Tamekaloveshoews

Last month, I rushed an order for a pair of Brooks Launch to offer to Agnès for Mother's Day. The box arrived a a few days before so, to keep the surprise, I did hide the package in the garage then... forgot about it, oops! We still had a great celebration with the boys on Zoom and Agnès got her new shoes a few days later. I love this model, it has been my go to trainer and racer for the past 6 years or so (6 model generations) and I logged more than 13,100 miles in them, or about 1/3 of my running log miles. (To tell you how good these shoes are, for me at least, I've averaged 1,143 miles over my first 10 pairs!) While I was at ordering, I picked a model for me for... Father's Day. As I am home alone this weekend (more on this later), I went back to the garage to pick my gift only to be surprised by the size of the box. I've had more than 70 pairs of Brooks so far and they all came in the same box size. For some weird reasons, this one was significantly bigger. Too bad...

Another post on the pandemic or the end of systemic racism? Not quite, sticking to running on that blog but, yes, I only wish we were making more progress on these two other major societal issues. For the past 10 weeks, since the first week of April, I've been averaging 101 kilometers per week. That has been my weekly average for 8 consecutive years, from 2011 to 2018, until I fissured this hamstring tendon at the 2018 Turkey Trot 10K , slipping on a wet crosswalk. Extending my stride by less than an inch was enough to derail my running for more than a year. Ironically, in 2017, I felt I was playing with fire with this weekly average and was aiming at pulling back but then I spent the summer training intensely toward a 100K road M50-54 American record, my main goal for the Changan Ford international invitational in... Wuhan, a city which needs no introduction a year later... Actually, the weekly average over such a long period is a bit misleading because, if I ran 104K this week,...

I shared on Sunday my goal of running 100 miles this past Monday , in honor of two close friends battling cancer, Bob and Annick. Well, to make a too long story short, or shorter, it actually took me three days... Although I've worked all weekends since the lock down, my employer is asking that we consume vacation days to cope with the economic impact so I took a day off on Monday. I woke up at 4 am and started my run at 5 am. My plan was to stop my GPS and take my time throughout the day but, upon waking up, I saw an email from Paulo, the virtual event Race Director, announcing an award for the fastest interrupted coverage of the 100.2-mile distance (why the .2 miles, that's the official distance of Western States, finishing with 3/4 of a track lap at Auburn High School). The temperature was perfect that first day. The first 10 miles felt great as I was averaging a conservative 8:00 min/mile pace. After that, my hamstring tendon injury started kicking in and the next 10 miles...

Many times, I wish I could write my mind to issue posts faster. This is one which formed in my mind through the week and, here we are, Sunday May 31, 2020, 4 pm, on the day our local San Clara County Shelter in Place order was supposed to come to an end, at least with the most restrictive phase 1, only to receive a last minute notice to... remain in place! I was going to say "dang" but, honestly, I'm so grateful that our County was the first one to take such a measure, in the whole US, I very much do trust what our health officials are recommending. If you follow my blog, you know I pledged to stop boasting about running , to avoid increasing the feeling of many that they are finally missing so much by staying home. Not the right time for the masses to get on the same trail at the same time, we already tried in March... Because our order was already reissued once, and the situation looked much better health wise, I didn't expect it would be a third time, and with so m...

I've been sitting on this blog post for almost 8 weeks now, better spit it out! When I first drafted it, it felt so bizarre to see people not taking #PhysicalDistancing seriously. Almost 100K deaths later, even more surreal... And since it's now Memorial Day, I'm now starting the post with a "you are welcome" to all who served and are serving our democracies, making so many sacrifices to follow incredibly more stringent orders than the ones currently in place to fight this pandemic! Let's reflect on this... Back to late March, it was just the beginning of the Shelter in Place order for our Santa Clara County, I shared that I got mad with too many hikers not respecting basic physical distancing guidelines (I don't like the #SocialDistancing term and don't feel it makes sense as we've never been so socially connected than nowadays). But I felt some remorse as it looked like I was considering these trails, mine ... Since then, based on multiple repo...

No big scoop but since a few of you asked about what is going to happen with our Grand Prix in the midst of this new and global coronavirus pandemic. (Picture related to a scientific study from Prof. Bert Blocken et al., Eindhoven University of Technology and KU Leuven: Towards aerodynamically equivalent COVID-19 1.5 m social distancing for walking and running . While we are at it, and for more on running and risk of transmission, you may have a look at this interesting response (video) from Dr Bonnie Henry , from New Zealand, a country who is excelling in the pandemic control.) A few reminders for those who may not be aware: MUT, standing for Mountain, Ultra and Trail running, is a sport category which, within our local (North Cal and Northern Nevada) USATF Pacific Association, is governed by a subcommittee of our LDR (Long Distance Running) committee. LDR regroups three variants of running: XC (cross-country), Road (think asphalt...) and MUT. XC has its Grand Prix spanning from Augu...

This is a pressing question within our running community these days, in the midst of this behemoth pandemic and global health crisis our current generations are facing (I'm not saying it's the biggest, not to compare with so many wars or refugee crisis, but that's one which is "hitting home" around the world). And not just a metaphysical question, we have to make the right choices. I'm not talking about the ongoing debate, is running is good for you or not in absolute. Surely, extreme running might have consequences. And no exercise at all, isn't good either. Some conditions also exclude running because of its pounding for instance. First, a disclaimer, I'm not a doctor. Not even trained in the field of physiology. Worse, I'm probably reading too much, meaning too much uniformed opinions, creating all sort of bias. But since this blog is about running, and my personal experience of it... So here you are with the classic social media disclaimer, all...