PPAC-64 3km Road Race

For the first time in just over two months the 3km road race is back. We welcomed seven first timers, including several members of a local youth running group for some great early Sunday racing action.

From seventeen athletes at the start line we had fifteen finishers, eight of whom recorded their first 3km time at a PPAC event.

There were PBs for Andarge, Matt and Simon, with Matt continuing an excellent run of form after a 5km PB at the previous event. Just behind Matt, Paul came agonisingly close, missing out on a new personal best by just 0.1s!

Consistent running again formed a solid base for some of the top performances, with the top five finishers taking the top five consistency ratings, albeit in a slightly different order. Simon and Bora both recorded a Sokha best lap, knocking off a respective 1:10 and 1:44 from their previous best efforts.

All seventeen starters recorded a time for the Park Lap section (approximately 860 metres) and we'd really like to encourage the runners who didn't quite make it to the finish to come and try again soon!

As runners get back into their training schedules the Fitness Factor indicator suggests that fitness is really on the up with several athletes rising to the mid-to-upper 50s, but first timer Lorinda topped the chart scoring in the low 60s.

It was great to see such a diverse mix of athletes taking part in the latest 3km road race, and we hope to see you again at the next PPAC event!

© PPAC 2021

PPAC-63 5km Road Race

Six weeks after our last 5k road race we welcomed two first timers giving us a lineup of twelve athletes looking to get back into racing shape and have a crack at one of PPAC's regular events.

29 degrees is pretty hot for a 5k race starting before 6 am, and given the context there were some great efforts all round with all twelve athletes coming in under 26 minutes and 75% well under 23 minutes.
There were three excellent PBs for James, Matt and Muyngim all of whom also scored points PBs, respectively underlining the quality of those personal performances. Six athletes hit the 500 point mark (including two female athletes in the top 5), with only Andarge breaking 700 points this week.

 

Matt and James's excellent PB performances were supported by highly consistent running, both recording incredibly steady times across the first two sections before accelerating to gain a few seconds each on the final lap.

Matt topped the O₂ consumption charts and had the second highest fitness factor behind Jack. All the runners hit a fitness factor of over 50, another impressive achievement.

Great to see some excellent racing again and special thanks to our helpers this week. Please join us for slightly less distance and a little bit more pace in the 3k coming up!

© PPAC 2021

PPAC-62 Riverside Relay

PPAC is back after a long layoff with an all-new team relay event along the riverside running track - the first time we've held an event at this location. It's off-road but was relatively busy on the morning of the race and pedestrians also have to share the space with cyclists.
This interval style relay event was put together as part of preparations for the following 5k road race after several weeks with no racing.

It's the first time we hosted an end-to-end style relay (relays are generally easier to organise around a fixed loop) and although the ideal team size was 3, we shuffled the athletes and ended up with one team of 3 and two teams of 2.

The race consisted of a total of 18 x 544 m legs for a total distance of 9.79 km. Athletes in the team of 3 would each run six legs of 544 m (3.26 km each) and those in the teams of 2 would run double legs (1,088 m) four times and a single leg either at the start or the end depending on team strategy (4.90 km each).

After a very fast initial lap the race settled down as athletes avoided stray pedestrians & cyclists and dealt with bright and very humid conditions (the riverside route is fully exposed to the rising sun with no shade at all and no clouds were in sight!).
There was some tough racing across the board, with team Andarge/Hugo finally finishing in 34:35, comfortably 20s ahead of team Neil/Jack after regularly swapping leads up to leg 15/18. Team Paul/Matt/Gretchen was not far behind to take third place, with a time of 35:36. These are some great times for almost 10 km of team racing in challenging conditions after a long time without racing - excellent work all round!

Team results and analysis

 

Individual results and analysis

Thanks to all participants and helpers for another great event, see you again soon!