Robbie, the intermediate group I run with has a small group of regular runners, it is just advertised on their FB page. Three of the regulars have to travel to get here so with the bad weather they probably can't be bothered making the journey. There is 1 other regular but she has had a bad cold, hopefully she will be back next week. There is a new beginners group started this week and there were 4 people already turned up before I left so I don't feel so bad about the group leader having a 14 mile round trip on his bike! (He doesn't drive).

Today I could hardly get dressed! New weight lifting routine has made me really sore. Today was upper body again then a 30 minute run for Jantastic. Legs felt heavy and I counted down every single minute! Actually only did 29 minutes as I started feeling light headed and nauseous at the 20 minute mark so took the short way home, but ssshh! Don't tell Jantastic!

When I got home my Skechers Go Run Ultras had arrived. Tried them on and they felt very cushioned in the midfoot and heel but not so cushioned in the forefoot, and I am a forefoot striker. But when I compared them to my Asics they felt much more cushioned in the forefoot so looking forward to giving them a try.

Ceci, have you tried Nike running shoes? They have a very wide toe box even on the standard fitting, I tried a couple of pairs but they were too wide for me.

Didn't try out my new shoes today, read some reviews and they said they were trail shoes and when you wore them on the road they wore down really quickly, you would only get 200-300 miles out of them. That wouldn't be too bad at that price but they aren't usually that cheap. Waiting to hear back from a woman on the FB group who runs regularly in them before I decide.

Wow - it's really easy to get behind if you miss a day on this thread!

Yesterday was a run day for me, so I did 5.5k around the neighbourhood (41 minutes). I did need to distract myself a bit during that first 1.5k by practicing counting my cadence between phone poles. Usually I will start off counting my left foot strike, get momentarily distracted, and before I know it I've started counting all the steps. Figured I might as well practice a bit before I do actual drills. LOL Other than the usual stops at crosswalks (or for ice), there was only one walk break which happened at the top of a hill (km 5) after I had to stop for traffic mid-hill. I doubt I would have needed to walk if it wasn't for that interruption... think it threw off the mindset that I need to beat a hill and keep going, if that makes sense.

You've given me some things to consider about my running shoes. Perhaps they aren't as far gone as I suspected. They are Brooks Ghost 6 with about 300 running km on them - still comfortable and no nagging pains at the moment. When rotating shoes in, do you typically go with the same shoe or do you experiment with different shoes?

Romy hope the DOMS has calmed down, new routines can be really unkind like that. Remember the rest is when the repair and strengthening occurs. 14 miles on a bike to lead a session, a dedicated man! Look after him.

Ceci, you did it though, you got through the issue and managed, well done. Hope you got some good rest and look forward to hearing how your long run goes.

Skye nice going, sounds as though you have the early walk break licked. Pop in, pop out, it's fairly easy here. I love the support here and the motivation of seeing how others are doing when I feel less motivated to get out.

I doubled up on Thursday just because I got a call requiring a 0530 start at work on Friday with a warning that due to the problems at work we were likely to have a 12+ hour stint. The thought of getting up at 0300 to do an interval session did not appeal and doing it after work was even less appealing. I never consistently got to the sprint pace indicated, close but not there. It was the first sprint session I have done in a long time and my mind struggled to push through the stress. I always hated rowing sprint sessions, that just hurt. It is at times like those that I envy those people with training partners who can help push them through those weak willed moments. However the session certainly fatigued the legs. Looking forward to the slightly less severe session next week (rolls eyes). Got out last night for a very easy paced recovery session, I needed to get out after being cooped up all day. Went well, HR slightly elevated but nothing serious. Because I was going to struggle to find time to do the long run on Sunday I have taken advantage of Thursday to advance Saturdays and Sundays runs a day, so have a long run today. Then get Sunday and Monday off. Woo hoo.

Have fun, hope your training/ fun running goes well.

Romy good luck with whatever you end up doing, lets hope that your cold doesn't impact too much.

Got the long run in, pushed it to 13.1 miles mainly a mix of .25 mile at 30 sec per mile faster than HM pace with 0.75 miles at easy pace. Worked out well but really tired now. Looking forward to 2 days of rest and recuperation and then a low intensity week. Lets hope the last 2 weeks end up with some performance gains.

Good luck with your training/ runs and have fun

Ceci, good to hear your runs are going well, even if you're dodging twits on the inside track. On the shoe front, perhaps contemplate mens shoes in the smaller size. They generally have a much larger toe box. Altra is a brand that has wonderfully large toeboxes too.
On the Hydration front, when it's hot if the run is over 5k I'll either carry a bottle of water with me, or ensure the route has a bubbler at the mid point. When it was cooler, I was doing 10mile without worrying about hydration on the run. That said I tend to drink in the region of 4-6L of water a day, so I'm generally pretty darn hydrated

Robbie, in Aus pretty much every house has a tap in the front yard. I made sure I chose ones that were super obvious from the street (and it didn't look like anyone was home) As a friend said, if anyone was home they would probably prefer I use the tap, rather than pass out on their front lawn.
You've been having some good runs mate, enjoy the days off and the low intensity week. I'm looking forward to my cutback week, when I finally get it. (Running without a plan, you'd think it would be easy to just slot one in LOL)

Romy, have you contemplated using a hydration pack, so you can take regular and semi constant little sips? I hope the regulars for jog scotland start returning so it's not just you and your son. Glad you two are persisting though!
Running through DOMS absolutely sucks! Good work on getting through it.
I've got a friend who has a pair of sketchers. I can't remember what model though. He loves them for road, but they are horrible on trail.
Glad to hear the cold isn't too bad and you're liking the shoes. Hope the hotspots aren't on going!

