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Didn't even get a mention on laughable BBC breakfast news - and they'll be nauseatingly OTT during the Olympics.
"Moses Mosop Sets 2 WR's In The 25k & 30k He ran 25K in 1:12:25.4, breaking the 30 year-old WR by 90 seconds and then kept going and ran 30k in 1:26:47 (4:39 m/m pace)"
Geb's 2:03:59 is 4:44 m/m pace so this was quick!
awesome stuff from Mo.
it's a pity they don't have a track 1/2 marathon or something like that in the olympics. i mean it only takes these fast blokes <60 minutes! would give the endurance athletes the chance to go for 2 golds like the sprinters, u could have folks going for the 10,000 and 1/2 marathon double (or even 5,000/10,000/and half) and others going for the 1/2 marathon and marathon double maybe (unlikely - but fun to see some try!)
Unbelievable run by Mo, thanks for posting the YouTube link Coro.
Just back from cycling to the lake, swimming and cycling back. So 45M cycling and 1.5M swimming done by 9:30am. Relaxing for the rest of the day before a long ride tomorrow. Nearly there!
I'm also sceptical about 250,000 figure - however, if athletics and cycling are in the highest demand, and we are all runners (and latter day gay cyclists!) then maybe we've fared worse?
I'm also very very suspicious that they had decided how many tickets of each price band there were prior to the ballet. A more cunning plan would be to see what the number of applications were for each price category, and then designate the price of seats as high as possible.
So, for the 100m final, make nearly all seats £750, cos they have lots of £750 bids!!
Shit - I've just become a conspiracy theorist!
And I suspect you're right on the allocation of seats to price bands. This is potentially the hidden scandal.
Swimming session was very strange. Got in the pool in the medium lane as usual, only to find that I was too fast for that lane. Surpised to see first 200m as 3:59 because I normally never get under 2 mins for 100. Then did 10x100m in 1:50 average (1:42 - 1:54). Then did another 1000 at under 2 mins per 100.
Nice swimming breakthrough MtR -- were you wearing flippers? ;- )
Some notable long running by Padams and rather sharply paced reps by Gobi (again).
Not much to report here -- 6M or so earlier with a few hills and then a slightly unplanned shopping expedition... will do some kind of decent run tomorrow morning though hopefully.
Parkrun dilemma for me this morning, whether to do Wanstead Flats and try for the win or Hackney Marshes and try for sub 17? Ended up winning Hackney Marshes in 16.51 so doubly happy. Yay!
Another superb run from Mo Farah. Thanks for the links, guys. And I ran in the same race as him less than a week ago. Yay!
Brilliant news about Mo. Meet is supposed to be on the red button tonight at 6pm. Certainly explains why he did 'just enough' on Monday. The guy is pure class!
MtR - nice one, maybe I should try and sneak my wettie into my local pool. I've given up a bit on OW swimming now, I'll do a few sea swims when the sea is calm but I spent too much time trying not to get beached last yr and it had nothing to do with practicing technique. Wearing the wettie in the lido enables you to do a quantifiable swim though.
Padams - nearly there indeed, well done.
A pretty lumpy and windy 51M on the bike bagged earlier.
For the above rather tongue in cheek reason it is reasonable for them not to advise too much detail about the mechanics of the ballot, providing that the allocation of tickets is fair. This of course presents a paradox as the only way we can be assured that the process is fair is to know how it works! Just because some former world record holding ex Tory MP assures me thas it is doesn't mean that it is so, and calling it a ballot doesn't mean it is random. Perhaps a less disingenuous description should be "allocation process"
I suspect that the numbers of applications received may have caused problems, though if the ballot was constructed using genuinely randomising techniques (probability theory anyone), then the annoyance of people is based on the low probability of success.
Returning to the mechanics of the ballot it is however reasonable to have knowledge of how many seats in each price range in each venue were available even if we couldn't know what the demand for them would be. I only applied for the cheapest seats, but if I knew that they represented say only 5% of total capacity, whereas the next price band represented say 15% of total capacity, then my application may have been different.
