James - nice week, every now and then I will catch a cyclist on Upper Harbour Bridge which is a long ~1 mile climb, that's always quite satisfying.

Me - another week with 2 days off running (gym days Mon/Fri). I suspect this means coach has 2 big weeks planned for the next two weeks before Mt. Maunganui Half.  My legs felt great on Tuesday, but then didn't go as fast as I wanted them to on Thursday.

Weekly for period: From: 03/08/2020 To 09/08/2020

Total distance: 93.20km

Mark and James - nice weeks.

Piwi - nice week too.  You're clearly in the best shape you've been for quite a few years which an accidental sub 40 over 10km.

My week was good.  Biggest week this year, which admittedly is not saying a whole lot.

Weekly for period: From: 03/08/2020 To 09/08/2020

Total distance: 69.55km

And of actual importance, as mentioned my contract was cut short, ending 31 July.  Contracting work is really, really sparse right now due to the recession.  And so is permanent positions too.  I've picked a permanent position, most likely starting Monday 17 August,, which in the current environment is quite a relief.

James - kinda embarrasing for the cyclists, no?

Marky_Mark - as I noted, the Monster Magnet reference made my day.  I saw them when they opened for Marilyn Manson (go ahead, judge)

Piwi - very nice Saturday.

Watson - congrats on the permanent position!  That's great news.  Going into Covid my sig other was between jobs.  He actually got a job offer - as an essential worker, which meant that he had to start going into an office during the height of our Covid lockdown.  He debated a bit whether to take it, but we decided that in this economy, if you have a job offer, you take it.

Flavio - my arches are also high, but my heels are narrow.  So, I do the heel lock and accept the blisters at the front of the ankle.   Actually now I've got a nice lump of flesh at the front of each ankle.

Nice week for you, and crazy how accurate your Garmin is on the track.  Most I've seen are not that way.

My week:

58 miles, 15 "miles" of pool-running.
M: 5.5 "miles" of pool-running and upper body weights/core.
T: 11 miles, including 8 gentle Iwo Jima hill repeats (about 2:20 up, 90 second easy jog, 30 second gentle stride, and 80 second jog to bottom of hill). Followed with leg strengthwork and streaming yoga.
W: 5.5 miles easy (9:46), streaming yoga, and 6.5 miles easy (9:10) plus drills and four hill strides
Th: upper body weights/core and 5.5 "miles" of pool-running
F: 11 miles, including 5x 4 minutes on, 3 minutes jog. (paces for on were 6:40-6:50 ish according to Garmin). Followed with leg strengthwork and streaming yoga.
Sa: 10 miles easy (9:35), plus drills, two hill strides, two flat strides. Later did upper body weights/core and foam rolling.
Su: 14 miles easy to moderate - starting at 9:45 and ending at 7:45 pace. Followed with leg strengthwork, 4 "miles" of pool-running, and streaming yoga.

Watson - congrats on the new role, definitely a tough time to be looking.  I don't think we've seen anywhere near the worst of the economic impacts yet - once the wage subsidy and some of the other government support ends then I think we'll see the real economy emerge.  Also good week, hope you can keep building from here.

Steve - nice week.  Not pretending I've had the same frustration as you but I definitely can't wait for Rotorua Marathon to hurry up and get here.

Piwi- only 3 weeks until the race!  Hang in there.  You're obviously in good shape if you can sneak in a sub-40 10k without really trying.

Flavio - good week, amusingly it looks like you got more elevation on the warm up than the actual hill sprints?  Haha.

Darkwave - no judgment from me!  Both those artists have their merits.  I've seen Marilyn Manson live as well (I think it was Big Day Out in the late 1990's sometimes).

Also:

Darkwave and Flavio - nice weeks.

Steve - good week.  I hope your partner is looking at permanent and contract right now?  Contract roles have really dried up in Wellington, so there was no way I was risking 6+ months of no work.  Maybe she should try and pick up some certification in the mean time, as I think she is doing IT work?  If so, what sort?

 

And as Mark states, once the wage subsidy ends, I think it will get worse.  And NZ government is going to have to start paying off the debt some point.

Yep, she's looking at everything, including commuting to Wellington.  She's an IT PM with good contacts around Christchurch - there's an Account Manager role that is looking promising and she's looking for a slight change so fingers crossed....for her sanity and mine.

We have implemented a new flexible working policy so I'll be home probably 2 days per week but as with everything at local council, the process to get it signed off is extremely inefficient.  6 weeks on and still not actually in place, although I worked from home Friday, Monday and Tuesday last week because of my cold.

