Week 6 goals: Take all my runs through Friday easy, and make sure my calf doesn't hurt. See if I can get some extra mileage in on Wednesday evening so that I'm in the 70-80 km range total for the week. I'm planning on racing a 5k next Saturday on the roads and then running in a 6 mile single track trail race on Sunday, so I probably won't rack up high mileage over the weekend.

Week 6: Early season racing / getting a baseline. Well, pretty much this week is summed up by last week's goals. Ran easy every day, although I did pick up the pace a little for the Wednesday night "race" (a woman with nice legs passed me so I let her set the pace for a while, then near the end when I was in front of her she goaded me into going faster - she got a 2.5 minute PR and I was only 30 seconds ahead of the pace I wanted.) So Wednesday was my long run this week with 19k. I did 2 body bot strength training sessions, spent an hour working on my square foot garden on Monday, and thankfully decided to wait until I could get help from my wife before trying to mix the soil. As a result, we didn't get around to it until yesterday, but 12+ cubic feet of soil is too much for one person to mix on their own. That leaves this weekend's races. The road race was yesterday, and two of my teammates took 1 & 2. I was 9th. I was about half a minute behind where I thought that I should be, 17:34. Oh well, at least now I know where I'm at. I'm still not ready for speed work if I am going to aim at a late August race, so that probably won't improve too much for a month or two. Need to cut about 100 seconds off of that. Then today was the Bradbury Scuffle, a 6 mile single track trail race. Oh lord, I can't think of the last time that I had that much fun in a race! It was way different than the 50k I ran last year. I've never run that fast over technical single track before; it was awesome. Only rolled my ankle once and managed not to take any diggers. It was basically myself and one other guy the entire race. He passed me late a couple of times, and even opened up a bit of a lead at one point, but when I reeled him in I quieted my breathing so that he wouldn't think I was working very hard and would just give him. Yeah, I'm a bastard. I thought that he was right behind me through the end, but when I turned around I didn't see him. I wound up winning by over 20 seconds, and 3rd was another minute 40 back from there. The weather was absolutely beautiful, and by beautiful I mean that it was raining at the start and pouring at the finish, which led to lots of fun puddles and mud (and a distinct lack of ticks and mosquitos - when I went out to mark the course on Friday night I got eaten alive.) Final tally was about 77 kilometers for the week (~48 miles). Week 7 goals: Easy running. I want at least 3 strength sessions, and I want to run in excess of 90 kilometers (~55 miles). I am going to try using Wednesday as a long run day again, and I am going to do my first real run in the Vibram KSOs I bought this week on Tuesday on the trails (I only did a few K on Friday in them on the roads.) Next weekend I plan on visiting the in-laws, so I probably won't get much long running in on the weekend again but will have opportunities to hike and kayak and chase a dog around.

Congrats on the win, Blaine! It's always inspiring to read about your (and others') adventures with trails and winning! Also, interested in keeping up with your experience with the Vibrams. I've been wanting to get some since I read some articles on barefoot running last year. I was too afraid to get hurt during my training for my first marathon. Now, I'm not as worried about it and have been contemplating something like that or the Nike Frees for some running this year.

Also, interested in keeping up with your experience with the Vibrams.

If they weren't so expensive, I'd use them as my every day shoes - super comfortable. I'm wearing them right now in fact. I always go around barefoot at home, so that might have something to do with it.

I think you will catchup to where you think you should be pretty soon. You just took a break, so as you are building back up, it can take a few weeks to get back into form.

Yeah, no doubt. I'll definitely get into mid-16 shape with no trouble, the trick is going to be dropping back into the low 16s and then doing something new by breaking under it. Heheh.

By the way, that's a pretty smooth tactic, by leading that woman to a pr , I'll have to pass that along to my single running buddies.

Well, I'm not single anymore, but when I ran my first road race back 1991 or 1992 my step father told me to just find a nice butt (not the word he used) and run behind it. That's basically what happened here except that when she slowed down a little I kept going at the pace we were at. It's definitely a good distraction.

Week 7 goals: Easy running. I want at least 3 strength sessions, and I want to run in excess of 90 kilometers (~55 miles). I am going to try using Wednesday as a long run day again, and I am going to do my first real run in the Vibram KSOs I bought this week on Tuesday on the trails (I only did a few K on Friday in them on the roads.) Next weekend I plan on visiting the in-laws, so I probably won't get much long running in on the weekend again but will have opportunities to hike and kayak and chase a dog around.

Week 7: Well, I met most of this week's goals. As listed above: Easy Running: Check. 3 Strength Sessions: Nope. Only did 1. Run in excess of 90 kilometers: Check (if you include my hiking.) Wednesday long run: Check Tuesday in Vibrams: No, but I did run on Thursday in them. Hike/Kayak/Chase the dog: Check The week mostly went the way that I wanted. My wife and I decided to go see the new Incredible Hulk movie on Friday, so I didn't have much time to work out. (She liked the Hulk even more than she liked Iron Man - now we're watching the old television show where they changed his name to David instead of Bruce so that he wouldn't sound gay.) Got a couple of sets of strength training in then. Saturday's run was supposed to be a little longer, but we were running laps up and down Bradbury Mountain so I didn't go particularly fast and ran out of time. I did find a nice squishy trail though that was fun to run on. We took Erin's folks and their dog for a hike on some trails near their house that was a lot of fun, so that got me another ~6k. Despite Saturday not being too long, I did get 2 runs in over 20k, the second one being tonight. Week 8 goals: More easy running, at least 100k (~62 miles) - I may try to meet up with some of my teammates next Sunday which means that that day will be a long fast run, but other than that I want to go slow. I'd like to use the vibrams at some point, but not sure if I will or not.

Week 9 Goals (updated): This is going to be a forced cut back week since I'm heading to a wedding over the weekend and won't have an opportunity to run much. I am running a 10k race on Friday, so I will stick to running at a slow pace Monday through Thursday. Ideally I would like to run 90k this week, but anything over 80k is acceptable. In week 10 I'm going to start speed work again. Forgot to mention my goals for the 10k on Friday. It is a relatively tough course that is historically very hot and humid. The first half involves more downhill than up, but the second half is all in the sun and uphill. I have about a month between this 10k and my next 10k, which I'd like to run low/mid 34s at. For this week, though, I think that sub-37 is a realistic goal with 35:30-36:00 minutes what I am going to shoot for.

Dude. Are you that close to Canada that you're talking in kilometers now? Wow. Shooting for 35-36! Damn! Good luck!

I'm talking in kilometers because I'm training for a 5k race. Why train for miles when it isn't evenly divisible? Kilometers is easier once you figure out what the paces are you need. I'm actually finding it pretty liberating, because I can run a 5:30-6:00/k pace and not feel like I'm going too slow, whereas a 9:00-10:00/mile pace would make me freak out and speed up (subconconsciously) - I'm enjoying the slow miles.

Hehe. Gotcha. I did one run (25K) last year like that - it was very liberating - in that I was pretty clueless to what pace I was running - so I just ran. I didn't think it would work as well once I thought about things and converted. I may have to try it again sometime. Anyway, been meaning to ask you about that since you started posting in Ks.

I didn't think it would work as well once I thought about things and converted. I may have to try it again sometime.

I actually don't have any trouble converting in my head, and it doesn't really affect me. I'm mostly just thinking in metric units unless somebody asks me to convert at this point.