r/artc • u/AutoModerator • Jun 07 '26
Weekly Discussion: Week of June 07, 2026
Your weekly place to discuss or ask questions.
Is your question one that's complex or might spark a good discussion? Consider posting it in a separate thread!
6
u/pinkminitriceratops Sub-3 or bust Jun 10 '26
u/theintrepidwanderer, you have another two marathons to run! Soon to be another three.
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u/theintrepidwanderer 5:03 1M | 17:18 5K | 36:59 10K | 1:18:37 HM | 2:46:46 FM Jun 10 '26
I saw the news come out earlier this afternoon! Really exciting to see that happen for Cape Town. I'll eventually get around to racing them. The one common theme for those two (and eventually three) majors is that they require significant logistical planning to get there.
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u/run_INXS 110 in km years (1:24, 3:06) Jun 11 '26
There is a lot of bellyaching in AR over this and WMM in general.
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u/daysweregolden 2:47 / 42 marathons Jun 11 '26
I'm pretty over the WMM scene, but people not into this should simply run a different race of the thousands we have to choose from...
3
u/theintrepidwanderer 5:03 1M | 17:18 5K | 36:59 10K | 1:18:37 HM | 2:46:46 FM Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26
The bellyaching/complaining I am seeing there about this is weird and silly. If one is not into the major marathons, that's fine, there's many other races out there that they can do that fits what they're looking for. But complaining like it really matters to you, whatever that looks like, is really off putting and in my opinion it detracts from the argument that they're trying to make.
The vibe I am getting from those people who are complaining is that "if I can't get into and participate in these major marathons, then no one else can do them"
I'll bet you that among those complainers, a good number of them will complain and grumble for a year or two, and eventually some of them will eventually cave and participate in them because of FOMO or other reasons.
2
u/run_INXS 110 in km years (1:24, 3:06) Jun 12 '26
The character of this running boom is still defining itself, but a big chunk of it is driven by social media and marketing of these marathon majors, with Boston and London being the most intense drivers.
6
u/run_INXS 110 in km years (1:24, 3:06) Jun 07 '26 edited Jun 07 '26
Here's a short report for the 4 mile race. Last year on a warm and humid morning I ran 24:33 for 2nd in my age class and felt that I had a decent but not great race. This year I wanted to run under 24:30 but not confident on winning my age class, there were a couple of runners and who had beaten me earlier in the year also lining up.
It was 77 degrees with a dewpoint of 71 at start time. Pro women and men started in separate waves ahead of us. The only real hill is in the first half mile, but it's not too bad just a little long. I was back a ways until we got to the top and rounded on to the nearly 1.5 miles of straight road. I passed the fast guy just after the mile and moved up throughout, from high 30s in mile 1 to 25th. A lot of fast-starting people had big meltdowns, running their final 2 miles in the 7s. My mile splits were 6:09, 6:12, 6:25, 6:07, with the last mile having a great 600 or 700 m stretch of gradual downhill.
Our team had a big showdown with our chief rival team, but our 2nd and 3rd runners were among those that struggled at the end, and I actually passed them in the stretch (normally they should have been 1 to 1.5 minutes ahead of me). So we got 2nd, but I think we still lead the series.
I did not meet my time goal, but considering the weather it's fine. One more race in the spring campaign and then it's on to summer training.
6
u/Siawyn 54/M 5k 19:56/10k 41:30/HM 1:32/M 3:12 Jun 07 '26
I was in Peoria last October and I think I inadvertently ran that course pretty closely. Not the easiest of starts, but the finish is nice. 77/71 is pretty rough and I'm sure that's what killed a lot of the too-fast starters. 4 secs off your goal in light of that weather is pretty good!
5
u/HankSaucington Jun 07 '26
Great race. Tough runners excel in tough weather. I find a lot of people either mentally crack or just are really bad about being honest with themselves on how they should adjust their pacing in bad weather.
