Get fast and furry-ous - it's the Summer Speed Challenge!!! 🏃🏽🏆☀️

[roseabi]

Results post:

healthunlocked.com/marathon...

End of the challenge post:

healthunlocked.com/marathon...

Week 4 post:

healthunlocked.com/marathon...

Week 3 post:

healthunlocked.com/marathon...

Week 2 post:

healthunlocked.com/marathon...

Interim post:

healthunlocked.com/marathon...

Week 1 post:

healthunlocked.com/marathon...

ORIGINAL POST:

Remember back in April, when Whatsapp just pipped misswobble to the crown (honestly, it was so hard to choose between them!) in the Put a Spring in Your Step challenge??

Well, it's ba-ack!! Put your name in the comments, it's time to get sweaty, as we gear up for the Summer Speed Challenge

This challenge is all about pushing yourself. Pick a route you have run before, and try to run it faster - simple as that!!

The challenge will run for 4 weeks, starting from the week commencing Monday, June 4th. Your run can happen at any time during that week, and I will put up a new post each following Monday to collect your data and show the results when we have some. You can repeat runs if you wish, but please post just the one result per week

I will be publishing the weekly results with a graph and leader boards, so it would be great if, before we start, you could let me know the distance of your route, and your baseline time for running that route.

We don't much care for rules in this forum but here are a few suggestions:

★ Rather than chasing an all-time PB, choose a reasonable starting pace, based upon your current training. On the other hand if you really want to beat that PB, you go for it!! This is your challenge

★ Pace yourself and plan out how you will tackle your four weeks. But if you want to just go hell-for-leather from the start, that's your call too, and I will be here waving my best pompoms!

★ Last time the majority of challengers ran around 5k. Choosing a flatter route and a shorter distance will make your results more comparable with those of the other challengers, and will give you a better chance of running faster. However, as stated earlier, this is also a personal challenge, and you can go as hilly and as long as you jolly well like!!

★ I'm sure it goes without saying, but please make sure you warm up carefully before running fast. Also, it's Summer, people, so you'd better have some water with you!

Looking forward to it As a reminder, here's a link to the results from the April challenge:

healthunlocked.com/marathon...

[Maddee_6333 Half Marathon]

Hahahahaha! I better be careful what I choose as my baseline then - MapMyFitness maintains I did just short of 5k in just over 27 minutes the other day. As I walked for longer than I ran that’s pretty impossible 🤦‍♀️

[roseabi Ultramarathon in reply to Maddee_6333]

Was it auto-pausing?

[Maddee_6333 Half Marathon in reply to roseabi]

It shouldn’t have been, but even if it was, the route I ran shouldn’t have been that close to 5k 😛

[roseabi Ultramarathon in reply to Maddee_6333]

Will you be joining us?

[Maddee_6333 Half Marathon in reply to roseabi]

Yes please, it will bring some excitement to my current C25K plan.

[roseabi Ultramarathon in reply to Maddee_6333]

Marvellous!

[misswobble Marathon]

Ooh yer. Count me in. I need to kick whatsapp’s ass 💪👍😁🏃‍♀️

What route though?🤔 hmm

[roseabi Ultramarathon in reply to misswobble]

Yay!

So much choice...

[ju-ju- Marathon]

I'm in.... now my achilles is much better I would quite enjoy working on my 5k time again. Its the route on a big hill, and my latest time is just under 32 minutes. Ideally I would love to get it under 30 in the month but we shall see. To do this I will be re- commencing doing intervals once a week

[roseabi Ultramarathon in reply to ju-ju-]

A great challenge!

Do you want to give me an exact time, or shall I just record 32 minutes?

[ju-ju- Marathon in reply to roseabi]

lets call it 32!!

[roseabi Ultramarathon in reply to ju-ju-]

Marvellous!

[misswobble Marathon in reply to ju-ju-]

I picked a hill last time. This time i’m Going flat 😃

[APScotland]

I'm in too! My home routes are all unavoidably hilly. Can I try out my 5k and 10k routes in the challenge? I'd love to get under 10 mins / mile by sometime in July ... not yet convinced that's do-able!!

[roseabi Ultramarathon in reply to APScotland]

Hello! A huge warm welcome to the forum!!!

Okey dokey! You're definitely up for a challenge, that's good to see Do you mean you're going to do both distances each week?

[APScotland in reply to roseabi]

Yes, that's the plan! Is that OK?

[roseabi Ultramarathon in reply to APScotland]

Absolutely!

[APScotland in reply to roseabi]

Ok - my time for my home 5k route is 32 min 32s. I'm going to change my 10k route (only done that route once as I've been away on holiday last 2 weeks!) to a slightly less hilly one so will report back once I've run it next week

[roseabi Ultramarathon in reply to APScotland]

Righto!

[Decker Ultramarathon]

I would like to sign up this time around as well please. I still have that sub hr 10k to deal with and no immediate long races to worry about. I accidentally got closer to it last week on the first half of the Distillery run at 1:00:33, so now it's bugging me again. :). It will mean running around 5:55 or so, which is harder for me in the heat, but I will give it a whirl.

[roseabi Ultramarathon in reply to Decker]

Excellent!

[misswobble Marathon]

It’s going to be 8km again to coincide with my training plan . Got a few lined up. Just measured a route so am off in a mo. I am tired though I have done lots of dog walking miles this week and a fair amount of running so I am bushed.

Got some fresh music though courtesy of jancanrun

Hopefully that will move my feet 🙂🏃‍♀️

I will let you have a time when I get back 🙂

[Tbae Metric Marathon]

5k flattish Woodland.9 mins/km.So looking for Laura’s speed podcast 12 intervals x 3 or 4 repeats to move me toward the 6 mins/km.

