20 May 2015 – No Watch Race

Wednesday 20th May saw the return of one of the Strider’s traditional summer runs, the “No Watch Race”.  With only the attached instructions to go by, the 23 runners lined up in Hickling on a bright spring evening and gave in their estimated times – with estimates ranging from 35 mins to 51.13, it was clear that some were planning  to put in real effort on the “in the region of 5 miles” course (actually 5.2 miles).

IMG_2110.JPG

Now, the goal of the race is to finish as close to your time estimate as possible – for many runners this means trying not to get caught up in ‘racing’ against the rest of the group.  With that in mind, you would expect to see a range of finish times, some quicker than estimated, some slower, right?

Wrong.  22 of the 23 runners were quicker than predicted, often by a minute or two per mile!  Either we are a pessimistic bunch, or just better runners than we give ourselves credit for – you decide….

With a few new/soon to be members, and a couple of people returning from injury, it was great to see people get into the spirit of running ‘naked’ (i.e. without a watch or GPS).  We even had an epic sprint finish between Tam and John – although between them they were over 15 minutes quicker than predicted, so maybe that wasn’t ideal (although great to watch!).

The overall winner (and only person coming in slower than their predicted time) – only 17 seconds out – was Michael Atton.  Maybe the key to good pacing is running 4 days after your debut marathon?

Full results here:

2015 No Watch Race results