JMac well I might possible stalk Keen at the downtown bus stop and ride along with him. I can chat his ear off for the first 30 so he can avoid me at all costs and run super fast. With how my Thursday M pace runs have gone I'm getting concerned about 6:50/mi pace. Tuesday runs seem fine to do at a 6:30/mi pace. Thursday, when I have to hang it out there for extended periods of time, seems to be a lot worse for me. I wouldn't want to hold Keen back, and I'm just taking a guess....he will run a 1:29:30 for the first half, and speed up for the final 10k, and even more for the final 5k to get under 2:58. You will be able to cheer him on from the beer tent for the last 600m.

Maurten I like them because, like JMac they didn't give me any stomach issues in 2019. I trained with them a lot, and I'll be using them again for CIM. The cost, well I just don't care. I spent $500+ for a driveshaft for a spare vehicle I plan to use as a toy. I put about $50 worth of fluid into it for just the rear end. as is $4/gallon. So to fuel myself for a race I've trained 3 months for I'm going to go with what works. I see no problem spending $30 for race fuel when I'm willing to spend $260 on shoes. *all prices are in USD unless state otherwise elsewhere*

Yeah, they're pretty much like Jell-O, and there is a large amount to ingest. It took a while for me to do this, and I somehow dont' have much problem scarfing it down. Perhaps because I'm a fast eater and give myself hiccups from eating frequently. They work. "If it ain't broke, fix it until it is don't fix it."

JHud are you coiming to CIM?

Cal I'll look around for you at the start or bus stops at CIM. I thought you were driving up the day of, but it sounded like you were staying downtown Saturday night.

My Week

Unintentionally the most miles I've run in a week. It seemed easy to run 13+ miles, and the long run Friday was made up on the fly. A girl I run with on Sundays, who doesn't like hills, talked about this loop but didn't give the specifics. Friday it seemed like a good thing to run just because CIM is hilly, and I aven't been running hills like I did in 2019 so I'm afraid of them destroying my legs. I also thought the novelty of other people seeing Zolezzi AND wedge, in the SAME RUN would blow a few minds. I have been vocal about not liking Zolezzi. Lots of false summits from miles 2-6, then a 2.25 mile downhill where EVERYONE AND THEIR FAMILY want to drop 7:30/mi or faster. UFF DAH!

Tuesday went well. Again, I was thinking "if this is 10 seconds faster than marathon pace I should be in good shape."

Thursday...OOOOFFFFFF Mile 7 was all heart and all mental. I wanted to quit. It wasn't easy, I was going too slow for marathon pace, and the heart rate was the absolute maximum I'd want for a marathon. I told myself "you quit last week because it got hard, and you were supposed to learn something. You said today 9-10 miles, and you said Thursday workouts are the ones that build confidence so you HAVE to make it 9 miles." I had to slow down, possibly due to 61F temps and possibly due to not being in shape, to make it through and when the final miles of the workout was finished so was I. I didn't have a 10th mile in me. Overall the PACES were fine. It's just the physical feeling of absolute exhaustion at the end of the workout I wasn't expecting, and when I think about doing 10 miles I get a little concerned about how it will go, which snowballs into "well how are you going to do it on race day if you can't do it here?"

Also, I have an Australian visiting a relative in the area so I'm asking her all about things. She said our bread tastes like cake because of the amount of sugar in it. I told her she should take a loaf home to share with others because apparently there isn't sugar in bread down under.  She also told me they call McDonalds "mackers" and a slide is known as a "slippery dip." It's fun learning new words.

Weekly for period: From: 10/25/2021 To 10/31/2021

Total distance: 76.70mi

RP - I've noticed the same regarding many dog owners. The first words out of the mouths of those who owned the dogs I've been bit by were both "My dog would never bite anyone!". The blood coming down my legs begged otherwise.

Grrr, I've been chased sooo many times this year.  Usually in the domain/reserve/park but also walking past building sites with dogs not on a leash who lunge at people walking past.  A crazy tiny dog on a long leash at the domain lunged at me but only managed to bite my track pants thankfully.  I generally avoid the domain now unless it's a recovery run to just avoid the issue.  A few months ago while being chased I managed to swing my leg perfectly and connected with the head...hopefully lesson learned.

 

 Steve I've keep forgetting to ask....is there a reason your warm ups are ONLY 0.28 miles (4-500m) It looks like a convenient start/stop point from the non-sattelite image on Strava. I just wondered.

Yeah it's just a lap around the block.  I only added them in 2 years ago after a glute issue at the request of the physio (then added them to Strava at the request of piwi).  I usually start my runs slow so it may not be all that necessary, especially in warm weather.

keen 50 miles the week of a race without including the race? wow. I guess I expected a lot, and oddly I was thinking "I bet he does 50 the week of CIM" on my run today. Not "in addition to CIM" but total.

Anything in particular you'd like to know? They apparently sell LPG at the petrol station, call it "gas" and it's super cheap. Oh and their octane rating for low grad is something like 91 I think. Perhaps NZ has comparable insight. I think marby could confirm/deny it.

The posted the WA Championship section rules after 60% of the applicable races were already run.... so do not underestimate USATF to set new reasonable standards but late enough to screw the maximum amount of potential qualifiers with the least amount of notice possible.

