I am routinely checking; I don't care about colors either, but by the time they are discounted they are typically sold out of many sizes. Have not been able to find my size with a discount.

Yeah it seems like the popular sizes are gone quite fast.  I am lucky to be a giant with size 12.5 in Nike.

 

That is my size too!! Not only have they been sold out on the sale models, some shoes seem to skip over it and go from 12 to 13.

Possible that down here in NZ we are getting our stock out of Asia, where people generally have smaller feet!

 

I am routinely checking; I don't care about colors either, but by the time they are discounted they are typically sold out of many sizes. Have not been able to find my size with a discount.

That has not been the case for me recently as long as you are okay with many colors. I’m a 10.5 and have not paid full price for a Vaporfly or ZoomFly over the past 3 pairs.

I have never run in a super shoe. I ran part of my last race in the Hoka Carbon X. From what I read they are a step down from the VF. I recommend no running more than 50 miles in the Carbon X. I feet hurt and switched to Bondis at mile 72. I know Jim Wamsley ran a really fast 100k in them. But he is superhuman.

Winter has been crazy here in Utah. More snow than normal. More snow means icy roads and trails. It has been sub 20 for weeks.

 

I've seen VF's on sale on the Nike website every few months in the last little while.  This NEVER used to happen.  It seems to be mostly clearing out the old colourways to make way for new ones but if I'm saving $100 I really don't care too much what colour they are.

Flavio - I can't remember what year it was (2020? 21?) where you struggled a lot and there was fear maybe your PR days were behind, but now you're running really well. 

 

That's a very good memory. From April 2016 to May 2019 I had zero PRs and couldn't run even close to them. A very nasty injury in 2016 after a 50K race (I REALLY don't do well after these long races) and then difficulties being consistent due to recurring injuries kept holding me back. It was only after I started taking strength training more seriously that I've managed to become strong enough so that I was not wasting 20+ weeks per year injured. Another thing that helped was that I hired a running coach. We've debated this so much, but it's just hard to explain just how much better you train when you have a good coach.

The 10K PR is still my softest PR though and why I've targeted it recently. My Half PR is beyond reach at the moment but the 5k PR is possible, provided I have yet another break through in fitness. We can never take these things for granted though.

I find it very interesting that many of you have the entire year mapped out already, I honestly have no clue what to do after the 5k. I'll probably go into base building again and try to reach 60 miles per week so that I can start thinking about half marathons.

Flavio - regarding the entire year planned, I think it's easier to think of what your seasons will generally focus on. That's a marathon for a lot of folks, but it could be shorter distances. You already know I'm doing that now, but I woild argue you should keep running 5 and 10ks. They're easy to recover from, and you need multiple cracks at them, especially the 5K. Why not run a 5K at least once every 3 weeks, assuming you have that option near you? It's my favorite thing about training for this distance: you get to race so much more because you don't need to taper and recover nearly as much

Yeah, it'd have to be a 10k as there are no 5Ks in Portugal. I've gone as far as to call the Portuguese Athletics Federation to try to figure it out and apparently the Portuguese runners don't care for 5ks and that's why I'm going to Barcelona for a 5k LOL.

There's also that soon it will be too warm to try to PR at any distance, there's no point trying to PR between mid March and late October around here, the weather is just too warm and the races start too late (earliest I've seen was a 9am start).

I have to watch the calendar in nearby Galicia in Spain though, there might be a 5k there.

My overall plan for the year is to somehow figure out how to get to 60 miles a week and beyond again (Without breaking down) so that I can unlock more fitness as I know I get better when I'm at that level as opposed to the current level of 40 to 45 miles per week.

Steve- Wish I had a solid, performance development based answer for you but I don't I just have always done shorter recoveries after mile intervals.  For the most part I think I run my recoveries too fast for shorter intervals and too slow on the longer, endurance MP type runs.  I have tried to do the opposite this cycle a bit.  My "recovery/easy" pace after MP stretches are faster and the shorter "recovery jog" pace has been slower.  Not sure if it's sound training or I'm just throwing stuff on the wall and seeing what sticks.

 

Fishy - Why only one minute recoveries?  I used to stick to that too but my new coach is a big believer in getting the heart rate right back down between efforts - he even encourages me to stop the watch and rest for 2 minutes before starting a cool down.  I'm slowly getting my mind round it although the fact that he does it as a 2:20 marathoner should be enough.  I've really noticed my HR not dropping during the cool down after a speed workout lately.