Quasar ran for the whole of October, and the decisive moments came late. The task was to cover 50 km in as many runs as you liked, with places decided by average pace. Runners logged almost half of the month’s total distance in the first week, and the first leaders emerged on day three. The winners came later: Konstantin Volkov completed his 50 km on 23 October, Ekaterina Gavrilova on the 29th. Each of them had to beat a time that had stood at the top for more than a week.
In total, 84 runners took part and 70 reached 50 km, earning a medal. Quasar was the October race of the Cosmos series.
Men: four leaders in one month
Maxim Matskevich was the first to complete the distance. He ran five 10 km sessions in three days and on the morning of 3 October posted an average of 4:53. He stayed on top until the evening. That same day Ilya Kosmach, the youngest of the leaders, who had joined the league in late September, ran 22 km in the morning and another 20 in the evening. That day took him to 50 km at 4:22, a mark that held for nine days.
On 12 October Alexander Okulov took over the lead. He ran rarely but long, five times in twelve days, and saved his best effort, fifteen kilometres at 4:08, for his penultimate run. He finished at 4:19, nearly half a minute faster than his usual pace.
Volkov opened Quasar with a 10 km at 3:51 and from then on stayed close to four minutes per kilometre: intervals, seven-kilometre tempo runs, short 5 km efforts. He eased off only once, on a recovery 10 km. On 23 October he completed the distance at 4:12, and over the remaining eight days nobody came close. Volkov normally runs around 4:28; his profile shows one overall win and two silvers.
Sergey Samsonov took the most unusual route to the podium. He logged twenty runs, almost all of them two or three kilometres long. Once he ran a single kilometre flat out in 3:20 and admitted afterwards that his calves had seized up. On 29 October, after a day with two meetings, the run felt heavy; the next day he reached 50 km. His average matched Okulov’s at 4:19, and silver came down to thousandths.
Fourth place went to Andrey Izmaylov, number one in the league rankings. His 50 km included a stage of the St Petersburg Governor’s Cup and a 10 km run as part of the Arena Marathon. One second per kilometre kept him off the podium.
Women: each new leader two seconds faster
The women’s lead changed hands three times, and each time by about two seconds per kilometre.
Natalya Sokol finished first and in the most spectacular way. She ran 15 and 12 km on consecutive days, then on 4 October went out for a full marathon and ran it at 5:22. That gave her almost 70 km at 5:20.
Three days later she was overtaken by Tatiana Gudz. Gudz had joined the league ten days before the start, ran 18 km on day one and reached 50 km within a week at 5:18. That pace kept her on top for more than three weeks.
Ekaterina Gavrilova did not start until 10 October, with a Saturday 5 Verst run in Prityazhenie. She then mixed easy runs with fast sessions and evening races, and on average ran almost forty seconds faster than her usual pace. On 29 October she completed the distance with exactly what she needed, 50.03 km, at 5:16. Her profile lists fourteen completed races, six silver medals and one win.
Yana Dubrovskaya finished fourth. She commented on her Quasar all month: putting up with the cold for the sake of the northern autumn, running along a virtual seafront on the treadmill, and once disappearing for a weekend to a remote village with no running at all. After that, in her words, she had to finish Quasar at cosmic speed. She dedicated her final run to the track Entropy and wrote that chaos had almost won.
Fifty kilometres through the cold
For many, Quasar was a test of the weather. Olga joined the league two days before the start and ran in the evenings, in the wind at +9 °C. The medal kept her going, along with other runners’ posts in the feed. On 21 October she wrote that her knees were rattling on the descents, but the run felt easy because she knew she would finish Quasar that day.
Anastasia Lukyanova, second in the women’s league rankings, spent the month battling her heart rate and cadence. On the very first evening she tried to keep her heart rate below 140 and complained how hard it was. Later she ran outdoors below ten degrees for the first time. A few days after that she gave up on the heart rate and just ran the way she liked.
Anna Koroleva started out still recovering from an illness, ran the Yenisei-Batyushka race on the Yenisei river and on 29 October ran on snow for the first time. She reached 50 km on the evening of the last day, a few hours before the deadline, with a single extra kilometre.
The last runner to join was Alexander Maltsev. He registered on 19 October, ran five 10 km sessions and completed the distance on the 31st. The last of those runs was his fastest.
Just short
Fourteen runners did not reach 50 km. Two came closest. Uliana Bro ran a half marathon on 10 October, bringing her total to 42 km, and did not run again. Roman Khromchenko also stopped at 42 km. Both were one good run short.
What’s next
Quasar closed on 31 October, Sparta started the very next day, and Quasar’s protagonists went straight into the new race. Matskevich and Sokol lead November’s marathon standings, Okulov is running almost level with Matskevich, and Gudz is again among the contenders in the women’s race. Volkov and Gavrilova showed in October that races like this are often won by those who finish late.