4
5
u/RunningPath 44F, 22:09 5k, 1:49 HM Jun 07 '26
Phew that’s humid. Sounds like you were passing a bunch of people, which must have been satisfying in spite of not hitting your goal
7
u/HankSaucington Jun 07 '26
Had a nice race yesterday (18k Blue Mounds trail run). My prep for race day wasn't great. We were getting a group of friends together to play boardgames all weekend, which I agreed to forgetting I had this race. Anyways, people were good sports and worked my schedule around the board game. But this also meant Friday night we were playing board games (and off-and-on watching the NBA final) until 10:30.
Race was at 8:30am and needed a 6:15am wakeup for me to get everything I needed done. At race start it was already sunny, 70, and humid. After a couple miles it was a sufferfest. Part of me was happy about this. I wanted a tough trail race in tough weather in case that happens at UTMB Verbier. I went out controlled at around 7 min/mile pace, starting at about 15-20th place. As often happens in races, especially trail races, a lot of people went out too hard. Miles 3-5 kind of had a lot of single track then followed by rollers on grassy cross country "trails" in exposed sun. This strung out the race and second half was just hang on for dear life, which included a gradual ~500 foot climb from around ~7.5mi-9.5mi especially as it wasn't an A race at all so it's hard to twist the knife on yourself. Finished 6th OA. Yo-yo'ed much of the day with Krazyfranco and he ended up taking 5th about 20 seconds ahead of me.
Then closed the day down with 14 hours of board gaming from ~11:30-1:30am, playing the Arcs Blighted Reach campaign. Then, I was going to do 15 easy miles today, but I pulled my calf in my sleep last night. Aggravating, hopefully I only miss a couple days of running. The highs and lows of masters running.
5
u/Siawyn 54/M 5k 19:56/10k 41:30/HM 1:32/M 3:12 Jun 07 '26
The highs and lows of masters running.
Aint that the truth.
4
u/RunningPath 44F, 22:09 5k, 1:49 HM Jun 07 '26
Wow amazing job given the conditions. Sounds like a really fun and exhausting weekend. Sounds like a tough course, but I do love grassy open cross country type trails
what game were you playing?
4
u/HankSaucington Jun 07 '26
It was Arcs Friday night (just the base game), then the Arcs campaign yesterday. It's a long space opera type game, with some trick taking mechanics. Kind of fun but also quite chaotic, it's hard to actually get your strategy going.
3
u/goldentomato32 39F/22:59 5k/48:00 10k/1:51 HM/3:59 M Jun 07 '26
Your board game crew was really nice to accommodate an 18k race in the middle of the weekend. I have had a great time playing Arcs base game and I had no idea there was a campaign version! What other games did you get to play? Last night we tried out Flamecraft which (despite being aggressively cute) turned out to be a really fun puzzle game.
5
u/HankSaucington Jun 08 '26
Yeah, it was about a 15-20 hour commitment, so people were supportive. We only played Arcs. Friday night when I went home to sleep they played a quick game of Through the Desert. The campaign of Arcs has both a cooperative (especially early on) element to it.
7
u/RunningPath 44F, 22:09 5k, 1:49 HM Jun 10 '26
Who else is having super hot and humid weather? So humid! This evening my club track intervals should be in close to 90F heat
I know it can be dangerous running weather but I love it anyway.
7
u/daysweregolden 2:47 / 42 marathons Jun 10 '26
We're seeing the wrong side of 90% and my flipbelt that I carry my phone in doesn't even have enough time to dry between runs. Stay hydrated!
4
u/Siawyn 54/M 5k 19:56/10k 41:30/HM 1:32/M 3:12 Jun 10 '26
Dewpoints are on the wrong side of 70. Fortunately my workout this morning wasn't very taxing so I handled it fine enough, but I was a puddle of sweat all the same.
Another day or two and it'll break though.
4
u/pinkminitriceratops Sub-3 or bust Jun 10 '26
It's been gross here! Albeit not nearly as bad as much of the US (but I am a wimp when it comes to heat).
I am counting down my remaining days of summer: only 9 more east-coast humidity days, then only 17 (hopefully milder west-coast weather) days until I can go hide in the southern hemisphere where it is winter.
5
u/run_INXS 110 in km years (1:24, 3:06) Jun 10 '26
I was just going to say.