Improbable but hey ho have a go.🙈😂😂👏👏

I’m in please.🌟

[roseabi Ultramarathon in reply to Tbae]

Brilliant!!

[Whatsapp Half Marathon]

I want to (even just to have misswobble kick my ass) . I need to fit it in with my current training plan though which is for a 10k but each week the distances are increasing.

[roseabi Ultramarathon in reply to Whatsapp]

You can't possibly miss out on a good ass-kicking from Wobble!

[Sqkr Half Marathon]

Oo I'll give this a go. My nearest 5k route round the Meadows is flat and easy, my best for that route is 25.46, let's see if I can get a better time.

[roseabi Ultramarathon in reply to Sqkr]

Great stuff!

[Oldfloss Administrator]

Count me in please... I would like to move my 5K time up a tad...I find my Garmin auto pause odd.. it seems to run on for quite a few seconds on auto pause and when it restarts too. so I shall use my watch as back up too!!! x

[roseabi Ultramarathon in reply to Oldfloss]

Marvellous!

[C3PO Marathon]

Count me in as well! Shorter runs and working on speed are going to be my goal from next week anyway. I'll do a 5K from home, which has a slight incline, but runs in a straight line. There's one set of traffic lights. I ran it in 31 minutes about 1.5 years ago, but haven't been anywhere near that since. My most recent time is 35 minutes.

[roseabi Ultramarathon in reply to C3PO]

Awesome!

[BLEWI]

OMG I’m So In!! Ran my first 10k race last week in 1:00:29 and was wondering what to do next! This will help me consolidate all that I’ve achieved and give me x4 opportunities to knock off those pesky 29 seconds!!

[roseabi Ultramarathon in reply to BLEWI]

Excellent!!

[marco83 Marathon]

I am not convinced I should join this as I am planning to test my speed in July, as I need to pace myself in June (I decided to run a half marathon on the 20th of June: just 5 weeks after the disastrous Luxembourg marathon...).

However, I cannot resist a good challenge and this is good. So, I would love to be in! in the next 4 weeks I am going to run a few times on a fairly flat 7.3 miles with a half a mile upward incline before and followed by a final steep incline of half a mile (bit more), for a total of 8.3 miles.

here is the map (and my PB)

runningahead.com/logs/ba66e...

My all time personal best on that course is 1h 01'30''. I might try the hour on this to prep for the HM (on which I'd like to push my pace to 7'per mile).

However, if my schedule (or legs) does not allow that, I will try a 5k at the end of June (local park run on the 30th?). Again a flat 5K...my PB there is 19'43''

I am preparing for failure though...

[roseabi Ultramarathon in reply to marco83]

Fabulous! I too am tempted to join this challenge, despite having no recent data at all, or working legs for that matter

[runningnearbeirut]

Please count me in so I have something pushing me out of the door when it's SO hard to fit in at the moment.

I'm going to try to improve my hot and hilly 5k time, which is currently at 35:06. To be honest, it shouldn't be that difficult to improve as most of the time recently I've just been plodding round, but it IS hard to pace because it's the back of my there and back route that's uphill. I've wondered about sneakily driving down to my turn-round point and doing the route in reverse... may resort to that for the last week if I haven't improved!!

[roseabi Ultramarathon in reply to runningnearbeirut]

Brilliant!

[Macmac Marathon]

Hello roseabi, please could I join if it’s not too late? If so, I would like to have a go at 10km please. Baseline is 55.43. Look forward to it 😀

[roseabi Ultramarathon in reply to Macmac]

Excellent - the more the merrier!

[Macmac Marathon in reply to roseabi]

Brill 😀 thanks!

[TedG Half Marathon]

Count me in please Abi, record my 5k baseline at 33mins.....forget the 10k as my long runs are getting longer now as I carry on with my HM training 🏃😎

[roseabi Ultramarathon in reply to TedG]

Oh gosh, sorry Ted! Yes of course, that is wonderful!! xx

[DiveMonkey Marathon]

Hi! Can I join again with this challenge?

I will be using my running club 5km time trial route and my time of 32:05 (30 May) for this challenge.

The route has a sneaky hill 500m before the 2.5km turn around point but would like to get this time down to 30min before the end of this month.

Skipped this week however as they made it on a Tuesday to accommodate club members send off to the comrades (90.2km down run from Pietermaritzberg to Durban - 10 June) but I already planned speed training elsewhere...

Looking forward to getting faster this month

[roseabi Ultramarathon in reply to DiveMonkey]

Hi Monkey - how you doing?

Glad to have you on board

[DiveMonkey Marathon in reply to roseabi]

In stress mode due to thesis hand in by beginning of August... My life has become work, run, shower, eat, work some more and sleep.

On forum looking for some advise on running gear, will post shortly

Lots of races ahead too, will post of weekly chat too

[roseabi Ultramarathon in reply to DiveMonkey]

Ooh fun I did C25K while writing my masters dissertation - it was good for getting me away from my laptop for a bit! What's your subject?

Looking forward to your posts!

[DiveMonkey Marathon in reply to roseabi]

I am doing my masters in Biological Oceanography - Topic is focusing on benthic invertebrate communities in soft sediment habitats in Algoa Bay (Port Elizabeth) and using the information to assist with a marine spatial plan for the bay (first of its kind in SA)

Hence my name - DiveMonkey, although the images and samples I collected were too deep to dive... Our office (SAEON) in CT has a deep water camera called the SkiMonkey so I liked the name

[roseabi Ultramarathon in reply to DiveMonkey]

Aha! I suspected... How exciting!