I can't keep up with everybody with limited time but wanted to give kudos to a few posts I read.
Allen, I really appreciate your perspective and thoughts on training and on the value of this thread. The last line about inviting lurkers... ha! I can barely keep up with lurking the topics are so hot. I am with you for your 3:00 quest and looking forward to following your adventure.
Smoove, I really enjoyed your race report, as usual, and I'm extremely impressed with your performance. I know the calf issue has been plaguing your top performance so it's interesting to see the HR data on top of that. Since I haven't been following I have a few catch-up questions. First, did you and RR stop drinking beer? Second, are you hanging up your marathon shoes in favor of the shorter races? In the case of the latter, I see the draw of finishing on a (very) high note, and know you will have no regrets for what might have been because you really put it all out. Training, Guts, Training, persistence, patience, and--on race day--a whole lot more of guts.
RR, Second congrats on breaking 17! I guess you are the first! I haven't run a 5k trained since last summer but I'm hoping to get another one in this winter, coming off this marathon training spike. Also, did you stop drinking beer?
OR - Third time for a wow! of where you are fitness-wise. The last I saw you were going out and grinding medium and long progression runs at 7:00 pace with a gradual ratcheting down of pace and not doing any workouts. I was wondering if you were still doing that or if you had changed it up a bit. I get the sense from smoove and others that we aren't surprised and I'll add my own "not surprised" face here: :-|
Not giving a full update. I had previously posted that I hit a high mileage for my training cycle with 41 miles after averaging about 20 for the previous 10 weeks with a marathon (downhill with 5000' drop) in 5 weeks. Now 3.5 weeks... I got some long runs in on the course, 100% downhill runs, plus some out-and-backs. The killer was this Monday's 20-miler from near the top where I started hitting my marathon goal pace (5:55) about 5 miles in, held it for 6, and then kept it dropping so my last averaged 5:32. Everything was hurting pretty good when I finished and hobbled around for a couple days after that but felt decent last night with an easy 10-miler; a little residual fatigue but 95% recovered. I've been thinking of what the right goal pace should be; 5:55 would put me right around 2:40. The math is weird because I figure there's 5 minutes of extra time to add due to hills near the start and the last two miles flat with some turns. Wondering if 5:55 is too slow or if I should stick to it and run a big negative split if I feel fresh after half. It's literally downhill from mile 4 to the finish, dropping 250-300' per mile.