James great to know your boy is settled in. My daughter is coming back tomorrow from university for a few days. We miss her so much.

Corey what shoes did you get ?

Mark thanks for the info on Cambridge. Are you running it ?

I do need a new target. Locally we have the Tauranga marathon event and the Mt. Maunganui half that you ran last year.

Keen if im Mr consistent you are King consistent  great week again.

Darkwave your recovery is going well.

Watson beastly run with that Elevation!

Watching the US trials 1500m bye..

Corey - wow it's so dangerous when people do that.  I saw someone totally ignore a crossing outside a supermarket a couple of weeks ago because they were looking at the phone and not the road.  A few people either side were not impressed but luckily no-one was in the middle at the time.  Any good week and hope those shoes arrive soon!

Piwi - yep I am doing Cambridge (Covid-permitting!).  Quite a few of the Auckland club guys I know are looking at doing it.  The race director, Steve Rees-Jones, is a former sub-32 10k guy and is very keen on building the profile of the event.  I think he is also race director for National 10k Road Champs in Hamilton a couple of weeks earlier.  Should be a faster course than Mt. Maunganui, a couple of smaller climbs but mostly pretty flat road running.  Tauranga Marathon will be a well-run event too, I know the Running Events guys quite well and they are good operators.

Wow, can I whine about all the whining? Where do I get some good cheese to go with this?

James - Achilles are the worst. Hopefully it moves again (or goes away). Sounds like your son is set up well for a great first semester.

Mark - did you pose for the pictures? 

CK Wow, I'm impressed you went for it in that heat. Sometimes we fly too close to the sun, next time should be better. Shame you missed running in the rain!

Steve Wow Wellington sucks but kudos on getting an enjoyable first marathon out of the way. That's amazing how well it went running solo you're clearly in solid shape. I hope you find a race to actually race once you're recovered.

Watson -  Way to seek out the elevation. That's absurd. I consider 100m / 5km to be "hilly" and you more than doubled that. That's awesome that you have your gear sorted already. How far is the ultra?

DW - Welcome to Altra! I always find other shoe brands difficult because I've gotten used to Altra's amazing toebox.

US Trials - I've been listening to updates all weekend via the Citius Mag podcast (briefly renamed Trials Talk) and it really sucks I haven't been able to watch (especially the women's steeple). Darkwave I personally think they really screwed up with their scheduling, not because the easy coast couldn't watch but because they could have shifted the times more to avoid the heat and they half assed it, didn't avoid the heat and made the scheduling poor for the east coast.

My week was ... half assed on the running front. I missed Monday's run because I read the wrong week in my spreadsheet from my coach. Then I just missed some paces again which lead to a discussion about doing less crosstraining or getting more sleep with my coach which is totally fair.  I personally think it's the weights that have been too much as I was doing fine when I was cycling and swimming more, the heavy lifting is just a harder stress to recover from IMO. I've also noticed that my easy pace has been creeping up faster so I've got a number of variables to play with. Other than that I "raced" a century on a mtn bike course while riding my cyclo-cross bike ... which was epically stupid.

Mon off

Tue 10 w/ 2 @T, 2xmi slightly faster. Was supposed to be 2x2 mi and another case where I just couldn't hit paces. Legs felt really really flat and I traditionally hate workouts the day after a day off but weather actually cooperated for this one so I feel like I should have been able to do it. Goal paces were 6:45 then 6:37 and I went (6:45, 6:50), 6:42, 6:38 so I was close but coach let me know his philosophy is he'd rather I do the workout as written and just miss pace than take the extra break (and he added that the workout was written as a stretch).

Wed hour easy off-road (@8:42 /mi an instance of me overrunning a easy day)

Thur 50' easy off-road + strides. 20 min bike test ride.  Glad I did as I had break issues

Fri 8x400. I was supposed to progress them from 96->85 but I was in Minneapolis and the nearby track was locked so I just found a flat stretch of road and ran it as best I could. I hit ~6:10/mi and just didn't have another gear. Such is life. Not great when I know I need to race tomorrow, but I also wasn't willing to go to the well for the same reason.

Sat Lutzen 99er... what an adventure. I won't bore you all with details of a mountain bike race but a quick recap goes like this:

• Finished!
• Didn't go to the well.
• Had a lot of fun.
• Rode the first half with my brother. Left him when he fell behind cutoff pace
• Did a great job eating & drinking. The stomach handles that much better biking than when running. It was also solid at my ultra last year so pace or effort level clearly matters a bit. A coke at 85 miles in was simply ambrosia!
•  Mentally I need practice just bombing down difficult segments rather than riding the breaks and trying to be safe. This got better as the day progressed but I'm better at this when running than my competitors so I know I have it in me, I just have to practice.
• A cyclocross bike was a stupid idea. If I ever do something similar my bike will have front suspension, a wider wheel and disc brakes.
• Tubeless tyres are awesome. 
• I love new adventures and this qualified.
• The north shore of MN is beautiful. Probably my favorite place in the world.
• The volunteers at the 62 mile aid station told my brother he had to be out of there in 5 minutes or he would be carted off the course. He was hurting, hemming and hawing and another rider looked at him and said "you can either start peddling with me or regret it forever, let's go" and he did! 

