the early stages of this relative to other countries. Then there is probably more undetected cases as everywhere in all countries. Screening has been extensive with all population centres screened by now

The revised regulation have been published. 
International travel only permitted at Level 1 (we are in Level 5 now going to Level 4 on 1st May). 'public gatherings' not permitted though at level 1 as well as curfew between 8pm to 5am. However sporting events permitted at Level 1.So the regulations are a bit unclear. 

1owrez

Mark, this has to be a case of the written word only propelling a tenth of the actual meaning that the original author intended, on both sides of the discussion I think we will take several more exchanges to spiral in on a common understanding and a set of words we both don't misinterpret; I suggest we don't do that as this is a running forum, although I'm not saying we shouldn't discuss other stuff ... I bet we can conclude the Venus talk by agreeing it will be dead bright for the next few days?

I'm lucky enough to be working full time, from home, which is very weird, but it does involve being on me arse as usual looking at a computer screen all day, so I'm not tending to do too much of that again in the evenings, so I was just planning on updates later on Sundays when a full week of Strava stats are in. I will be preparing a new route each week to announce as well. There could well be scope in the universe to mimic the map points, although I'm not sure how familiar some of the objects might be that I dig out will be to all - I suppose Debra has survived the mostly unrecognisable Bandworld though I will have a think.

Sounds like definite cancellation doesn't it given those zones. OMG - will I have to come up with a virtual map every week until next June - I will have to publish them in several volumes

MARK A ALDERSON

ahah ah you do make me laugh Lowrez! Can’t believe that come next Friday we could have been saying we’ll be in SA running Comrades next month, now I think it’s a case of ‘a year next month’! 

Maybe they’ll do a special
down through the day, back to Pietermaritzburg on the coach when you finish, then back again to Durban in the dark -  a dark down double run! 

Dannirr

Bike It said:

The revised regulation have been published. 
International travel only permitted at Level 1 (we are in Level 5 now going to Level 4 on 1st May). 'public gatherings' not permitted though at level 1 as well as curfew between 8pm to 5am. However sporting events permitted at Level 1.So the regulations are a bit unclear. 

Thanks for clarifying this as best as can be.   The International travel is a big deal for me aside from Comrades.  I'm in the midst of a building project in SA and can't get there!!

1owrez

You can't stop there Dannirr - you must tell us what the project is - or is it a secret - do we have to guess? I'm going with a Space Elevator, you will charge £1,000 per round trip, the customer goes up with a golf club, changes into a space suit, and gets to chip one of Musky's satellites out of orbit a bit like this:-

Debra Bourne

Max M: thanks. Day after CW50.

1owrez

Mark, I like the idea of getting our miles in with missing this year but I think I would prefer Estcourt to Durban, that would be a real sense of achievement rather than two laps

Southern Snail

Bike It said:

The revised regulation have been published. 
International travel only permitted at Level 1 (we are in Level 5 now going to Level 4 on 1st May). 'public gatherings' not permitted though at level 1 as well as curfew between 8pm to 5am. However sporting events permitted at Level 1.So the regulations are a bit unclear. 

Bike It - so the international travel would be us foreigners coming in? If you go to level 4 on May 1st I can't see you getting to level 1 by mid June. Wondering when BA are going to cancel my flight. Surely they have to if international travel not allowed. It's all a  bit of a guessing game. I was rather hoping Comrades would just say they're cancelling and give the date for 2021 so that when/if BA cancel I can just change the flights to next year.

Southern Snail

So who would have been running London today? I know you were Lowrez. Anyone else? I'm also going out to run a half today.