Also relating to this point is the comment by many that virtually no concessionary applications seem to have been awarded. The concessions only applied to the cheapest seats and if the applications for these are themselves a small proportion of what is already a small proportion of total seating you can almost believe that an 8 year old grandson has as much change of getting a ticket for a morning athletics session as an insolvency practitioner has for the mens 100m final!
As I understand it, if you applied for multiple tickets for one session, you either get all or non. This means that the probability of getting those isn't determined by coro's mathss, as these are not independant events. However what we don't know is whether the probabiltiy of getting a certain number of seats is determined by the size of that particular application. Intuitively I would expect to have more chance of getting two seats for a session than getting say six, but there's no way do we know how the ballot deals with that.
The previous paragraph suggests that randomness dictates the more tickets you apply for, then the more you would expect to get. But is that fair? I don't think so, but we've again not been given any indication as to how the "allocation process" deals with this.
As I've said in a previous post, because of the huge numbers of people apparently wanting the attend the games, I've personally gone from an expectation of an athletic fest to just being happy to get to spectate some part of the "greatest sporting show on earth" when it was in my own country.
Despite the criticism of the ballot, the measure of how effective the whole process is has yet to be determined as it will need to includes the future ways of getting tickets - maybe even cumulating in turning up at the Olympic Stadium one morning next August and deciding whether or not I can afford the cheapest seat available on the day
1. Lack of information about the numbers of tickets available at each venue and price band. This would have affected my decisions on what to apply for.
2. Trying to sell all the tickets in one wave. No opportunity to learn from mistakes or to tweak the process. The consolation of being able to bid for a mid-priced seat for a hockey heat or something indicates that they hadn't thought it through properly.
3. The need to pay upfront a year early for all the tickets.
3. And above all, because I didn't get any
Watched the Brownlees triumph at Madrid tri today. Alastair far too good for Gomez.
Down in Weymouth now after a 3+ hour drive due to bad traffic. Registered for the tri and took my bike where I thought we had to rack and there were no bikes. Turns out they get racked tomorrow (should read the instructions properly). Can't believe I have to come down just to flipping register and get a number. Why can't they put it in the post!
Bike route has been changed from a nice fast course to quite a hilly one due to old course having a trainline in the way and potentially having to wait 10mins at barriers so now course looks really tough. Quite a bit of wind at the beach and water looks choppy. Not too cold but by the time I get in at 7 tomorrow morning I bet it will be.
From being outwardly fit and well a couple of weeks ago, my mum has been diagnosed with an advanced terminal cancer and has been given only a few months to live. Sorry for sharing that on such a public forum, but I know a few on here have suffered similarly in recent times.
Going to be a tough few months coming up. Won't be complaining about my dodgy calf for a while at least...
Sorry DanA, that's awfully tough.
Happier for you FR -- very well done on the parkrun!
I was going to do a long run tomorrow but might show up on the day for the Tilty Hilly 5 -- looks like a low-key affair but I note Bertie Powell featuring in the past results. At the front of course.
Hail Hail
DanA - all thoughts are with you and yours. Really tough.
http://www.runnerspace.com/eprofile.php?do=videos&year=2011&event_id=120&folder_id=3123#video
Sorry to hear that Dan A - all the best.
A spellbinding 10K from Mo. He looked comfortable at the back of the pack but then his move and final 600m were just incredible. Interested to see if Merga feels he was barged a bit.
And typically thoughtful words from Tom on the tickets and nice summary from Dan A.
Dan A - Really sorry to hear that. After struggling myself with a very similar situation I know there is not much anyone can say to help, sometimes going for a run makes me feel better and sometimes it makes me feel worse. My thoughts are with you.
Messi - I know that you study in Hull but do you train with a club? At the moment SL2 is putting on some really good training sessions in Beverley if you you are interested.
Had another go at a the parkrun today and luckily all the fast boys had the day off so I managed an easy win in 17.06 edging in front of another of my students.
I think I might jog over to watch the Humber Bridge 10k tomorrow morning. Anyone running it?