Comrades 2020

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  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    What costume are you wearing SS :)
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    I should be more organised shouldn't I? Found the white wig...

    I'm actually a bit scared at dressing up - I'm usually miles away or in a foreign country - what will the neighbours think? Ha ha! Better go and find my other stuff!

    What time would the gun usually go in London? Maybe I don't need to be that precise, I'm only running 26 half miles.
  • Snail: I'm also booked with BA and waiting for the same thing. Unfortunately, at the moment BA are only offering flight changes/vouchers such that your RETURN flight is less than a year after your OUTWARD flight would have been. Which is useless for next year's Comrades!
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    Can't find my white opera gloves, this is most dissatisfying - I'll keep going - now where are my white trainers?
  • I’d be between Cutty Sark and Tower Bridge by now, great weather for it too, although plus 20c by 12. 
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    Yep, I'm getting concerned about the heat already, sweating profusely looking for my kit - but I think I am there now - just noticed a London running number doesn't say "London" on it - amazing that the marathon is so "major" that it doesn't have to name itself.

    Cutty Sark is where I always get angry as the field slows to a walking pace and you can't consequently achieve your goal time - so frustrating.

    Time to go stretch and have my bones realise they are in for a run today!
  • Hope you have a good run Lowrez. I'm back from mine. No fancy dress for me. Was I meant to?
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    Ha ha, no not really SS well done on your 13! I'm just pulling me tights on - got all me gear ready - what a palava! On me 3rd mug of coffee - that should get me through it, only taking my machine gun out to carry.
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    Which way around do tights go, does it matter, there's no label in these?
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    Darn it! I've got a ladder! Not too bad though, but I can only get them half way on at the moment, just fallen over backwards - guess I'll have to try stretching but not ripping them...
  • Sounds like you're procrastinating Lowrez. Get out there. Don't think anyone will notice if your tights are on back to front. They'll notice the ladder though  :)
  • Good afternoon all, taken quite a while to catch up with what’s going on. Lowrez, where do you get your ideas from!

    At the beginning of Ramadan we came out of 24/7 lockdown, now a curfew between 2200-0600 as mass disinfection taking place. I have a letter and registered with the Ministry of the interior to be allowed to travel to work.

    Malls are starting to reopen but with stringent conditions and leaving home you must wear a mask, gloves required for grocery shopping. Most people are still working from home and you are only meant to leave for essentials.

    We are now allowed to exercise outside by yourself as long as you wear a mask. In the end I ran 5260 laps of the pool to give 147.28 k or 91.54 miles. Been out for 3 runs in the world now(has to be close to home). Midday temperature now topping 40 but ran yesterday in 38 degrees with a face mask on, was just great to be out. Need to be discreet about carrying water due Ramadan.

    In the UAE we have one of the highest testing rates in the world, over a million tests for a population of 9 million. We have 10k cases and 76 deaths so hopefully coming under control.

    Can’t see Comrades or much else happening this year and imagine most people are more concerned about keeping their jobs. I’m still waiting for a refund from Hilton for 2 Oceans a month after they said they’d reimburse. Getting nowhere with Kenyan for a refund, just a voucher and guess I’ll get another for the trip to Comrades. I also have BA flights booked for me and the family to go to London in August for my first trip to the Uk in 2 years, doubt that’ll happen.

    But hopefully Comrades 2021 will happen and the world will be back to normal, it’s funny but after lockdown the little things make you happy - a jog outside the house! 
  • I had a nice run. Should have been spending this afternoon marshalling on the bridge by Embankment Station, or possibly  on the course around there (about 25 miles).
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    Wow, that was amazing, stopped so many times for photo-calls - got to keep my public happy, scared small babies and old people, shot at by some guys leaving a biscuit factory, but made short bread, I mean shrift of them, beeped by cars... and still did a 2:20! Will post photos later, got to go and warm down; I have definitely sweated more than 3 cups of coffee - better go drink some more...
  • Mc HillyMc Hilly ✭✭✭
    I wasn’t planning to run London today, but ran for 26 minutes in my garden for the 2.6 challenge (along with 8 friends we did a relay, each running for 26 minutes, before handing the ‘virtual baton’ to the next runner on What’s App.... and between us completed 26 miles, I ran up and down my garden, which is all of 9m long (as I wanted to save my outing for a cycle this afternoon) having done a few lengths of the garden, can’t imagine 5200 laps of a pool, great work on sticking to the training and good your able to get out a bit now. 
    Lowrez, we need a photo!
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭

    Second photo was at the request of BRUK, I had a serious one too but I'll save that for them :) Sorry  these are not action photos, will have to track down all my new friends out there to get those :D

  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    I had to do a few laps of the garden to clock up 13.1 McH I too can't figure the incredible dedication to do hundreds, nay thousands of laps, amazing Dubai! Well done on your marathon leg McH, great work!
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    edited April 2020
    Well done on your half too SS! Thanks for the encouragement in getting me onto the road, spurred me on :D 
  • Lowrez - have you grown a grey beard and long grey hair or have you also got a wig on underneath that lot?
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    My multifaceted natural locks tend to detract from the overall effect of a pure white storm trooper head, the mask is only a front of face thing, so I do indeed wear a white wig to improve the overall appearance. This creation is meant to be a female storm trooper hence the white dangly locks! Whenever I go serious with a male incarnation I wear a white buff like a balaclava instead.

