PPAC-68 Urban Trail Race

Trail running is not a speciality of Phnom Penh Athletics Club, however, ten daring athletes lined up for a first-of-its-kind 5km urban trail event along the muddy banks of Koh Pich island. The course took in the southern curve and the full length of the sheltered west bank of the island for a 2x2.5 km out-and-back route.

The trail event poses some different challenges from a road event, both for participants and the organisers. One of the great advantages is being able to run completely free of road traffic.

The PPAC team headed out early to mark the start line and faced off the menacing challenge of a fisherman's eager guard dog when setting out the turnaround point just as dawn was breaking.

From the start Hugo, with the course experience, took responsibility for pushing the pace early leading the front group to the turnaround point. Jack, Patt and Neil followed closely behind at halfway, however, the order was flipped completely over the next few kilometres as Neil and Patt pushed ahead to claim 1st & 2nd respectively at the finish. Hugo came back from the dead in the last 100m with a perfectly timed kick to pass Jack and take 3rd at the line. Only 18.3 seconds separated 1st and 4th place in a very tight lead pack.

Towards the back of the race the final group of Meyjou and newcomers Ian and Seavleang exchanged places as fatigue hit hard on the return leg. Passing under the final bridge Seavleang, in last place, jolted into action as a local snake maneuvered its way ahead of him on the track (said snake hadn't officially entered the event).

The unexpected boost had catapulted Seavleang into 9th place as he crossed the finish line, stick in hand. 10/10 started and finished, but would they all recommend?

Thanks to race officials Seavmey and Lorinda for volunteering and to Lorinda and Matt for photography. See you all soon at the next event!

© PPAC 2021

PPAC-67 5km Road Race

 

PPAC welcomed back athletes for the regular monthly 5km road race. Luckily overnight rain was relatively light and the course was clear and dry. Racing conditions were slightly warmer and more humid than desirable with a slight southerly wind. Nine athletes lined up at for the start including two first timers, and there was over 50% female participation for the event.

We saw another fine 5km performance from Andarge, leading from the front and finishing strongly with back-to-back 7:30 laps and a score of well over 800 points. The top three was rounded out by two top Cambodian athletes Meyjou and Muyngim. Meyjou returning to form with a time of 21:15 and Muyngim maintining a good run of performances clocking a time just 0.5 seconds outside her recent PB.
Matt secured another 5k and Points PB combo, knocking a further 36 seconds off the time set just four weeks ago to duck under the 21-minute barrier. Three athletes also completed their first PPAC 5km event - well done!

Four out of the top five had very consistent performances on the back of excellent pacing for the two loops around Sokha. Matt's very low score of 0.29 was achieved by not only finishing with a comfortable negative Sokha Lap split, but critically for appropriate pacing around the Park Lap, where the remaining athletes all set off at a significantly faster pace than their respective eventual performances.

Muyngim posted a personal best Sokha Lap time of 9:07.25 for her first lap, moving from 42nd to 38th in the overall rankings and remains 4th overall in the female Sokha Lap rankings. Andarge remains top overall with a 7:03 lap from our fastest lap event in March and Meyjou still heads the female rankings (32nd overall) with a time of 8:54 set during the first PPAC 5km race in February 2020.

In the O₂ consumption and Fitness Factor ratings, Matt's excellent performance sees him top the table for both. Intriguingly, for the first time oxygen consumption rankings exactly match the fitness factor rankings.

Thanks to race officials Neil and Seavleang for volunteering this week. See you all soon at the next event!

© PPAC 2021

PPAC-66 Medley Relay

For PPAC's 4th urban relay race the format was modified to a medley relay and two teams of four athletes took part in our first event of its kind.

In three consecutive rounds, four team members must run legs of varying distances (1 lap, 2 laps or 3 laps), including two team laps where all but one of the team must run together. Before the start of the race teams must choose the best strategy for the order the athletes will run their legs. The athletes must all run one leg every round and cannot run the same distance in the first and second rounds. The team order is submitted to the race officials before the start of the race and must be adhered to.

A key idea behind the medley relay is to enable teams composed of runners across a range of running abilities, as well as mixed F/M teams, to race together while maintaining a competitive and exciting racing scenario. With many possible permutations of leg order, a team that may look slightly less strong on paper can exploit a superior strategy giving itself a better opportunity to win.

The first two rounds have 5 legs: (1) 1 lap, (2) 2 laps, (3) 3 laps, (4) 1 lap, (5) Team lap; and in addition to the rules mentioned above, the athlete running the fourth leg is not required to run the team lap. The third (and final) round has 4 legs; there is no team lap. The race is continuous and there are no pauses between rounds.

One lap of our course measures 275 m and both teams will complete 23 laps for a total of 6.325 km, with individual athletes running a minimum of 5 laps (1.38 km) and maximum of 10 laps (2.75 km). The team whose runner crosses the line first on the final lap is the winner.

