You can tell that summer is over

The men's board in hoppin.

Enjoyed the blog, Scott!

Summer is over? Isn't much response to fitness related stuff - not like in days past anyway...

How are your runs these days? It's got to warmer there than where I am, although the longitude degrees are about the same. You should still be getting some nice weather, I'd say.

Dave

I really had a crappy running summer.  I could not figure out why until I ran my first cool run in months.  It was the heat.  It would just zap me as soon as I started out.  I have to keep my fingers crossed that it will be a cool January at Disney.   Right now the days are in the 70's and the nights get in the 50's.  That is working for me but even a little cooler will help.  Once it gets too cold it's back to the treadmill at the gym. See ya

Sounds like weather similar to Northern Japan.

It's a good time to improve fitness and speed, because you get less tired and more speed for the same heart rate.

I have mixed feeling about Pose running (www.posetech.com) , because it doesn't allow me to either kick forward or backward and I used to have so much fun with those bursting motions. Even so, my legs recover much faster. I've put a lot of work into it, even using rubber band training for hamstring contraction (supposed to be snap upward in the order of ankle-hamstring-butt), and studied it pretty carefully, so seeing fast results, but it's definitely different from my "natural" run gait and stride.

Whereas I used to allow my foot to hit forward on the heel and roll toward the toe, I now spend all of my time on the balls of my feet. Never thought I'd see the day.

Dave

The cooler temps in VA have made a difference for me too. Its amazing as I wasn't seeing much improvement in my distance running.  The HIITS workouts, I was increasing how many laps I could do with sprinting the back 100 yds per lap from 5 to 12, but I was going to the track at night about 50% of the time too rather than running in the heat at lunchtime from work. Since my oldest left for college in Aug; I lost my jogging buddy, it was getting hard to stay motivated.  Then I did a 5K walk-a-thon last Saturday and my 2nd daughter that was there with her cheerleading squad got permission to walk with me  (because they had so few participants).  The Cheering sponsor (who jogs) and one other cheerleader took off jogging from the beginning.  After the first quarter mile walking, my daughter asked me if I wanted to jog, so we did.  We caught and passed the first two at the half way point, past the walkers going the other way when we were at the three quarter point and easily finished first, though there was no official times kept.  Besides the thrill of crossing the finish first (well, second as I let my dauther cross the lne first with her cheering peers whooping her on to victory), my bigger thrill was we pretty much jogged the entire 3.1 miles.  I have never jogged that far at one time before.   And then Monday at work I undertook my 10K route and with my new walk-jog approach.  I jogged 3 miles before the first walk session and finished in 1:15. ( I did 1:38 at my first 10K in March and have a personal goal of 1:10 by the Oct 13 10K I am registered for).  Yes it appears summer is over and times are droppng.   Thanks for being an inspiration.  i watch for your posts, even if you are withholding your lovelife exploits with your blonde blind date(s).

Way to keep with it, Joe!

Dave

The love life?  It's been two months.  That's not even worth talking about anymore. I ran a 5K on Sunday also.  It was the first time that I ran with someone.  She was a friend of my girlfriend who runs a lot.  We started out slower than I usually do and the second mile was up hill which meant that the last mile was down hill.  At the two mile mark, I asked if she was ready to pick up the pace.  She said to go ahead so it was on.  I must have run that last mile in 7:15.  (just a guess).  As I approached one guy he turned around with a startled look.  I said, "don't worry.  I only sound like 10 people".   Anyway, the finishing time was pertty good but I had not run a speed work out in a month or 6 weeks.  That is how I really get those short diseance race times down.  I may do 400 meter repeats or 800 meter repeats.  I have also done a pyramid where I did 400, 800, 1200, 1600, 1200, 800, 400.  That one was tough.  Lastly, I have done mile repats.  I have tried to do 4 but have not been able to finish as strongly as I would like with those.  Anyway, those have been the key to my 5K success. Finishing first though,  I don't care if you were racing the school for the blind in the woods.  First is first.  Good job.

Sounds good...

Speed and endurance mixed can mean canceling out results from either. So for an endurance event you may get better results by focusing on one or the other instead of both (depending on what you have to begin with, I suppose).

Any time I speed up, I've determined that it's because I've gotten leaner. Nothing else seems to make that much difference for me in the short run.

Dave