Running

The few times I've been down that way (between Putney Bridge and Hammersmith Bridge) it's been chaos, and gets busier as the day goes on so early morning best if you had to.

Huge tracts of it (and beyond towards Kew) there's no way you can keep 2m from anyone else on the path (either overtaking them or passing them coming the other way).

The North side (H&F council) continues to be shut to runners and cyclists between Chiswick Mall and Putney Bridge, walkers only: http://www.putneysw15.com/default.asp?section=info&link=http://neighbournet.com/server/common/hfparks2004c.htm

For longer runs I'd be looking at RP and using the paths/roads, but it's not flat in RP.

Have to say I've never noticed any discrepancy with Strava. I've seen my route jumping slightly to a nearby segment, but I think this has only happened once or twice. And never any 'wiggling' - has any one compared strava / watch recently?

Strava is also pretty open on the fact that they use estimated times as their GPS can only be so exact. RE @nefarious 's point - I hoof it on segmnets all the time and then grind to a crawl afterwards lol

I've been using alltrails a fair bit to find/plan routes. great app

I attempted a reccy for a 5k time-trial route yesterday but gave up. Thought I might just about be in sub-17 shape but shortly after an opening 3:21 km the legs started getting heavy and I was put off my stride by a bin lorry blocking my road running. Things were already looking a bit sketchy, with pedestrian-dodging being made difficult by a grass verge separating the pavement from the road, plus I missed a turning. D'oh!

Think I'll stick to easy-to-moderate paced runs with a bit of fartlek or progression thrown in. My foot's definitely not up for a 13-mile TT this weekend!

What’s the deal with shoes these days? Is the minimal/barefoot stuff still a thing?

Oh for sure, but it's pretty easy to spot people who are segment hunting vs people that have completely unrealistic splits. You also notice that usually when they have these KOMs, they'll have broken their km or mile pb with something completely unrealistic.

The plotted route is a dead giveaway. He's KOM for one section with a 1min/mi, equivalent to a sub 4 second 100m.

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Interesting - thanks, good to know.

My mate has being doing 5 and 10k efforts round the Emirates stadium and is getting some pretty fast times which I'm suspicious of. (Yeah, he's quicker than me, and yeah I'm bitter about it).

I did 12k the other day at a very relaxed pace. I went round the emirates as part of that and on that km segment my pace jumped quite a bit. I definitely wasn't running faster.

Made me wonder whether there is something going on with the gps round the emirates, or whether as it's a circle, the gps is triangulating and constantly cutting corners and hence giving a quicker time....

Either way, I've told my mate I'm not accepting his emirates times. (He is also using a phone).

The simplest way to rectify this, is to use mapping software to give you the distance of a course, or even better, use an established track/route that has been measured, and then run that and record the time (and compare what the strava recording says vs what you measured it to be).

Thanks for this. I did the Richmond to Kew stretch the other Sunday and thought the same about the impossibility of keeping 2m on certain sections of the path.

Looks like it might be an out and back along the Uxbridge Road then: the joy.

GPS definitely struggles with smallish loops - that's why they're not totally reliable for pace during track sessions.

Made me wonder whether there is something going on with the gps round the emirates, or whether as it's a circle, the gps is triangulating and constantly cutting corners and hence giving a quicker time....

It's the opposite, it gets terrible GPS lock and thinks you've run further. Instead of running 100m down a road in a straight line it thinks you've jinked 10 or so yards off to the side, then 10 yards off to the other side and all of those inaccuracies build up.

The GPS lock doesn't affect the time, as that should be static, but if Strava thinks you've gone further than you have in a specific segment of time then it'll think you've gone faster.

In open country my Garmin Forerunner 935 is very accurate, I can even pick out where I've veered into the road to give people more than 2m distance. Running into work (SE1) it always goes loopy round the back of St Thomas' Hospital and that's before I get to the underpass below Westminster bridge.

The other think that people are doing on Strava now is a pisstake of the #RossBarkley5k.

