Your single monthly running challenge post

August 24, 2007 2:55 PM

One week to go in the August MeFi Running challenge, and things are heating up at the top of the leaderboard. In order to open up the mefi running challenges (previous: 1.0.,2.0.,3.0.,3.1.,4.0.,5.0) to all mefites, and not only the privileged possessors of nike+ kits and ipod nanos, I propose to organize future challenges on runnerplus.com, which has recently implemented a challenges feature.
posted by pj_rivera to MetaFilter Gatherings at 2:55 PM (29 comments total)

This site is a lot faster and feature-rich than nike's own offering. It's got automatic syncing with nike+ runs (so no extra data entry for the old school nike+ runners) and manual entry of your run data (so no need for any specific running computer). Support for the Garmin kit is currently under development. Here's the mefi group. Ready for some competition? Longdaysjourney, do you want to set up the walking challenge?
posted by pj_rivera at 2:56 PM on August 24, 2007

If only there was some MeFi fitness challenge related to how many games of Ultimate you'd played. I'd actually do well at that.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 3:19 PM on August 24, 2007

If I may be permitted a personal brag, today I just crossed the 100 mile mark since I got my nano and started Nike Plus on July 12th. Yay me.

Getting a nano and joining this challenge is the best decision I've made since I started running last fall. I highly recommend it if you haven't joined in yet. It's a good motivator and a lot of fun.
posted by middleclasstool at 3:23 PM on August 24, 2007

Hey, as long as I don't have to do any extra work (I mean, to enter my runs), then I'm all for it! :)
posted by web-goddess at 4:56 PM on August 24, 2007

Hang on, pj... I just joined the challenge, and it looks like there's a pace requirement to register a run. A four-minute mile (seven-minute kilometer) pace? Really? That seems a little fast. Right now I'm running intervals so I'm alternating between brisk walking and periods of running to build up strength (plus with warmup and cooldown at the end). At the end of the workout, it currently averages out to about eight minutes a kilometer. So I wouldn't be able to register that workout at all for the challenge, if I'm understanding you correctly. Can we slow down the pace a bit? Eight or even nine minutes a kilometer would be enough to weed out the just-walkers while still allowing the slower runners among us (myself included) to participate...
posted by web-goddess at 5:13 PM on August 24, 2007

Actually, the more I look at the numbers on the challenge, the weirder they are. A mile is way longer than a kilometer, yet the pace is listed as: 4 min/mi (7 min/km). If you're running a 4:00 mile pace, you should finish a kilometer in 2:30. So the two paces aren't equivalent at all. Is that the default setting or something?
posted by web-goddess at 5:20 PM on August 24, 2007

A reminder that the 25th running of the Subaru Ironman Canada takes place this Sunday in Penticton BC (pop. 30,000), with about 2500 athletes from 40 different countries entered. I'll be there to watch, but there's live streaming video with race updates and live timing data for you on the web. Forecast is a sunny 20 degrees Celsius, so times should be good. I'm always impressed by the big, enthusiastic crowds that remain until the last finishers cross the line at midnight.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 6:01 PM on August 24, 2007

A four-minute mile (seven-minute kilometer) pace? Really?

Shouldn't that be 4 mi/hr? Because a 4-min mile? Fuck the challenge. I'm not Robocop.

Gotta be 4 mi/hr. That's a brisk walking pace.
posted by middleclasstool at 7:04 PM on August 24, 2007

Well, I'm in.
posted by oddman at 7:47 PM on August 24, 2007

Me too. I don't expect to get more than maybe 45 miles because I alternate with bike rides, but what the hell...
posted by notsnot at 8:05 PM on August 24, 2007

Shouldn't that be 4 mi/hr? Because a 4-min mile? Fuck the challenge. I'm not Robocop.

For real. I'm just about to dip my toes back into running, and to be honest, the MeFi aspect of is encouraging, but there's no way in hell I'm going to run 4 mph.

I'm planning on using whats left of August to buy new shoes, get the nano armband thingy and the nike+ gadget, and switch from Camel Lights to Camel Ultra-Lights.

I'll be glad to be the slow ass black-lunged hard-drinking mule that weighs everyone down. Come October. Give me a month to at least make myself semi-respectable.

Since the Nano is kind of involved with this, are there any stats on play-lists and the like on either of the sites? That would intrigue me.

