Last year, I found myself in a bit of a slump when it came to running. All of my personal bests are behind me and receding quickly into the distance, and the lack of races and my preference not to run with anybody as the COVID numbers rose made it hard for me to find motivation to get out the door and train. Plus, I’ve been feeling the cumulative effects of all the mileage I’ve Read more…
As everyone knows, running is a metaphor for life. Hard work always pays off, humility is beneficial, and while uphill battles are challenging, the view from the top makes it worthwhile. So it may come as no surprise to my four readers that your favorite workout says a lot about who you are as both an athlete and a person. Read on to see what yours infers! 400 Repeats: You are a sick and twisted Read more…
Lately, I noticed a disturbing trend regarding my social media usage. While I have never been one to obsessively check Facebook or Twitter, and even had set time limits for those apps on my phone, I noticed that I was checking them several times a day, and feeling more and more angry, stressed, and worst of all, judgmental while scrolling. It wasn’t providing any useful benefit, but was detracting from my state of mind. I Read more…
Much like the majority of large races this year, the Utica Boilermaker 15K, typically held on the second Sunday in July, was moved to September, and then went virtual. The race window opened Tuesday, September 1st, so a group of other guys looking to run under 60 minutes and I met at the starting line to run the course at 7am that day. After getting almost no sleep the night before, I was almost relieved Read more…
Anybody who demands your respect is undeserving of it. Real respect is earned, not required.
For a little while earlier this year, I was biking twice a week pretty consistently. Sometimes I would ride outside, and other times I would plop my bike on my very cheap, very dumb turbo trainer, and spin while reading emails. Then, as always happens when I try to do something ancillary to running, my motivation faded and I found myself only running again. In a turn of events that nobody could have seen coming, Read more…
Avery (and Hadley to a lesser extent, too) loves bugs. All kinds of insects, gastropods, arachnids, worms, and anything else small and crawly fascinate her. I am pretty sure she is the only five-year-old girl I know who calls spiders, grubs, and maggots “cute.” Fortunately, I don’t have any photos of her with those three creepy-crawlies, but we have been finding a ton of praying mantises around our house lately. This is exciting for both Read more…
A lot has happened on the homestead in the past few months. Our friend Dave came over and we continued working on the split rail fence, and it now stretches into the backyard. Only 400 more linear feet to go! On the chicken front, unfortunately tragedy struck one night a few weeks ago. We had started keeping the chicks outside in the coop at night, which went well for a few days. Then one day, Read more…
One of the topics I’ve written most about on this site is my streak of sub-60-minute Boilermakers. I started in 2007, and have run under one hour every year since then. My sights are set on Paul Humphrey’s record of 23 years in a row going under 60 minutes, although I have quite a ways to go before I even am in the same ballpark as him. My friend Mike Brych, though, would have tied Read more…
Like almost everybody else in America these days, the Roberts family has spent a lot of time in our house and out in the yard, and trying not to venture out into the big, scary World. Unlike almost everybody else in America these days, we have liked this so much that we want to continue it as much as possible. To that end, Ashlie and I have decided to start a little homestead on our Read more…