Strava reports/displays moving time for a run, so people are going out and running 5k but doing it as sprints and rests, but the resting time doesn't count. So people are smashing out PB's all over the place (someone did a 12 minute 5k) but the elapsed time is way longer (some over an hour). Also some are doing them down big hills and pausing the activity while they jog back up and recover, then smash it down the hill again.

Just beware what you see on Strava's "Moving time", always look at "Elapsed time" or the pace graph to see if there are lots of gaps.

But Strava shouldn't record this as a pb, although the distance vs moving time looks fast, Strava still uses universal start/stop time for segments and pbs.

Some nutter in my club did 36 miles in his 10m wide garden. He counted laps but strava says it's about 12 miles less. I don't know what to do with this information, other than conclude my teammate is mental.

Edit: and of course, the main take away is to take all Strava posts with a pinch of salt. My neighbour for example, seems to ride a very similar pace on the local loops, but was completely surprised to hear that I don't stop on a 40 mile ride, where as they stop quite a lot. It's a minor thing, but it's good to remember that comparing stats only shows so much.

I see, get your point about it being the opposite. Thanks, that's useful.

yep, of course, but just wanted to know what considerations were around strava / gps times.

they call them "Estimated Best Efforts" for a reason!

ha, I've never seen anything like that before - thats mental looking.

But Strava shouldn't record this as a pb, although the distance vs moving time looks fast, Strava still uses universal start/stop time for segments and pbs.

That doesn't stop people posting screengrabs of the Strava efforts with "New 5k PB!!!one!11!!eleven!!two".

https://twitter.com/search?q=%23rossbarkley5k

Most of them are a piss take, but it all started with a few claims outed by StravaWankers on twitter.

I've ranted before about how Strava's "moving time" algorithm is provably broken, including posting full recreation steps with faked GPX files on their bug tracking site, but they just don't care.

Midday on a Wednesday- manageable. But it was also low tide so a bit was done on the beach Thamesside.
My wife reports that mornings and weekends are a bit nightmarish.
I haven't had and wont have a weekend for a total of 6 weeks so I have a fairly sporadic run schedule.

I think Wimbledon allows the best mix available, as does super early morning (pre shift for me is 0500)

What's ESM?
And that 36 was a few years back. Prior to medical life. When I could go for a run in some proper hills pretty much whenever I liked.

I’ve “decided” that my previous calf pain was because I’m down 5kg I never noticed and therefore I’m running with better form that’s working more calf muscles.

This is all hypothetical and most certainly false.

Also...

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https://theconversation.com/running-shoes-may-cause-injuries-going-barefoot-could-be-the-surprising-fix-135264

Just started running in zero drop shoes and can report my calves are sooo sore! Switched due to knee pain and can also report I have no knee pain! And I was running in very cushioned Hokas - heel strike just fucks me up.

Nah

Im only jealous. I would be happy with 45!

Certainly something you want to ease into. I’ve used a pair of Newbalance Minimus shoes on and off for a few years and they can be a hard surprise on the body at first. They’re great for lifting in though.

Hey all. I’ve been wanting to organise a race for a while. Life keeps getting in the way. Thanks to the current situation I now have some time to set concrete plans. You all have a breadth of experience and I’d value any ideas or thoughts you have. Good and bad. So…

I’d like to set up multi stage event. This will entail: Hill Climb // Tunnel Sprint // Elimination 5km race (on a track. Each lap the last person is eliminated) // Half Marathon

I want to make this as simple and cheap as possible. Im trying to avoid sponsorship and hype in general. I just want a create an interesting grass roots event.

So, a few questions:
Do you think people would be interested?
My initial plan was to do the whole event over the course of a long weekend (Thurs-Mon evenings). My concern is that this would burnout the runners and may be too big of a time commitment.
Do you feel £15 is a reasonable fee?

I think it could be a cool idea but I’d run it

Half Marathon Friday Night
Rest Saturday Afternoon
BBQ/Beer Saturday after

Make it more a social event than serious. Part of the problem of running in my eyes is the seriousness. Race, have a beer and photos at finish then go home and talk online to others who raced.

Stay all together and have fun.