Simply the best book ever on the training system that has probably transformed more runners into champions than any other.

Final showdown for men 55-59: the Eerie Erie 5k, penultimate race in the Colorado Runner Racing Series. I need to NOT get soundly thrashed (again) by Heath Hibberd and Devin Croft. And I need to beat any "rogue" 50-59 year-olds who might cost me the points I need…

I’ve been chasing the Colorado Runner Racing Series “yellow jersey” since January.

Forget the fancy theories about diet and nutrition - read this real-life take on what to eat and drink for racing and training, featuring ulta-distance and mountain running stars Matt Carpenter, Lisa Goldsmith and Charles Corfield. It's up on the La Sportiva sponsored website here.

"They tell you what they eat every day, what they take in while racing, and why", says author Buzz Burrell.

This was the hardest race I've ever run.

It wasn't just the 15.5 miles - severely over-distance for a miler/5k-er like me - but that the combo of gruelling uphill sections and technical descending often on loose rocks that were training to become scree meant there was no let up, anywhere. Oh, except maybe on the log over the river.

Definitely from the ridiculous to the sublime: the getting-a-bit battle weary Colorado Runner Racing Series points chasers moved to Denver to find a welcome contrast to our last race, which was such a fiasco that the "results" were dropped from the series.

So I decided it would be a good idea to replace one of my week's 6-mile runs with something with less impact.

Although I do most of my training on trails, they have been almost as hard as tarmac throughout the summer, and for the fist time ever I've been getting the odd twinge in my knees.

Race 12 in the Colorado Runner Racing Series was a shambles from start to finish. Actually, from before the start to well after the finish.

The question we were all asking each other at the finish was not "How did you do?" but "How far did you run?" as a combination of inadequate course marking and insufficient marshals who knew where the course went led to almost all of the runners going off course.

Five months after heart surgery, Boulder-based coach Gabino Toledo took on the heat and altitude at the Evergreen Town Race. It was probably his hardest effort since the trauma of having a replacement valve fitted, but then again, knowing how he trains, maybe not :)

Gabino finished 42nd in 41:32, and we can expect him to start slicing minutes off that now he is back in training.

Welcome back, Gabino!

"I thought you weren't running this", said John Victoria at the start line of the Evergreen Town Race. Hm, well if I'd known just how hard it was going to be, maybe I'd have stood by my original decision... so a word of explanation...

Well, I say "dismal", and all the other Ric Rojas runners are all laughing at me as usual, because I won my age group (and a $20 voucher from the Boulder Running Company).

In fact Pat Parkhill didn't even wait until she knew what time I'd done before asking Abby, "Has he got the whips and chains out yet?"