Pace, build-up, race day — and what breaks along the way.
Practise this list
From these 34 words, as many per round as you like — up to all of them: first what is due today, then new ones. First you choose, then you fill the gap, then you write it yourself. Mistakes come back again shortly.
More about this list
Two thirds of the way down the list sits a assadura, the raw patch a long run leaves where a seam has been moving against skin for hours. The word is built on assar, to roast, the verb of an oven and of a Sunday lunch, so a Portuguese runner says in effect that the place has been roasted. « Chafing » looks like the sober English answer, a word about friction and nothing else, and it is nothing of the kind. « To chafe » came into English from Old French chaufer, to warm, which is today’s chauffer, and behind that stands Latin calefacere, from calere, to be warm, and facere, to make. The earliest English sense was simply to heat something; the rubbing came later, by way of the hands one rubs together on a cold morning. So the two languages looked at the same injury and recorded the same observation, that the place is hot, and then buried it at different depths. Portuguese still hears the oven. English has lost the fire and believes it is describing friction.
The words
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Phrase (5)
segunda metade mais rápidaa faster second halfPhraseB2
Consegui uma segunda metade mais rápida do que a primeira.I managed a faster second half than the first.
bater na paredeto hit the wallPhraseB2
Bati na parede a poucos quilómetros da meta.I hit the wall a few kilometres from the finish.
alongar demais a passadato overstridePhraseB2
Na descida alongo demais a passada e travo sozinho.On the descent I overstride and brake against myself.
ganhar uma volta a alguémto lap somebodyPhraseB2
O primeiro ganhou uma volta aos últimos.The leader lapped the runners at the back.
abrandar o ritmoto ease off the pacePhraseB2
A meio da subida abrandei o ritmo.Halfway up the climb I eased off the pace.
