Good work Steve, running is so much more enjoyable without niggles.

 

Steve - OOF on the dog. Did he actually get a bite of you?

Yep.  There were 3 ladies walking across the path and it was very wet and muddy just off the path.  I had to step into the mud to get round them and the dog was on an extended lead.  It saw me and jumped out and nipped my calf.  Not a solid bite but enough to make me look down at it for the next few km to see if there was blood, and it did hurt for about 15 mins.  I uttered quite a loud expletive but didn't stop because I still had 20km to go.

 

I personally think this is pretty unforgivable on the part of the dog owner.  Sure, this seemed fortunately harmless this time but it could just as easily have been worse, or imagine if it had a go at a small kid?  I had an off-leash dog have a go at me a couple of months ago (in an area where dogs are strictly supposed to be on-leash) and I was furious.

 

Yeah I was annoyed but I don't know what the dog owner could do, except keep it on a much tighter leash assuming she's aware that it likes to bite people.  A few years ago some big dogs had just arrived at a park I was running round and got very excited.  One of them was running straight at me so I kind of jumped to get out of the way but it hit me in the thigh and sent me flying.  I face planted on the concrete and had a bleeding nose and the owner comes over and says "I'm so sorry...you're okay though aren't you, just a bit of a shock?" which did make me angry.  She offered to give me her details but I just decided to keep running and was probably quite rude to her.  Sure accidents happen, but coming over and telling me it was no big deal got me a bit wound up.  Getting knocked over like that hurts much more after an hour of running than normally.

Dps - that is a very impressive week for "building back" week.

Darkwave - New Zealand has zero known community transmission right now.  So I really, really hope it is not THE bug.

Kimba - LOL, I too feel like a diamond league runner in the first 100m of every race. It's funny we say that, cause when you watch these PRO races, a lot of the east African runners run like that and sometimes they hit break throughs.

Watson - awesome, over 60km, very good consistency from you lately.

Mark - like a swish watch! 21km at half marathon pace is looking very good, almost too much since you still have 10 weeks.

The Hansons elite runners cap their runs at 26.2km at marathon pace.

Piwi - woah boy, over 90km, what is this, a marathon build up?

Steve - Ugh, that’s one of my main pet peeves. I’m constantly called a coward and a wimp by my wife because I take absolutely no chances against dogs, I will often turn around 150m before, go around the square, turn a corner before etc.

Suffice to say I believe a cracked rib is a fair first time punishment for a dog owner who let their dog out of control.

Darkwave - good work on the comeback. It sucks you won’t get to race that mile, but hopefully you can get a redemption race in a few weeks.

me - Almost 50km, good progress this past week with the new coach. Some fitness tests to see where I'm at.

Weekly for period: From: 13/07/2020 To 19/07/2020

Total distance: 49.92km

James - sucks about the half, I can't believe they waited that long to cancel it.

Keen - hope you're staying safe in OK. We generally avoid politics on this board, but just gotta say your governor seems like one of the nuttiest governors out there.

Mark - great job on your MP work. Based upon my own experience, if I can get a 13-14 miler done at goal pace, I will hit that goal pace in the race. when you say you could have kept going, what exactly do you mean by that? For my MP runs, I always think "I could have gone another 2, maybe 3 miles, but then I would have to stop." If it felt like that, you did it perfectly. If you felt like you had more than 5K in you, then your goal pace is too easy. For CIM, I ran my last MP run of 14 miles in 5:58. My CIM pace? 5:58.

Piwi - feel like this has been your most consistent running in years, no?

Steve - how you feeling about your goal? Also when it comes to dog, I have a bit of bias: I always find small dogs to be way worse than big dogs. It could be a local thing, but the big dogs around here are WAY better behaved than the small dogs. I alwayss believed that's because you have to train a big dog, whereas a small dog you can get away with zero training. I will also say this as a dog owner: dog owners can be some of the most selfish people. And finally, I didn't know there were rude Kiwis. This is shocking to me.

DW - which road mile was running?

DPS - I'm fully prepped not to race this fall. I don't know that I can make it all of next spring without racing though.

Flavio - compared to your last coach, what would you say are the pros/cons?

Me - still all easy running. Have done about 50 miles the past 3 weeks in a row, which is the first time since March, so that's good. I did have a heat exhaustion moment though this Saturday on my 16 miler. I brought more liquid than I did for my last long run and felt a lot better around the 10 mile mark. However, once I got to 14, things got bad, and when I finished, I was cooked. This was 90 degree heat weather. At night, I couldn't eat and had a hard time breathing with a baby fever and chills, so I definitely had some heat exhaustion event. Still had trouble running yesterday so I cut it short. Today is going to be 97 degrees so have to be careful again. All of this is to say take the heat seriously! The risks of heat exhaustion are just not worth getting a few extra miles in.

JMac, yes, the heat and high dew point have been killer.  I never bring hydration on runs because I really don’t run long enough to need it.  However, there have been a few runs these past few weeks where I felt like I bonked — without having run far enough for that to happen!  Just felt like complete crap in the last 2ish miles of some 6-8 milers.  

Steve, and all who have issues with dogs — I’m generally a fan of all animals, much to the dismay of my husband who thinks every strange dog I pet is going to eat me alive.  I usually tell him to shut up and proceed to pet ALL the dogs.  However, just last week a 15 month old girl in a nearby town was killed by her own family dog.  I can’t even imagine.  I couldn’t follow the story enough to learn all the details because it’s just too sad, but I did run with a nurse practitioner who was working in the children’s ER when the child was rushed in; she said it was the worst thing she’s ever experienced.  Anyway, I guess the point is that as cute as they can be, dogs and other pets are still animals so it’s smart to keep your space.

Jmac - it’s a bit too early to tell after just one week. The coach seems great and he and his family moved to Germany so he’s on the same timezone.

He comes very well recommended on Reddit. Ryan, from http://milestogoendurance.com/ .

Ugh on the heat exhaustion, it gets ugly fast! Coconut water, watermelons (or gatorade missing those) are great to help you recover.