In my last post, I described why mere mortals such as you and I should not strive to train like an elite runner. This time, I want to explain why there are some cases and ways that you should train like elite! We are lucky enough to live in a time when almost the entire world is connected via the internet, and ideas can be shared with a huge audience in real-time. Tools such as Read more…
We’re all guilty of it. We read an article about an elite athlete, find some new workouts, and think “well if it worked for them, surely it will work for me.” Unfortunately this frequently does more harm than good. The reason comes down to physiology. Your body doesn’t understand distance and pace. When you exercise, your body knows two things: your perceived effort, and the duration of the workout. In other words, an easy run Read more…
I am not a fan of end-of-year, new year posts. The beginning of a new year is completely arbitrary, and I personally think that starting a new year in the middle of winter is silly. Plus, deciding to wait until January 1st to start working towards goals is counter-productive. The best time to start trying to achieve your goals is right now, no matter when that is. Why put it off for a period of Read more…
This year has been very frustrating for me, from a running standpoint. I started off the year running more miles than I have ever done in the winter, then ended up taking five weeks off in the spring due to a hamstring injury. Since then, I have been nursing that injury as hamstrings don’t really like to heal, it seems. Instead of running under 16 minutes in a 5K like I had planned, my goals Read more…
Several months ago, I was enjoying a cold beer with my friend Ryan Burke (no doubt at Barry’s Pub in Webster) when we happened upon an idea. We were discussing how I have coached myself since I graduated college (save for a short stint where I took the one and only Dave Rappleyea as my coach) and have offered training advice for Ryan, my wife, and others. “Dude,” he said (or was it “Bro?”), “You Read more…
Life has been busy lately. I’m still not running a whole lot, and my hamstring still isn’t quite 100%, but that’s ok because I’ve had other things to focus on instead. Ashlie and I are planning a few home improvement projects, I have taken over as president of Roadkill Racing, and oh yeah, we had a daughter! Little Miss Avery was born on August 1st. She was 21 inches long and weight 7 pounds even, Read more…
A few Sundays ago, one of my favorite days of the entire year arrived. For the past fifteen years, I have competed in the Utica Boilermaker 15K, always held on the second Sunday of July, and since 2006, I have finished in under an hour. That means this year would be my tenth straight sub-60 clocking, if I could manage it. The record for most consecutive sub-one-hour Boilermakers is held by Paul Humphrey, with whom Read more…
It’s been a while since I’ve been inspired enough to write about new music. Sure, I’ve picked up some really great albums recently, including Ne Obliviscaris, Agalloch, and Chvrches, but they haven’t grabbed me in such a way that I need to share them. That is reserved for this song, which I first heard a week ago, and have not stopped listening to it since. I have been a fan of Nickel Creek for a Read more…
In my last post, I mentioned that I would be taking some time off to let my hamstring recover. Little I know that I would end up taking five weeks almost completely off, and that my hamstring would still feel tight and inflamed even after three weeks of not running. Needless to say, March was not a good month for me. I only ran a total 51.5 miles last month, my lowest total since 2005, Read more…
The four of you who read this blog may recall that in my last post, I mentioned that I tweaked my hamstring running on snow and ice a month or so ago. In the past weeks, it has oscillated between feeling a bit tight to being to being so painful that I have trouble walking. This was doubly concerning, as not only do I want to break 16 minutes this spring, but I also was Read more…