Marky - congrats! that's a big thing, obviously, wish your daughter all the heath!

Piwi - when I was reading your stuff about you going sub 19, I was kind of surprised - you were always fast, and I know you for many years - so, 18:36 in TT is no surprise for me - and, considering you are pretty consistent in your training, even with not crazy mileage, still is enough to go closer to 18 or even sub 18 - I am with Mikkey on that.

Longboat - like everybody else - glad to hear the operation went well. Eager to hear what you do to fight temporary immobility Btw, I know you are probably over 70, but how old are you? And just curious, because I started to thing about those things, how do you feel aging by years - what you feel physically and emotionally, how bad (or not bad) was the decrease physically in 60-65 and 66-70? Your sharing would be appreciated. I am asking, because people saying about getting weaker and weaker with age, but I really do not feel that. Not now at least. I guess I am too young still at 57? What mistakes I should avoid for healthier aging you think?

DW - nice week. And you are famous for really listening to your body - that's why your Garmin watch is pretty useless thing in your running

RP - outstanding! You are much quieter than you used to be but somehow you are really at it - less talk and much results. For ideal results, I would stop "cheating" and remove those hikes and walks from the total log - ha-ha 

Steve - congrats on finishing the marathon. After reading your report, my thought is very similar to what I thought before - do more marathons and stop worrying about them. Make them more enjoyable if I can say so. If you are not enjoying them, be like Mark - don't run them - try to be happier in your training - you cannot worry too much with your hobby - that's the goal of having a hobby - be happier !

mmerkle - I was not talking about intentional gaining weight for just gaining weight I am not underweight. The desire is to gain some lean muscle and you cannot gain muscle out of the fat in your body - to gain muscles you need a calorie surplus - from what I read and watched, that's how it works. Yes, you can get stronger without gaining weight, obviously. But to gain muscles you should create a surplus for muscle creation synthesis. And then when you have more muscles and less fat, your body energy spending even in still position is more then when you have more fat - because muscle requires more energy in still condition. But like you said before - you can complicate things as much as you can

CK - yes, I am doing most of the things you mentioned - 12 oz grass fed steak is my favorite, but I try to switch between meat and fish on a regular basis.

flavio - great week! Re your comments... Yes, I would replace protein powder with real food, if I could - I just can't - if I am do not want to eat, I cannot eat real food, but I am kind of able to consume protein powder even when I do not want to eat. Canned beans I eat are ok with me and that's what counts I guess I am not into exquisite foods - I am ok with beans when I know they have fiber and protein and they taste ok to me Especially with freshly prepared steak

Probiotics... Yes... Probiotics, prebiotics and postbiotics - it's all covered. I actually making my own custom yogurts where I set preparation time for 36 hours (to maximize bacteria amount) instead of yogurt industry standard of 4 hours. I am able to make yogurts with different bacteria (or bacteria strains) based on the knowledge that bacteria benefits. I also into fermented food as well - for the same prebiotic/postbiotic reasons.

I agree with you on strength vs muscles to most degree. But good thing about getting stronger as that muscles follows the strength - as you are getting stronger you eventually changing your body composition. The only frustrating part about it is the slowness of the process But I should not complain - because I should be starting when I was 20-25, not 57

Btw, another funny and very motivating thing that happened few days ago - actually after your message. Since high school I was very weak muscled guy. I was very good in many sports, generally very fit and athletic (not aesthetically though , but my weakest feature was - no muscles (or strength) at all. I remember my high school coach faked my pull/chin results (I had to make 10 pulls to make the cut) because I was so good in rest of the sports but cannot do one chin up. Ok, maybe one chin up but even that would look pathetic. And that was all my life. I never worked on my strength - I have no clue why? I guess I was brain washed that some people just not meant to have strength . And recently, when I started to work on that, the same - I could not do one pullup/chin-up (and yes, I know pull ups harder than chin-ups) - so, I stopped doing them not because I gave up on them but because I just decided - let's work on general stuff, on most basic but important exercises and then at some point get back to pullups/chin-ups - because you cannot avoid them at some point. So, yesterday, I went to my pullup bar and did 8 chin-ups in a row - 8! and I stopped because I got too excited - I could probably manage another 2, if I concentrate Looking forward to what I might achieve if I stay to be consistent with strength training for continuation of my life 

Dave - I did that in 2021 when Wellington was cancelled a few days before the event.  I ran an even paced 3:36 with no issues and plenty of gas in the tank.  I guess it's something about marathon pace which weirdly doesn't happen at half marathon pace.  If it started after 35+km it would make more sense to me but it starts so early.

