Comrades 2020

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Comments

  • Garmin 935 for £40 ?????? That can’t be right? I did have a quick google and wasn’t able to find anything like that
  • Yes, too good to be true. Will have to try to reclaim from my credic card company.
  • Sorry about that Debra, hope you can get it back. I saw what initially looked like a very tempting offer for 80% off Hokas on Facebook a few days ago... but a bit of searching and quickly decided it was a scam
  • I was in a hurry and did the searching afterwards... Lesson learned.
  • sorry, I didn't look into it as I didn't need a new watch (although was tempted to be honest).
  • HOWEVER in conversation with my credit company I learned the following, which is worth knowing: donations made through Just Giving, whether direct or via PayPal, using your credit card, are considered to be a CASH advance - and attract interest as such. That's something I'd never thought about (it was my donation for lowrez's efforts that the lady on the line noticed while we were talking).
  • I didn’t know that either, so much to learn
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    Come on running peeps, enter the space age; whilst FB is a mighty fine place to stay in touch, it's free because of the vast amount of information it records and can exploit about you. Even if you tell it nothing directly like your job, place of birth, dob etc, it's still gotcha, every time you connect it knows where from, all the sh*t you load is being scrutinised for profiling, demographics, play that fun pop quiz, or game... It goes on and on, then it sells the potential, to whoever will pay, including scammers (it doesn't know they are scammers at the point of sale but it consequently doesn't seem to act very fast or responsibly on discovery) of a vast number of individuals who fit the demographic (eg running types, who have been using Garmin devices to upload for at least 2 years and who might therefore be in the market for a new one) a seller wants. It only takes a few successful hits and they are in profit and gone with their spoils.

    I am finding Just Giving increasingly coming under fire, they are a business, operating for profit, but they were the pioneer of online giving and there would not be the huge charity presence there is today on the web if it wasn't for them. Ask any charity and they will be very positive about JG, funds come in simpler, faster and at less cost than any other route. There are providers out there who give a bit more to the charity, eg Virgin Money Giving, which I am using for 777, I think it is a card provider decision on how they treat donations, eg cash advance, not the charity site.
  • I googled the bit about just giving donations, as I regularly use my credit card for this type of thing and have never paid cash advance or interest charges for this, so was keen to know if this was a new thing. As far as I can tell, it is down to the card issuers to define what they consider a cash advance ( I think most don’t consider charity donations cash advance, but maybe I’ve just got lucky with my cards)
  • Agree with your comments on just giving and other similar sites, they are nearly all businesses, different ones have different charging structures ( different amount of your donations go in fees, and/or the charity pays to be on the site) different charities pick different sites for a variety of reasons, but they all like them because they bring in money! Eg the charities would rather receive 95% of a big amount, than 100% of a small amount!
  • lowrez: I'm not being negative about Just Giving or any of the other charity donation sites- just providing the info regarding credit cards. That way people can decide to use a debit card instead. It's interesting that it's down to the credit card company, not the site - I've given before and never noticed this before, so perhaps I used a different card, or my credit card's rules have changed recently. Good to check up on, anyway.
  • If anyone is interested I think sportpursuit have the fenix 5 plus sapphire for sale for around £400.  I've bought stuff from them a few times.. you need to register to see the stuff on the site
  • My Garmin was the 310XT I had since 2011.  I had fixed it numerous time.  The strap was made from velcro.  The failed seal at the button was fixed with a bicycle puncture repair.  The pin broke out at the international area of Comrades 2019 when I put my rucksac on.  Sadly the paint on the bezel is worn off and this is part of the antenna, so the watch is now retired.  I currently don't have a running watch and both do and do not miss it.  

    As I told friends at work, I'm now so slow I don't need a watch, I need a calendar
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    Ha ha Bike It, loved that one, sundials should work well too in SA.
    I too was not pointing any fingers Debra; I have had people tell me JG are thieving b*ast*rds in the past, others send cheques to the charity thinking they will avoid the online transaction charges, guess what a bank does to cash a cheque - charge more than JG, even though it is a charitable donation, etc.
    At mile 11 in Miami my Fenix3 stopped reporting mile splits, OMG, I didn't have the time or energy to stop and give it a damned good thrashing, it decided to start reporting again at mile 21 where it told me I had taken 2h50m39s to cover the last mile! So the elapsed time of the run is intact, but it reports I covered only 16.1 miles... I have taken the day off from touring to try and correct that today. I have just calculated the approximate missing splits and am about to edit the TCX file which I downloaded from Garmin central and will push the amended version onto Strava, all this using my phone, wish me luck!
  • PeterDHM: Thanks for that. I can't justify that for what would effectively be a back-up watch. I have a 935 but it definitely doesn't last 24 hours and I'm going to need to wait quite a while before I can justify buying the new generation (945/Fenix 6) with the longer battery lives. I'm hoping that with the new attachment lead I got that sits under the watch I will be able to recharge on the go during 100-mile races without it kicking out of recording (which is what has happened previously when I've tried to recharge on the go).
    Bike It: sympathies. 310XT was my first proper running watch as well. First one was retired after it kept getting water vapour in so I couldn't read the screen. Second one (from lowrez) worked but I never managed to get it to upload the data to Garmin Connect. Now I have a new computer maybe it's time to recharge that and see if the data is still on these and will upload...
    lowrez: sympathies, and good luck with editing the file - I didn't know that was possible.
  • > @Bike It said:
    > My Garmin was the 310XT I had since 2011.  I had fixed it numerous time.  The strap was made from velcro.  The failed seal at the button was fixed with a bicycle puncture repair.  The pin broke out at the international area of Comrades 2019 when I put my rucksac on.  Sadly the paint on the bezel is worn off and this is part of the antenna, so the watch is now retired.  I currently don't have a running watch and both do and do not miss it.  
    >
    > As I told friends at work, I'm now so slow I don't need a watch, I need a calendar

    Bike IT - I've just sent you a message
  • Lowrez - when do you arrive home?
  • Spent ages yesterday trying to pair new phone with Garmin 235, gave it to youngest teenage son, sorted in 30 seconds!
  • Lowrez, how are the legs/ back feeling now? When is your qualifier?
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    Got Home yesterday JAR from Miami via Lisbon into Manchester, good god it's cold here! And wet!

