Rainy training runs (again!) for me. My son is now working for a running store, leading a 10k clinic. Some of his runners are just trying to finish, others have goal times in the low 40 minute range, so a varied group of 20 people +/- a couple. Because of the range of speed they may need to form two groups, tough to get them all to run together! Simon.

Wow! Great LR Ayola! How do you manage to maintain such a pace and not have your legs cramp up? If someone can enlighten me to this I would be most appreciative. My shorter runs are turning to total crap lately. I am so crampy in my lower legs/calves that by the time the run is overwith, I am finally loose! Looking forward to my 11 miler tomorrow just cause I won't feel as crampy... Any advice appreciated!

I'll up the potassium..... and I would be that it's easier to slow the long run down than to pound myself to oblivion on the shorter runs. What I also find helps is to throw a few striders in at the end of the long run just to un-cramp.... Yes, they do loosen up as I run it out.... but DANG it sucks those first couple miles..... What about: lengthening one of my runs mid week? say 11 Tomorrow, rest Monday, Easy 3 Tuesday, 6 on Wednesday, 3 Thursday, Rest Friday, and 3 Saturday? That would ramp me to 26 for the week.... okay? Thanks Sarge, As always I appreciate the coaching advice!

I ran 7.1 miles this morning in 1:24:26 and it felt great! I'm definitely almost a minute per mile slower than before my injury, but that's OK! My ankle never twinged, during or after the run. I'm going to try a 3-mile run tomorrow for my first two-day-in-a-row attempt in over two months. I need to be able to do that to start building my mileage again!

Hi everybody, I'm back form a wonderful vacation. Ran almost everyday, but did no speed work in fact tried to keep my pacw down even more. Did some strength running on stairs and a ramp and I'm really happy to say my leg feels really great. Don't know how my speed is, but will find out in my 5M race tomorrow, it was my target race for my 5M PR, even though I actually already PR'd earlier this year. Weather report is really good for a 10Am race, 79-80 degrees and slightly cloudy. However this is New England and either our weather men suck or the weather changes so drastically that they haven't got a clue. Will catch up later. Larry

My 5M race report. Well to begin with, the weather men were wrong. Temp was in the 80s and there wasn't a cloud in the sky, clear as could be and the sun was bright and hot. Looking back, I had set a goal of 37:30 (7:30 Pace) for this race in the spring. Due yo my injury and loosing 4 weeks of training, I wasn't sure if I could do it. I went out in excellent pace really telling myself to keep it down. I ran a 7:27 M1 and felt fantastic. At M2, it said I did a 630 M2 and I said no fing way, they must have the marker set-up worng, both guys running in proximity said the same thing, Sure enough, up the road 57 seconds later, we found the correct 2M marker. My time was again 7:27. Still feeling great and climbing hills with ease, I stayed at the same pace and finished M3 at 7:27 as well. Although these are all rounded times, you can't get more consistent than that. Still feeling great, I picked up the pace a little bit and ran a 7:20 M4. Once I finished M4, I knew of two small hills left, picked up the pace even more and finished with a 6:57, kicking strong to the finish line. My official time 36:39 almost a minute faster than the time I had set in the spring. I probably could have run even faster than that, but was holding back (as I always go out too strong) I don't have the final results, but the preliminary had me at 55th place, but I'm not sure of the number of runners, somewhere in the neighborhood of 300. I'll get the officical and age group placement from the website. Overall, I'm really pleased with my run and my effort, but even more so at my discipline to setting and sticking to a pace. So, I have a new PR in the 5M. Nest Sunday I've got the 5K race which was my first ever race and is the target race for my new 5K PR. Need to do some speed work this week, my goal is to run it in a 6:59 pace. I've now run four races this year where I completed the last mile in under 7:00 mins, so now I have to see if I can put 3.1 of them together. Larry

Ayola, Welcome to our group. Simon, if you read my race report, you'll see that I slowed my training runs down this past week. I have to admit, it seemed to work., or maybe I was just ready for this. Certainly training in the heat all week helped. Cheffy, Tereasa, VixiDu, Sarge and MrPhin, good to hear from you all. Sounds like the walking wounded are getting better and logging some miles, but a few of you still have nagging injuries, that need close attention. Larry

Great race, Larry, really happy for you! That's a time you must be really proud of. Maybe slowing down the last week helped your taper, i always find I feel bursting with energy before a race if I have tapered well. Must have been a pretty strong field; with a time like that I would have expected you would finish in the top 10%. Simon.