Also, shoutout to notsnot! How you doing, mate?
posted by Ufez Jones at 8:24 PM on August 24, 2007

The pace requirement puts me out of the running as well (no pun intended).
posted by donajo at 9:20 PM on August 24, 2007

Hm. This reminds me that I never take the nike+ thing anywhere with me anymore. I mostly just walk to/from work anyway, so am never really a "contender". It was interesting to see how far I was walking anyway.
posted by ODiV at 9:57 PM on August 24, 2007

For what it's worth, the pace requirement is ridiculous either way you split it. If it's a 4 minute mile, no one from any of the previous Nike+ challenges will actually be able to participate. "The current world record in the mile is 3:43.13, set by Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco on July 7, 1999. The current women’s record is 4:12.56 by Svetlana Masterkova of Russia, set on August 14, 1996."

If it's a 4 mile per hour pace requirement, I'm afraid you've set the bar too low - some of us lowly walkers actually walk faster than that.

Lastly, 7 min/kilometer is about 5.33 mph. The average person starts to jog somewhere between 4 and 5 miles per hour. So now you're going to cut out joggers who run too slow?
posted by sequential at 12:25 AM on August 25, 2007

I think PJ is just encouraging you to go metric.
posted by ponystyle at 2:02 AM on August 25, 2007

Yup, I set the pace at 7 minutes per kilometer, the whole mile confusion is apparently some display bug at runner+ (challenges feature is brand new, so cut them some slack..). It seemed a pretty doable pace to me, even for starters, but I guess I didn't take warm-up and cool-down pace into account. So, no problem, i'll raise it to 9 minutes per k.
posted by pj_rivera at 2:14 AM on August 25, 2007

Walking challenge for Sept is up. MetaFilter Walks v.2.0. :)
posted by longdaysjourney at 5:24 AM on August 25, 2007

Allright, we're all set to go then. Thanks!
posted by pj_rivera at 6:04 AM on August 25, 2007

Walking challenge for Sept is up. MetaFilter Walks v.2.0.

Can I use a pedometer that I got in a box of Frosted Flakes? What kind of accuracy are we looking for?
posted by eddydamascene at 6:05 AM on August 25, 2007

ufez jones

Regarding your playlist-comment, here's a link to the 'powersongs' used by runners on runner+.
posted by pj_rivera at 6:09 AM on August 25, 2007

Aww, thanks pj_rivera. I hope I didn't sound too complainy. The Runnerplus site looks great and so far it's pretty easy to use. My Nike+ runs have been successfully imported and I've been checking out their graphs. Very pretty.

Overall I'm actually seeing quite a bit of improvement from my interval workouts, and the hamstring problem that plagued me for the past year seems to be resolving itself. Slow and gradual build-up seems to be the right plan. A 7:00 pace is definitely runnable for me; I'm just not doing it for more than 3 minutes at a go.

But yeah, a 9:00/km pace would be great. It's definitely faster than my briskest walk, so it'll encourage me to run as much as possible. :)
posted by web-goddess at 6:17 AM on August 25, 2007

Can I use a pedometer that I got in a box of Frosted Flakes? What kind of accuracy are we looking for?

You can always plot your route on Google Maps to check the distance and see how accurate your Frosted Flakes pedometer is.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 6:29 AM on August 25, 2007

Yeah, google maps is a good way to check the reliability and accuracy of your pedometer, I even used it to check the calibration of my nike+ kit.
posted by pj_rivera at 6:36 AM on August 25, 2007

web-goddess, glad to hear you're on the mend. Easy does it!
posted by pj_rivera at 6:39 AM on August 25, 2007

eddydamascene: sure thing. I've also found that WalkerTracker.com is helpful in calculating distances with "step-counter" type pedometers.
posted by longdaysjourney at 6:42 AM on August 25, 2007

excellent, I've joined the challenge!
posted by eddydamascene at 9:32 PM on August 25, 2007

I'm in too! Back from honeymoon and needing to lose the weight I've been running quite a bit. Looking forward to actually placing in one of these contests. All signed up on the site.

Does runnerplus.com allow for emails when new challenges are sent out like nikeplus.com did?
posted by bDiddy at 6:24 AM on August 29, 2007

bDiddy, glad to see you're in. It's possible on runner+ to send out email invites to individual site-members or to all members of a group. But I don't really intend to send out invites for the next challenges. Whereas the nike+ format obliged you to send invites to everyone who wanted to join a challenge, on runner+ people can just join a group and/or challenge without the need for an invite. I never really feel comfortable hitting those 'invite all' buttons, it's awfully close to spamming in my mind. I think just by visiting the group-page, people can easily see what's happening and which challenges are active.
posted by pj_rivera at 8:23 AM on August 29, 2007

Final results for the August running challenges. Imaginary medals for all!

distance:
ajr 134.8k
middleclasstool 131.8k
ponystyle 109.3k
web-goddess 91.7k
sanitycheck 88.6k

speed 5K:
pj_rivera 23'34'
ajr 24'06'
freebird 24'28'
posted by pj_rivera at 2:24 AM on September 1, 2007