Team A carrying the blue baton was composed of Andarge, Jack, Meyjou and Matt, and Team B carrying the gold baton was composed of Neil, Leonardo, Muyngim and Hugo.

 
Team B led the race from the first lap with Hugo posting the fastest lap of the race in just 42.10 seconds (a full 4.5 s quicker than Matt's 2nd fastest lap overall, posted in the same leg). Team B held the lead at the end of 20 of the 23 laps during the race, establishing the biggest advantage of 13.8 seconds by the end of Leg 3 of Round 1.
However, Team A was able to stay in touch and as the team strategies unfolded parity was achieved at the end of Leg 2 of Round 2. Team B regained a useful lead for several laps but were pulled back again and Team A momentarily took the lead after Leg 1 of Round 2.

Despite a strong effort from Team B in the middle of Round 3, Team A's final two legs featuring Andarge and Matt were fast and perfectly executed, overturning an 8.4 s deficit from the end of Leg 2 and a penultimate leg deficit of 5.2 s to win the first PPAC Medley Race in 20:51, snatching a closely fought victory over +6 km of racing by just 2.3 s!

The table below shows a summary of performance for each individual athlete taking part in the relay race. Total distance run includes team laps, however, pace, leg and lap time analyses are made using only the solo lap data. The rest time calculations include the team laps run by the athlete.

The following chart shows every lap time by round (smallest bubble is Round 1, mid-sized bubble is Round 2, largest bubble is Round 3). If runners get more fatigued as the race progresses, and the shortest legs are the fastest, we might expect to see the smallest bubbles near the bottom (faster lap times in the earliest rounds) and to the left and right of the chart area (Legs 1, 4 and 5 being single lap legs). However, variation among the team's members and the related choice of optimal team strategy means the overall trends may not be so clear to see.

Every 1, 2 or 3 lap leg is listed by time in the two tables below, with the round and leg number indicated. 1 and 2 lap legs (275 m and 550 m) are compared with their equivalent 400 m pace, and 3 lap legs (825m) are compared with the equivalent 800 m pace.

Every individual lap is displayed in the chart and table below, ordered from the fastest first. The size of the bubbles are proportional to the progression of each individual athlete's race in terms of total number of laps run. A small bubble indicates an early lap and the bigger bubbles indicate later laps (team laps are considered in the total number of laps an athlete has run, but the times are not included here). The colours indicate the leg and the specific lap of that leg. In the table individual lap times are compared with the equivalent 200 m pace.

 

Thanks to race officials Seavmey and Seavleang for overseeing the race, thanks to the PPAC team for putting together the latest medley relay race format and special thanks to Jack for handing us an awesome new set of PPAC relay batons (featured heavily in this blog!). Hope to see you all soon at the next event!

© PPAC 2021

PPAC-65 Elimination Race

PPAC's third endurance elimination race took place in warm conditions and with a few more tweaks to the rules since the last outing. It was the biggest participation yet for this event with eleven athletes joining in.

For the first seven rounds athletes are eliminated in Laps 2 to 6 before the final one-on-one showdown in Lap 7 to determine the winner of the round. With eleven athletes in the field, each of Laps 3 to 6 sees two athletes being eliminated.
Round 8 is the last-person-standing round, with one athlete being eliminated every lap until the final showdown - this final and most important round is worth double points.

Athletes build up their score by eliminating other competitors and completing laps. An additional point is awarded for winning the round, and this time two bonus points were available for the first athlete to cross the finish line for Laps 2 to 6 in Round 4 only (sprint bonus round). The winner is the athlete with the highest points total after eight rounds.
Athletes must participate in every round to avoid early elimination from the event so it's vital to manage effort levels throughout this hour-plus long race to stay in contention all the way to the end.

As the majority of the pack looked to conserve energy early on, Hugo took advantage of a relatively gentle start to rack up three round wins before the sprint bonus lap in Round 4. Several of the sprints in Round 4 were strongly contested, with two lap wins each for Jack and Neil and one for Hugo.

With a half-way points total of 65 and sizeable lead of 13 points, the early effort from Hugo paid off allowing the front runner to dictate proceedings for the rest of the event in spite of the efforts of the chasing pack. Neil and Jack shared four round victories between them but it wasn't enough to significantly reduce the deficit.

Hugo secured a comfortable first place overall by winning the final double points round having covered 14.8km over 56 laps, and remarkably only missed one lap of the entire competition having failed to qualify for the final lap of the previous round.

There were strong performances for fourth placed Muyngim who featured in three final rounds and twice in the last four, as well as Matt with a strategic effort to score at a relatively high rate of points per lap to secure fifth place including some well executed sprints to eliminate unsuspecting opponents.
Two junior athletes did well, completing the event in 8th and 9th place while there were two early eliminations.

The athletes who made it to the end completed an average of 40 laps and around 10.5km over 1h16 of running.

Thanks to race official Meyjou and start line official Simon for overseeing the race, and thanks to the PPAC team for putting together the latest elimination race format. Hope to see you all soon at the next event!

© PPAC 2021