Cal - I do really enjoy marathon training.  There's just something about the race that I haven't figured out yet.  It can't just be 3 unlucky bad days.

mmerkle - I haven't done that for this one yet but I did it for Melbourne and found lots of cramp and potential overtraining issues.  For Christchurch there was being sick 2 sicks before the race and moving house and possibly the shoes.  For this one, I can't think of anything.  Everything went really well, race day weather was good (actually better than forecast, nowhere near as windy).

cal I will look into this for when I’m going for my moose mug. 20 or so years to go.

Youth is pretty ignorant (and yes, you can have two kids and still be in your youth - not sure why you still so confident in 20 years you will have a better chance for a Moose Mug. Getting there will still require a tons of motivation, it's not all mechanical as you probably know already, so, in addition to good health for the next 20 years you still will have to have a extreme motivation. Just keep it in ,in mind young man . Though... That sounds strange to my ear now - if you are young, then I am old? But I am not old at all, then what are you? Oh, yes, millennial .

Ok hopefully I don't forget anyone 

Flavio good move switching your longrun day. You are living the dream with the amazing places you travel to.

Thanks for the vote of confidence.

DW no shame in adjusting the reps. I find as I age I modify vo2 workouts and tempos to suit me and not leave me trashed for the rest of the day. One notable adjustment is my first tempo kms or vo2max intervals can be fairly slow as my heart rate adjusts to coming up. Then the rest feel much more comfortable.

I see there is an Adios 8 out with great reviews as an awesome speed/racing shoe maybe better than Takumi Sens.

Mikkey cheers. I went out the door not knowing what run I was doing but got motivated as I bailed on Parkrun with my mate who got his 1st sub 20. I wore nike tempo next % which I bought by accident as they were about 30 quid. They are real bouncy but a plastic plate. How is your running going ?

RP congratulations on the 100. You are a beast now and totally the alpha on here 

My highest week ever is about 80 and my body protested.

Cal thanks. I ran about 16 mpw for 6 months and then got back to 30 to 40 mpw. The last 5k was after 5 weeks at the increased mileage. Saturdays time trial was after a further 7 weeks of good training. Its always sobering how hard the fast pace feels after a layoff. I was hoping age hadn't caught up and I might not get back to decent 5k times.

Like you I'm trying to live a more all round life of fitness.

I bought a small amount of weights and do the workouts in my garage. My arms and chest are much stronger and I do core twice a week and still surf.

We have 6 chickens and I have 2 poached eggs on toast after my morning run every day. I haven't been counting calories but notice I have to eat alot.

I basically weigh exactly the same as you although I haven't checked for about 6 months when I was 68kgs.

My 17 year old is addicted to the gym and keeps a huge jar of protein powder at home.

What sort of mileage will the new Cal be running?

Dave nice on the 50 mpw. Do you do anything for your back ? I find I have to stretch it daily. I do the lie on my back and bring my leg across to get the click click click. If I don't get the click I know I'm tight and locked up.

I also bought a back decompression tool basically a hump you lie over. It seems it something we have to work on daily.

Steve thanks for the race recap.

I'm enjoying the hard fought rawness of your marathon journey. Much better than someone who nails it first time 

What warmup do you do for your marathons ? I never did any. The walk to the start is usually enough.

RP - That's mind boggling. You decide to run 100 miles in a week and you just run it.
I mean, you don't end up in the hospital, just nothing, it's like nothing happened. I'm shocked at your superpowers!

