#F3Swift – Conquering Ben Nevis

#F3Swift – Conquering Ben Nevis

Swift launched at 0515 with 5 PAX from the Vine in Ballantyne.  We dropped 1 and upon coming around at 0530 to pick up more PAX, no one at the Bagpipe COP wanted any of that.

The Thang:

• 0515 – Warm-up over to Ben Nevis to lay out the cones for the main workout.  Too fast for Haggis, so he dropped back to Q Bagpipe.  According to MT (or Spinner), we did some “ballerina twinkle toes” (called Giraffe at LetMeRun), heel walkers (penguins at LMR), and strides.  Took too much time, so YHC had to quickly go back to try to pick up more PAX at the Vine.  Upon finding no takers, we set out back to Ben Nevis for the main set.
• 0530 – 200meters,200,400 with equal recovery jogs in between on the hill going Westbound on Ballantyne Commons from Rushmore Dr towards the entrance to Ballantyne CC at Ballantyne Meadows Dr.  Recorded here: http://www.strava.com/activities/138083014/overview.  In the first set, all Intervals run uphill (downhill recoveries).  In the second set, first 200m interval downhill, the rest uphill.  In the third set, second 200m interval downhill and the 400m was done uphill on the adjacent hill back towards 521.
• Total mileage for pre-work and warm-up @ 2.5mi. Plus Intervals and Cooldown @ 3.5mi. Totals for all at 6.0 miles.  Only 1.5miles of this was at individual pace.  The rest at a cool 2nd F pace or much slower for recovery.
• just before COT while waiting for Bagpipe – LBCs for 1001… 1002… 1003…  then Bagpipe arrived, so we “did over a thousand” LBCs.

The Moleskin:

• Ben Nevis is the tallest mountain in Scotland, so it seems appropriate to give the hill on Ballantyne Commons going West from Rushmore up to Ballantyne Meadows the same name.  Garmin recorded it at 300ft of elevation difference over a 0.25 mile giving a grade of 22% (not sure if we buy that, but it’s steep).
• Goal for intervals was the same effort as your 1 mile race pace.  Also called R-pace at the calculator at http://runsmartproject.com/calculator.  On a severe hill, the actual pace won’t factor and it’s more about effort.  Strava does try to estimate the “Grade Adjusted Pace” – for example on an uphill 400m it gave a 1:30 second interval today (normally a 6:00/mi pace) a GAP of 4:25/mi.  Again, not sure we buy that, but it sounds good, right?  Conversely, it gave a downhill 200m in 0:35 (4:42/mi) a GAP of 6:02/mi.
• Perfect attendance to Honey Bee making 3/3 Swift events so far.  That dude has the perfect shorter stride for the Uphills and Downhills.  Better watch out on the BRR for this guy.  Smoked it today.
• Spinner is starting his Swift streak making it 2 weeks in a row.  He may prefer to rename Ben Nevis “Alpe d’Nevis” to get closer to his cycling roots, but he does want to make sure everyone knows he just doesn’t “spin” indoors – he’s a roadie.
• M. Tussauds didn’t stand still long enough to make a good wax figure today (like the PAX were doing in COP at Bagpipe).  Instead, he made his FNG Swift appearance today and fought back on the hills.

Announcements in the Bagpipe backblast here.