How much should I race?

Racing season is so exciting. I know, you can race year-round but depending on where you live, there is that core race season when there seems to be multiple races every weekend and some even in the evenings during the week. Down here in the sunny southwest deserts that runs from September through May - [...]

Forced Blog Name Change

As I moved along blissfully in my little runner’s world little did I know how far reaching some of the things I write go. On Friday afternoon I recieved a call from two gentlemen from Rodale Press. It was 3:00 pm; 6:00 pm Eastern time so it must have been important working overtime on a Friday [...]

Coach Debate: Marathon pacing by Coach Joe

Coach Dean Hebert and I agree on many things related to marathon pacing, but we have different approaches on how to select a final goal pace. This article is my initial entry in our Great Coach Debate 2007 point-counter point series. His response is posted just below this one. Then, either we will take each [...]

Coach Debate: Marathon Pacing Counter-point by Coach Dean

Editor’s note: This is part two in a series. Below is Coach Dean’s response to the points I made in part I of the Great Coach Debate 2007. We hope that you enjoy reading our respective views and that this illustrates some of the variety in approaches to this topic. Part I is located here. [...]

Foot Contact Time - Stride Rate & Stride Length III

You can improve your speed in only two ways - increase stride rate or increase stride length. The goal of course is that while increasing one you don’t decrease the other. Your net gain will be zero. One often avoided topic for distance runners is foot contact time. A decrease in contact time yields faster [...]

Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim

I wanted to share with you an account of a running of the Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim. It constitutes starting at the South Rim descending through Phantom Ranch and up the to the North Rim and then returning all in one run. This account comes from Duane - one of my runners out of Mesa, AZ. [...]

The “Easy” Part of Hard-Easy

Every run should have a purpose… even your easy runs and rest days. Given that, I want to elaborate on some purposes for those easy days, some alternatives for those days and how to determine what is best for you. I want to thank James Kahler for prompting this post.
First, let’s remember that training itself does not [...]

Running & NSAIDs

So often I’m asked about the use and implications for non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). Sooner or later, involvement with athletics will lead to aches and pains. There is a wonderful article written in plain English for all of us on geezerjock.com. I won’t restate it here.
I do want to add an important point not made [...]

Tactics & Pacing VI

I previously covered an overview of the science of race pacing, the benefits of even pacing, assessing yourself for tactics application, and most recently kicking as a tactic and workouts to improve this ability. Please read these first so you fully understand the context of this post. 
This time I’ll cover some variable paced tactics and how to train for them. [...]

Death on the Run

On many people’s minds is the untimely death of a runner in the Chicago marathon. There have been quite a few over the years though percentage-wise it is still quite small due to the explosion of race participants over the past 30 years. One study showed it at .002% for sudden death in marathoners. Some [...]