Steve - My theory is that it has to do with energy expenditure. That I believe is the root cause. Somehow, once the tank is low on fuel, it's like the body starts producing some sort of acidity that attacks the muscles first, but after a while it attacks the neural system.
Within that theory, both you and me are not economical runners, we're like a diesel truck at marathon pace, consuming far too much fuel for the pace.
We get away with half marathon races because we never empty the tank on those, but with their marathon lasting over 2h we do empty the tank and suffer the consequences.
People like RP and Jmac are probably spending barely more energy than easy pace when running marathon pace.
At least this is the pattern I have observed in all my defeats. Like in the last one where I started seeing the low tank signals at around 30k, somehow managed to continue on reserve until Km 39 (about 2h40) when I abruptly imploded.
Like I mentioned before, my theorised solution is that I train just enough so that I can push that bonk about 25 minutes ahead.

Dave - That's great news, but like others have said, hold your horses 😁

Cal - The thing is it's nearly impossible for you to gain a non trivial amount of muscle weight at your age (via natural ways), even if you are a freak of nature. You are likely though to still gain some but maintain about the same weight.
Your testosterone production has long been declining, and you're probably unable to eat the amount of protein and calories to enable any gain.
The protein powders help, but they also contain significant sugar and/or sweeteners a lot of times, which I believe is counter productive to gaining lean muscle.
I've tried finding non sweetened whey protein here but could not find it anywhere, except maybe online.
Do note if you try to eat more than your body wants, even if in liquid form, you will have a high risk of developing hiatus hernia, which is a very bad outcome in my opinion.

Piwi - We definitely have chosen to live here in Porto due to the multiple direct flights everywhere ✈️

These weekend get aways do a lot of good for my well being. We're frugal and never eat at fancy restaurants (Cause, unironically, we don't like the vibe, you know, when the waiter is wearing gloves kind of thing, when there are more forks and knifes than I have hands), flights are dirt cheap (50 euros or less usually), and we do not drive, (renting a car is always super expensive), so they're not too heavy on the wallet.

RP- Nice week!  I agree with Dave that it's almost as mentally taxing as it is physical.  There's a certain point somewhere between 80-100 where figuring out and scheduling when to fit in runs is almost as hard as executing them.

Dave- good to hear your back is feeling better.  I struggle with that as well and know how difficult it can be.

MMerk- Nice to see there's another race going on the front page! Like the goal too.  Sub-2:55 is awesome goal.

Cal - How's the CIM training going?  Or is it too early?

Mark- Congratulations!!  as the father of 2 wonderful adult daughters enjoy the ride.....It's a marathon not a sprint (pun intended).

DK- Keep pounding out those miles!  Philly will be here before you know it I'm up in the air right now about fall races.  My choices so far are:

Steamtown (Scranton 10/8) downhill, smallish, fast and in the same town as The Office (one of my favorite shows)

Philly (11/19) Cool weather, great support, family nearby

CIM (do I need to list date?)

My week focused on miles, heat acclimation and a nice steady long run:

Weekly for period: From: 05/29/2023 To 06/04/2023

Total distance: 71.03mi

 Anyway - just a thought. But like I said, you've tried so much and nothing has really worked, so there's no shame in just giving up on the distance if you're not enjoying it. It's a very hard distance to master, and some folks just aren't built for it (like others aren't built for speed).

It might be time to try out that HotShot product, who knows what if it works for Steve. I'm seriously considering taking that with me on my next marathon race (then also take a pill of Omeprazol for the subsequent heart burn 😂).

That book about the runner's gut (Have you read it yet Jmac?) mentioned it as a potential solution, as well as pickle juice, but I'm not carrying a jar of pickle LOL. The book states that capsaicin (And cinnamon) works by calming down the neurons that are acting crazy thus effectively terminating the cramp.

I'm fairly sure most of us can deal with the pain itself, especially during a race, it's just that when neurons go haywire you essentially lose partial or full control over the muscle and can do nothing, which is very annoying and frustrating.