    Bit worried about my left instep Dubai. How many days has it been since the last run? 5? 6? I suppose I have been on my feet a lot too since. I can walk on it pretty much ok, but there is constant low level pain in it and if I try to rotate my ankle; youcho! When I poke it with a stick it doesn't seem to be bone, but the thick tendon and muscle stuff to the left of the shin bone generates agony under pressure. I should be running Barcelona on 15th March, but no way can I run anything right now.

    Look what I found in the Dubai picture bag:-
    Thanks for the goody bag Dubai, those prawn cocktail crisps were marvelous!

    Debra, the TCX file you can download from Garmin is in xml format, so you can open it in notepad and stomp around in there. I managed to correct the overall distance but correcting the one-per-second GPS snapshots of the 10 or so miles that are haywire is a massive job; for all those 10 miles, every second, it reported I was at around 16,000 metres, all those entries have an identical distance in them, I was doing between 14 and 15 minute miles so I have around 9,000 points to adjust if I want the time to be correct. I simply commented out the bad data so the Strava upload has me covering the dinged in miles in 0 or 1, or 2 seconds each giving an overall marathon time of 2:25ish I think, the true time is 6:30! I shared all the other marathons on Facebook from Strava; I like the way it includes a map with GPS trace in the post, so that's why I loaded it up, I put a comment on it that the time is way out. The GPS records for position and altitude on those duff distance points looks relatively OK, although I can't tell for certain. If I get some time I fancy writing a program to do the adjustment to set the time right. I think Strava counts each single GPS entry per second to generate a time per lap, even though in the lap header there is also a summary of the time taken for that lap. 
  • Lowrez - have you entered the Saturday morning breakfast run at Barcelona? I got an email this morning saying not many entries left for it (it’s free). I’m not currently sure if I’ll be able to run a marathon in 3 weeks, but I’m going regardless as looking forward to a weekend away!
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    I'll do the breccy run if you will McH, that might be all I can manage too! It says free breakfast afterwards :) So, shall we go sight seeing instead of the marathon then :D
  • im Definitely up for the brekkie run, entered at the same time as I entered the marathon,  it could turn into a Singh too seeing, marathon supporting weekend!
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    OK McH, I just registered for breakfast :)
  • Becca7Becca7 ✭✭✭
    I did Stamford 30k at the weekend.  Thanks to Terry, who was marshalling, for the sweets and well done to Mark on great organisation.  
  • Well run Rebecca, I hope you enjoyed it despite the rather unfriendly weather.

    For others on here who would not know, Mark was the race director - It's a massively demanding job and was very well delivered.  Maybe more of you could come next year?  It's good tough Comrades training and a very popular event - sells out the 700 places within a day.
  • Becca7Becca7 ✭✭✭
    Yes, I also would recommend Stamford 30k.  There are quite a few climbs and it's a good test as well as being a scenic race and one of the best-organised races out there.  There are always a few Comrades people running and there were a few at yesterday's race who saw the finisher patches on the back of my vest and confessed an intention to do the race in future.
  • Well done Becca!
    I was at the SVN Moonlight Challenge on Saturday afternoon/evening. We were lucky with the weather - no rain and the wind wasn't too bad (still a stiff headwind in some parts). Got in from the 6th lap at 6 hrs 37, and the cut-off for continuing was 6 hrs 30, so that was the lot for me - 37.5 miles. I was trying to keep an even pace throughout but I still set off a little too fast and faded towards the end. A bit worrying considering it was flat and Comrades is 20 miles or so further, but on the other hand I was 30 minutes faster than for the same distance at the event in 2018, and I did lose time to headtorch-swapping, putting in new batteries etc. However, it's the first time I've run throughout an ultra, not walking any of inclines or anything.
    I've finally bitten the bullet and decided not to run Viking 100, as it's two weeks before Comrades. Now really hoping the coaching pays off and I get my sub-10 at Comrades and sub-24 at the Centurion Autumn 100 or I'm going to feel very frustrated.
    This weekend I have back-to-back SVN events - Leap Year and Olympic Challenges. It's my first back-to-back since the Devil's Challenge last spring. I'm under orders to do no more than 50K per day and to again try for steady pace. It's a little more undulating than the Moonlight Challenge course, so it's going to be a good workout to keep trotting up the inclines, rather than walking.
  • Becca7Becca7 ✭✭✭
    Thanks, Debra.  Sounds like you've made a good decision regarding the Viking 100.  Your training has been impressive so hopefully, this decision will pay off.  I've got that Leap Year medal from 2016, it's a nice one, I must have taken the day off.  That Betteshangar course should be good training, it seemed nicely runnable when I've done those events before.
  • Re breakfast run at Barcelona, I did it last year and it was good. Very short and slow, but all uphill and great views. My mate hadn't signed up for it but just ran along with us on the day, wasn't a problem. There were quite a few "bandits" doing the same.


    I had been hoping to run Comrades this year, but it's not going to happen. However, I'm planning to run it with a couple of mates next year. Will be really interested to see how you all get on!

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