Sunday about 2 hours of hiking around Temperance and Gooseberry Falls state parks. If any of you race Grandma's in the future I strongly recommend scheduling a few extra days to visit some parks. Absolutely gorgeous. I' biased however as my family spent a week camping up there every year growing up and I was extremely nostalgic walking around.

Keen - it's not even the heat that is so awful, it's the sun. I can do TDP of 150-160 easy runs all night long, but I tried a 160 today at noon and it was horrible. It's so sneaky how it gets to you. 2 miles into my run I thought "wow I can't believe I feel so good given how hot it is." By mile 6, I had to walk and get water. I think the sun between the hours of 9 to 5 adds 10-15 TDP

Steve - nice job once again. Your finish was extra strong in that. I think you're going to run a great race soon.

Mark - it's funny all the nonsense people have to deal with in different parts of urban/suburban/rural settings. When I ran near my mom's (suburban), you'd always get idiots rolling down their windows to yell at you. I have not experienced that a single time in the last 7 years running seriously in NYC. Yet I do have to deal with almost getting killed by bikers or idiots refusing to get out of your way while they're texting, not something I ever saw in the suburbs.

James - early move in sounds smart. Still weird though: I would have wanted my senior summer to last as long as possible (even with college being as fun as it was).

Zebano - sounds like a great race! Does mountain biking vs. road biking compare in the same way trail running vs. road running does?

Me - Ran a 17:35 in another very hot/humid race (same exact conditions as 3 weeks ago). I won the race by a full minute, which actually led to some mental struggles ("oh, you can just ease off, you got this thing in the bag.") It's a reason I try to find competitive races: this one usually has a couple guys under 17, but not this year I guess. Otherwise, I can just run a time trial. My left leg didn't bother me too much in the race, which was good, but I have to keep working at as it's not 100%.

Anyway, I'm not really seeing the fitness gains I had hoped for by this point. I know, summer heat, but even with the TDP adjustment I have a long way to go to CIM. I ran a 16:51 two summers ago in this crazy heat before my 2:36. Granted, that was very specific and heavy 5K training, whereas now I'm sort of just doing base building with workouts here and there. Doesn't help the confidence though. Will keep grinding away though.

Need to develop a new strengthening routine too for at home. Would love to hear what you guys though (no weights, but I do have bands which are great for hip work).

JMac - body weight squats are great and single leg squats are even better.  Flavio is probably better than me on bodyweight stuff and using exercise bands (I'm boring and do the same weights stuff most weeks).  With the band, crab walks, standing glute kickbacks and clam shells are all good for the hips, abductors and glutes.  Bit harder to target those adductors that were giving you some issues, nothing comes to mind there sorry.  Depending how much space you have available (worst case I guess there's always Central Park!), it's well worth including some plyometrics as well.  Single-leg step ups, box jumps, long jumps, etc. can all be good for your running economy.  There's a few good ideas here.

Anyway bummer on the race effort, but your prep and the conditions were hardly ideal.  Treat it as a workout and move on.

Zebano - ha! I thought about it.  Honestly the guy was yelling something but I had my headphones on so I didn't have a clue what he was saying.  Maybe he confused me with someone who ran over his cat or something.  Anyway epic mountain bike effort, sounds like great fun and a great day.

Flavio - another really nice week, well done on that Strava crown!

Zebano I like the duck duck goose joke and amazed that I got it 

Mark im considering the Mount half but looked at your strava from it last year which showed short. I don't know if I can bring myself to race a half that shows short even if we put too much trust in GPS especially around the base track.

Flavio, where in the world 🌎 is Flavio  nice 90 km week. Thank goodness you post in kms on this thread unlike the sub 3 !

Mark they could easily carry on round Pilot Bay and across the grass reserve and even onto the side street behind the Port without crossing any roads.

How does one mis-measure a course by 500 meters??? I remember this from last year. I wouldn't be humming to myself: I would be yelling at the race director that he/she is a joke and should never do it again because they're incompetent. I try to run certified courses, but I understand if a race director can't go through that hassle and tries their best. This isn't trying - this is saying you don't actually care, even with rerouting.

Thanks everyone on the strength training. 75% of those words are gibberish to me but youtube will be my friend. Going to start with it later this week.

I tried running at noon yesterday in 160 KP and failed miserably. Foolishly, I will try again today in 165 (it's 94 degrees and 71 degree dew point by 1 PM). I think the full sun at noon adds about 10 degrees, so we're looking at 175. I am hydrating much better today and going to run slower. If even this fails and I have to walk again today or cut it short, I am done with even easy runs in these temps and we will have to adjust that KP table on the front page to say nobody should ever run in these conditions.

ETA - I failed, miserably. I've decided it's not possible. It wasn't even a willpower issue: I felt heart palpitations about 6 miles in. I don't care how heat trained you are, there are temperatures where running anything over 30 minutes starts to become dangerous. I've run in 165 TDP before, but at 7 or 8 PM. Yes, it was terrible. But it doesn't come close to what I just ran in the past two days at noon. Moral of the story is no amount of hydration and slowing down will make it safe to run in certain conditions, and apparently I've found that limit.

Corey - I never commented on your toe. I've had toe issues before and they were never diagnosed. Doctor had no idea what it was, just went through a bunch of strengthening stuff and it eventually went away.