Steve it must be tough on one income. At least you dont have kids. I somehow managed to support 6 of us on one income for 18 years but there was never alot of extra money.

Watson that's really good you have secured a job.

My week was a lot of fun though it included a lot of questioning of my desire to race.

Monday - I ran almost 8 with 6x10sec hill sprints in the middle and ended up with a charlie horse in my right quad which still hasn't gone away.

Tuesday - Overslept my usual track time and opted to just jog 5 with the doggo instead.

Wednesday - 3KM Time Trial - see below.

Thursday - off

Friday - 20 min easy + 4 strides

Saturday - 7 mile trail race! - see below

Sunday - 8.6mi trail run / chat with a friend I hadn't seen in awhile.

3k Time Trial

I loaded up my hydration pack with spikes and jogged the 3 miles to the track where I did some strides then sat for 10 minutes questioning if I really wanted to do this. I decided that this is nearly the best shape I've ever been in and I should see what I can do. 90 second quarters felt like a solid and ambitious goal pace and I hit the first lap no problem in 89, but the second was 93 and I pushed a little on the third but only went 91 and sadly I let off the gas and just kept the effort steady the rest of the way 93, 92, 94, 93 and a very painful :44. I really thought I was in better shape than that but it's hard to argue with a track and a stopwatch. I'm going to find someone to pace me in a few weeks and try again but 11:29 is a PR so I'm celebrating that regardless.

7 mile Mines of Spain race

After the 3k letdown, I went over to a friends house to drink and play chess Wednesday night and at some point I decided I was going to skip Thursday's long run because I wanted to crush the hills up by the Mississippi. This trail is hilly with lots of roots and stones but the path was firm the whole way which I knew from running 20 up there the week before. Unfortunately I had no idea the exact route of the 7 so I didn't know when the hills would hit.  Regardless I got there early, had my temperature checked, got my bib and did a nice 20 minute warmup where my legs felt like hot trash and my right quad felt like it was going to get a charlie horse again. I tried to chill out because I've had a lot of my best races after terrible warmups. I did some stupid math and figured I'm in 40:30-41 min flat 10k shape + 1 mile + huge adjustment for 900 feet of gain (per the RD) and after thinking about how wrong I was on the 3k I figured anything sub hour would be shocking. I quickly realized that with so many hills pacing by pace was simply not feasible so it was all about regulating effort.

The HM went off in 3 waves, one every 5 minutes and after cheering for some friends, it was finally my turn to line up. There four guys and one girl who looked fast but when the gun went off I took off and only two of them just pulled away. I found myself  running with the lady and 3 more for the first half mile at which point I used a downhill to push about 10m ahead of the group because I really wanted to take my mask off, after this I repeatedly kept alternatively pushing to stay in front and pulling back because I knew the pace was too hot. The first two miles we held position and after crossing a road bridge one guy pushed past me fast and we hit an uphill and he gradually pulled away. There were a lot of steps built as wooden retaining walls at an absolutely annoying depth that was super difficult to run and eventually I gave up and power hiked the last 50m of steps. After a bit more uphill we hit a switchback and glancing down I was shocked to not see any of the people I started with which left me in a solid 4th by my fuzzy race math.

The next stretch included a quarter mile (?) on road, easily the worst part of the race followed by going almost straight up a bluff. If it weren't for the fact that there were a lot of mid pack HM people  for me to pick off this would have fried me mentally. As it was I power hiked it and got moving again at the top. The trails wound around for awhile and eventually I saw two guys running ahead way up in the distance at roughly my pace! A lot of the next couple miles are a blur but those two separated and one of the two guys who started super fast gradually came back to me and I made what I consider my only mistake of the race. I told myself he's coming back to me, let it happen you don't have to make it happen soon and as I caught him I actually fell in behind him for probably 3 or 4 minutes until we hit Upper Calcite the biggest most technical climb of the day at which point I power hiked and he said "I started too fast" and fell behind. That was a brutal hike, but my legs felt good for the change of pace at the top and I really started booking it because there was a sign that said "Finish" .... of course the start was downhill so this was uphill which was brutal but I kept passing 4 mile racers and all too soon I hit the start and sprinted 100m more to the finish in 58:01, in third place and totally out of all awards (1st & 2nd OA also got 1st & 2nd AG and there were no 3rd place awards). 1st place absolutely killed it running 47:30 but 2nd was only a 1:02 in front of me.

Regardless I pulled up my mask, relaxed with a beer and saw some friends that I haven't seen since the pandemic started.I'm not sure how smart that was but we were able to spread out quite a bit so I probably wasn't as worried as I should have been. It felt really good to race. though hopefully I can find something with a bigger field near my fitness level at some point.