Sal, glad your knee is good. I hope you don't have a cold and you're all good quickly!

Skye - Yup, so easy to get left behind here. Especially when everyone is running. Sounds like you had a good run. Any stop mid hill is a bugger to get going again from!
If you're not getting any niggles, keep going with your current shoes. My Brooks Cascadia's have just ticked over 1500km. Longevity in shoes is definitely affected by your running style. As for rotating shoes (I'm not doing it yet) If you're happy with your current shoes and can afford them, I'd stick with the same make/model. If you're not 100% happy with your current shoes, then it's time to experiment.
Personally I'll be experimenting with my next set. I'm happy with my Cascadia's but they have just released the new model, so I'm not sure if I'll risk the $250 on the newer model. Honestly even if the same model were still available I'd probably risk experimenting as that's still a heap of money to lay down on shoes.

Ok so it's been a bit since I updated with my runs. Thursday ended up being just over 11k. I wasn't sure if I was doing 10 or 15k when I headed out. It was much cooler than the nightmare run in hell I did the day before. I still made sure I carried water this time.
Friday was trails, I skipped my hill repeats and simply did a trail run, a nice 15k where I ended up with a strava CR without meaning to. It was a nice run, with some good efforts on the back half. I actually ran into a couple on the trail who seemed to be having a date night and enjoying the views of the city from the hills where I run. Had a quick chat with them before finished. This morning I had parkrun. I was the RD this week. Normally I can still get my run in when RD'ing, but our tail walker didn't show up so I had to be the tail walker, it actually wasn't a bad change.
Then this afternoon I participated in a study regarding carrying a backpack of different loads. I showed up the study location, had a heap of reflector dooblalackies stuck to me and I had to run over a small distance multiple times at different speeds, carrying different weights (0, 10% and 20% of body weight) It was actually kind of cool helping with the study. There were 3 speeds to run at. 3m/s, 4m/s, 5m/s which works out to about 5:30min/km, 4:10min/km and 3:30min/km. I struggled the most with the 4:10 pace. I pretty well went too fast or too slow. All runs (to be counted) had to be within 5% of the required pace.

Apparently on the sprints I was the fastest they have had yet and I seemed to dial in the paces a lot faster than the others, I generally had 1 test run and then into the measured runs. It was quite cool and I'm looking forward to seeing both the video of my running and the 'animated' video of my runs that shows exactly what sort of angle I have on foot placement etc. I know when carrying 20% of my body weight and running at 3:30 pace I am definitely a heel striker, although not by a horrendous amount.
The 5:30min/km pace runs felt like I was shuffling. It is ridiculous how much the distance you need to hold a pace can effect how it feels.

My run today was AWESOME!!! I did 8 miles in 1:20:08. That's almost a full minute faster per mile than my fastest time for running at least 8 miles! I also had a PB for the 10k part of the course I ran today (1:00:57). Of the 3 Strava users who have run the course, I have the best time!

The girl who leads my cycling group is also a runner and tweaked my training plan to include some speed work. Next Tuesday I'm supposed to do hill repeats.

I'm shopping for a new pair of shoes because I figure these will be worn out before my race unless I rotate in a new pair.

I have really had trouble getting shoes that I like. I'm not real happy with the latest ones, but they will have to do until I can get new ones. (I'm not one to waste money, so I will wear these out!) I keep thinking I will have that magical moment when I run in shoes and decide these are the ones that I want to wear forever! HaHa!

I REALLY did not want to get outside yesterday because the weather was awful! Since my gym is not open on Sunday I had the option of using my in-laws' treadmill or bundling up and going outside. I opted for outside. It was only 2 miles, so it wasn't too bad. Finished in 19:18.

Great work on the PB's Ceci! A bit of speedwork will see your times drop bigtime! Hill repeats aren't -that- bad... Glad you got a run in, 2 miles is a lot better than nothing
Hope you find the right shoes to rotate in, definitely want miles on them before the race.

Sounds like a good run Romy!, and the sketchers seem to be working for you.

Monday was a public holiday here (Australia Day) so I dragged my butt out of bed stupid early, to go a group trail run starting around 6am. 17km or so, some good hills and good trails we were back at the start. Lots of stopping at turns, both for slower people to catch up, so we stayed as a group and so we didn't get lost, really enjoyed the run.

Tonight was the group run, I got 7k in before, shuttles for 3k having a chat and then the main social run. I felt like I was struggling a bit during the main run, but managed to knock out my fastest ever time on the 'final' 100m sprint. It wasn't actually my final time on the stretch with the loop backs, but it was the only with speed. Looks like my pre summer cold fitness is returning.

Nice work guys, taeliesyn nice to see your fitness coming back. Upsaluki, after a few days off, I confess I would not have started with hill repeats, they can be brutal at the best of times. I would have done an easier workout you had missed and skipped the hill repeats until you were back in the swing of things. Different folks, different strokes.

2 days rest and suffering the Ceci moment, I started out running this morning and the first 10 minutes just sucked, couldn't get in a rhythm, niggles everywhere, even my shoes, which have never given me a problem. 1st fast interval stank, either couldn't get to pace or then went straight through it, over the 5 mins it was too fast. Interval 2 and 4 in the zone, interval 3 too slow, but was on a 3% grade. Overall planned session completed, a cruise interval session, done almost spot on target paces as a set of averages. Very easy run tomorrow.

Enjoy your fun everyone.