So this is what a 100-mile week feels like...

... what a shame I've only done 36.

Mu left Achilles hurts, my right knee has a mobile ache, this morning my back went into spasm. Oh yes, and it's sub-30 degrees and snowing, I guess just to make sure we here can fully appreciate Bobby's North Pole run.

I wouldn't mind, but this was supposed to be an Easy Week.

I've just stumbled in from a one-hour, six-mile "run", that was actually great fun apart from my guilt about it being so slow. I'd seized the moment as soon as the snow stopped and sun reappeared, but by the time I got out on the trail it was so muddy that I was soon running like Frankenstein's monster. I had to abandon the trail and do my return loop on the verge at the side of the highway, finally detouring through a new housing neighborhood. See, we can do "urban" in Boulder, too.

Here's the really sad part. While it's true I've been doing some good quality sessions recently, mainly trying to stay within sight of Kyle on hills and avoid being lapped by him on the track, I realised my basic mileage is still on the pathetic side. Recently I wrote about Bill Squires' recommendations for mileage. He said that a bare minimum requirement to develop aerobic capacity for even average results is around 36 miles a week: http://www.yourrunning.com/blog-how_much_running_is_enough_heres_how_to_...
This is six mles, six days a week. Hardly over-ambitious. You'd think. But when I looked through my training diary I was aghast to see 16, 37, 22, 40, 17... not exactly Mr Consistent. So I've been making an effort to hit the 6 a day: the last couple of weeks were both 34.5. Today's sluggish effort finally got me to 36.5.

Thanks to Hawaii-based coach Brian Clarke, whose book "5k and 10k Training" has shown me how to give my runs a proficiency value -- more on that here: http://www.yourrunning.com/blog-give_your_runs_a_proficiency_rating , I've been able to see how even some of my slower, struggle-runs have actually been reasonable performances when given the heartbeat per yard treatment. But even so it's been difficult to understand why I feel like I'm running 100-mile weeks when I'm only doing 36s. It feels like I have the same relationship to even modest increase in mileage that world-class marathoner Benji Durden claims he has to speed: the slightest supra-normal effort and "the wheels come off", as he says.

Another thought from Brian kind of rescued me. At the forefront of his thinking about training is a concept we all "know", but don't really "get": adaptation. It's what we're after with training. Apply a stress, soak up the shock, make sure we don't go into exhaustion; repeat until we adapt, then increase the stress. Repeat the cycle until world record is achieved. Well, I'm sure that's what Hans Selye, the scientist who first delineated what we now call the stress response, really had in mind.

So I have to thank Brian for helping me to see that I am in the middle of adapting to two lots of increased stress. The subtle but progressive increase in intensity of training courtesy of one R.McGee Esq., and my simultaneous efforts to keep my mileage up. It's just that the amount of miles is so paltry, it's a blow to my pride to think I can't just soak this up.

At last! Shoes made for forefoot runners!
Meanwhile, part of the problem is I need new shoes. This has to wait a week or so, as I'm waiting for the new Newton running shoes -- the first, praise be, to be specifically designed for forefoot strikers like me -- to arrive. These are the products of 10 years of work -- and 7 patents -- put in by running gait guru Danny Abshire and techie Brian Russell. I'll be interviewing Danny next week, and also hope to have some pairs of Newtons for you guys to win in a new competition... more later. Meanwhile, you can check out the range here.