Jhud: I’m excited for you, there’s nothing like race week.

Jmac:  Good sign to get that Thu workout done and then wow, great long run.

Keen: Very nice that you could get ‘the big one’ done feeling like you could have gone harder.  Just ‘cause you could have doesn’t mean you should have, give yourself a big tick. You must be looking forward to a down week of 95…

RP: Thu not being what you hoped for doesn’t seem like a big deal in the scheme of things.  Tue was really good and the week had all the variety to move you in the right direction.

Petrol (regular unleaded) is 91 octane and bloody expensive at the moment, 1.80 AUD per litre which I think converts to 5 USD per gallon.  I did a big road trip back in 94/95 and remember thinking how cheap fuel was, it was just over a dollar per gallon back then. Yes, LPG is known as gas and is half the price of petrol.

Anyone with a surname starting with Mc or Mac ends up getting called Macca at some point in their life, so why would McDonalds be treated any differently.  10 years ago they adopted it, trademarked it and advertise the crap out of it.  I do not have the mymaccas app installed.

In other strange Aussie goings on – today we have a public holiday in honour of a horse race.  We also had one back in September for the football grand final.  I’ll take it, last week was a fair bit to adjust to.  I went back to work in the office and the kids went back to the classroom. Oh, and my brother got the virus, he's okay but there was some stuff to deal with.

Of the 10 trips to and from I walked 7 of them and ran 3, it was good to be able to do that.

I took a wrong turn on my long run and ended up running 3mi longer than intended. Then had a 2 hour/6k treating walk in the afternoon!

Total distance: 66.75mi

dw - I think, it's right decision not to run Indy if you don't feel excited about it. Great to see you continue running but hope you find the origin of the problem, so we would get our regular optimistic dw back

JMac - great week, very impressive - especially that Thursday's workout and the long run - you are killing it.

jhudak - almost there! Hope you are excited about the race - you have a great chance to go sub 3 - just don't try to get to greedy - I would be pretty conservative first couple of miles - 5-10 seconds slower than your target pace (6:48-6:50) - I would strongly advise against of going faster than target pace - in my experience all the great races for me started at target pace of a little slower - if you feel great at those paces for first two miles, it would be a great sign. I also think that 29oF (which could change) is a great starting point - nothing wrong with that. I remember one of the CIM starts was at 23oF, no snow, no wind and it was great!

RP - I maybe mistaken but it seems to me that your current training is less than what you had for 2019 - there were few uninterrupted cycles back then. But you have a great psychological advantage - you already ran sub 3 - in my experience it worth something.

Keen - man... your training is really awesome - you should be running low 2:50s by now - I hope you will break that sub 3 barrier and will go from there in the right direction. It's interesting that your mileage plan for the last few weeks is almost identical to my weekly miles before my PR race in 2015 - back then my last 5 weeks were: 105, 85, 85, 76, 46 (72 with marathon).

Marby - solid week.

It's funny to read how you guys automatically put me into sub 3 racers group - my last two races made me appreciate sub 3 much more than before. I do not know what is happening but I honestly didn't consider running sub 3 as a big deal. But last two races... I put 100% effort in both races and was not able to achieve sub 3. One of the reasons trough, I think is that I run like 25-30 miles per week less than I used to run all those "easy sub 3 years". Maybe that is the reason. It's interesting that I run more workouts this cycle, but it doesn't pay off. Maybe my "comfort" territory is higher mileage with maybe one workout per week? I will try to plan higher mileage next cycle.

My week was fine - even ran more than I thought I will, but nothing crazy. Also the Tuesday workout (3x2) was pretty decent with most of the miles under 6:15. Also ran "workout" up/down to Mt. Diablo (3500+ ft) - as I expected, I feel much much better than after my first run to the Mt., but quads are still heavy - you just can't have no consequences after 11 miles straight downhill (all miles in the range of 150-400 feet down)

Mo - 8.20 @7:46

Tu - 8:53 @7:06 (with 3x2 @6:10, 6:17, 6:09)

We - 11.15 @7:45

Th - 11.17 @9:07

Fr - 11.02 @7:47 with 6 @~MP effort - 6:50 avg pace

Sa - 7:07 @9:18

Su - 18.12 @9:04 (up - trail, down - road)

===

Total: 75.2 miles

Marby - I guess you're going to have start calling me Maca. That's a pretty hilarious sign.

My question for the Aussie's: what percentage of people ever travel inland? I realize it's a complete wasteland, but is it a journey Australians feel they must make once in their life, or does nobody care?

Keen - It's so funny you call 10% ethanol "junk." I don't think I've even been in a state with 0% ethanol (apparently 10% ethanol makes up 95% of all gas sold in the US). When I drove from NY to CO this past winter, it was fun to track how much the ethanol percentage went up as I approached and departed Iowa. There were gas stations with 70% ethanol. I don't even understand how that works.

Cal - my position for you on sub 3 is just that CIM is your magic home course. I do think there is no replacement for MPW, but you are putting up pretty decent mileage. I feel like you and RP can probably come into CIM with just a 2 week taper though instead of the usual 3 week, whereas Keen almost has a 4 week taper with the mileage he is putting up (like your example).

Also as keen said, your runs up Mt Diablo have been very impressive.