    I grew a beard originally coming out of 777 but shaved it off when I appeared as Batman in Liverpool, somehow it didn't really go with the half head mask that day. I started to miss it over the ensuing few days but by the end of that week we were all homeworking so I decided to be lazy and see how far I could take it. Not shaved in, hmmm, lost track of how many weeks!

    Could do with a haircut actually, dare I get the scissors out and have a go myself?
  • baldstanbaldstan ✭✭✭
    Well done 1owrez. No sign of a ladder in those tights, did you have a spare pair? And very impressed with how white your running shoes are, they look fresh out of the box. I have to admit, I haven't felt like doing any of the virtual challenges so far, but my son has been coming up with enough of his own challenges to keep me busy.
    Snail and Debra, I've got the same worries with my BA flights. I'm hoping that if South Africa still isn't allowing international travellers in by mid-June then BA might have to offer a refund. Not sure I would be able to use a voucher for anything other than Comrades next year, and as you say, they won't allow rebookings that far ahead
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    The run was on the side of the right thigh Stan, by the time I had hitched everything up considerably from toe to waist to finally get everything to fit it had probably risen above the boxer line :D By the time I got home the crotch in the tights had completely worn through (can't imagine what caused that, snigger) so these are obviously not high quality merchandise. If this concoction needs to roll again then I will have to order new. I got the shoes specifically for this outfit the first time I used it. They are broken in, but I don't use them much. I did have to go over the toes with a mild bleach solution because last trip out had discoloured them a bit.

    I too am a BA customer hoping for a refund trigger, my flights back are a fortnight later out of Joburg, would prefer all my money back so I can re-decide what I do next year - if Comrades even runs next year :o
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭

    A good slice of finishers in Fruitland this week. I only had Faldstan's total mileage, no mile rate or ascent for last week so factored him in at this week's values on that basis which generated a Fill Rowan. Nice bunch of Foberts pushed Feter and Febra out a couple of places. Fark's unassailable lead has lead me to redesign the ascent penalty calculation to treat the result harsher the lower the pace is if you don't accumulate 5,000 ft. That's not present in Fruitland, but it is from Bandworld onward. There are still 3 runners out on the course so I better go plot them.
  • DannirrDannirr ✭✭✭
    Lowrez - I'm building a high speed train service, underground, between Pietermaritzburg and Durban.  Entry points are by secret handshake.  All timing mats are echoed underground.
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭

    Fike It looks like he's running about an hour faster than Fax and FAR despite being in that no man's land between Bo-feijoas and Figs Hills. FAR will be trying not to think about his famstring as his quads start to realise what's happening, again, and with Fax up his farse  this looks like it could be a battle to the line, although I suspect they'll form a fus and help each other in to Durbanana.
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    This sounds like the perfect day out Dannirr, we can have burgers and milkshakes wherever we like. We'll just have to resist the temptation of taking advantage of the system and claiming Bronzes rather than Vics :) I hope you have a system in mind to prevent that kind of abuse? Cattle prods maybe to keep the too eager at bay - I hear Bike It has some electric fencing.
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭

    Here we have the high milers for this week. Bebra is top of the pop charts with a Bobert and benefiting from a relatively low ascent penalty. Of the four Bark was hit hardest with the lowest amount of ascent of the finishers so far. Bnail improved on pace markedly compared to last week. 
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    I'll have to leave you in suspense on the Bandland in play status until tomorrow evening - I haven't even put the bins out yet! Here is this week's new race board based on Monsters:-

  • Dubai, 5000+ laps of a pool is something else, incredible feat, I trust no Psychologists were able to view what you were doing or they may have seen it as literally going round the bend, haha.
    Lowrez, not quite sure what to make of your outfit, no further comments...
    So I have been downgraded due to lack of 'climb' and have to work twice as hard now to progress, sadly living in the Fens for the last 6 years I have little choice of hill work around here, so in actually fact when it comes to Comrades and the hills encountered I should be 'upgraded' for the effort, as with Peter and Mike across the sea in Holland, also flat.
  • Mark: I live in Beckenham, which is pretty flat. I am very, very glad that I ended up joining Striders of Croydon, rather than Beckenham running club, because once I'm out at the clubhouse (which is about 3 miles from where I live) I'm into a much more undulating landscape, and from there/Lloyd Park (which the club grounds adjoin), I can follow the Vanguard Way to the North Downs way and really be into hillier country - if nothing compared to e.g. the Lake District.
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