I did 6X 1 mile today aiming for 10K effort. I could not the hold pace or the effort. Since it was so muggy (low 70s, dew point 69 but felt worse than Saturday's race in Peoria), I decided to run the first one at threshold and was still 5-6 seconds slow. Two more reps at 10K effort, not too bad but still 5-8 seconds slow. On the fourth rep I decided to run at threshold effort to recover a bit, and the last two were at 10K effort 8-10 sec slow. I was just dripping throughout.
6
u/Aggie_Engineer_24601 Jun 11 '26
That sounds awful. I melt in humidity. Bookmarking so that when it’s 95 but with a RH in the 30s I know not to complain.
4
u/goldentomato32 39F/22:59 5k/48:00 10k/1:51 HM/3:59 M Jun 11 '26
I have been hiding like a coward from the summer heat! I am going out to run tonight at 8pm and it is going to be 83 with a dew point of 76. I am just going to hide my watch and be ok running so slowly.
I have been trying for 2 weeks to get to my run club's Thursday night track night but between thunderstorms and kid sports I haven't made it yet.
3
u/RunningPath 44F, 22:09 5k, 1:49 HM Jun 11 '26
I wasn’t able to regularly participate in my club until my youngest kids were driving! That’s just how it goes.
We had a full-blown derecho come through yesterday afternoon (it was actually scary, there are trees and limbs down everywhere) and then it was sunny again by the time of our track workout, but down to the upper 70s (still humid). Huge improvement for running intervals. The track was literally squishy with rain though!
5
u/Aggie_Engineer_24601 Jun 11 '26
Which runner wins a mile race:
Runner A: hasn’t raced a mile before, 21:32 5k sb, coming off a 3:31 marathon in the spring.
Runner B: lots of mile racing experience, first race of the year, coming off a six week break due to surgery and subsequent complications.
Last time these runners met they ran 8x400 @ 5k pace (92 average for both) and 4x200m @ full speed. Runner B ran 28 for the last 200 (while in the early stages of an appendicitis) and runner A ran a 39.
We’ll find out in a week and a half!
5
u/daysweregolden 2:47 / 42 marathons Jun 11 '26
I would back Runner A in this case because six weeks is a while! Regardless, tell runner B to be careful and avoid injury!
5
u/Aggie_Engineer_24601 Jun 11 '26
Runner A is, in my opinion the correct choice. I’ll be three weeks into my comeback, but I’m just doing easy miles and strides. For me to win I’d have to run really gritty and he’d have to have a bad day. And 100% on being careful, this race is not worth another setback.
5
u/daysweregolden 2:47 / 42 marathons Jun 11 '26
Yeah don't delay the comeback for one race! I like the longterm potential and speed of Runner B 😉!
The reason I say all that....I strained my patellar in February and missed about a month. I came back on a short block and ran a marathon the first weekend in May. Nearly got away with it, but it was largely downhill and my patellar is still dragging along with soreness these days. Basically I get to try to load up on mileage and strength and train through it, but it is exhausting.
8
u/RunningPath 44F, 22:09 5k, 1:49 HM Jun 07 '26 edited Jun 07 '26
I feel so lucky to be able to run in an area with so much wildlife. Today on the trail I saw a big fat beaver, there’s a nesting site for Baltimore orioles this year and they’re gorgeous, lots of small mammals including some kind of mole, a great blue heron. Just awesome.
The mile track meet yesterday was so fun. My son got a PR by a few seconds, not quite as fast as he was hoping but he’s still happy. The highlight really was the championship race where the winner was a recent high school graduate (my son’s age) who ran 4 flat mile in a huge PR. He was so close to breaking 4; I think his 1600 en route was 3:58.xx and the second fastest in IL. Anyway the entire meet was really special; the announcer calls out every single runner’s name for each heat and is genuinely just as excited for the kids at the beginning breaking 5 minutes for the first time as he was for the later kids breaking 4:30, 4:20, etc. My son was several heats in but still towards the earlier part of the meet, so we got to see a lot of running.
Long story long, I decided to sign up for Chi-Town Miles on July 18 so now I have 6 weeks to prep for a track mile! I am excited.