Do Long Miles at Low Heart Rate Build a “Better Engine”?

Here’s a summary of a question from Chris D.: I overhear an accomplished triathlete (HI Ironman) giving advice to people who want to run a marathon to spend months running below a certain heart rate to “build a big engine”.  “It’s all about aerobic capacity.”  He states you will get faster and faster at that [...]

The Gift - A Runner’s Story - Review

This is Paul Maurer’s first novel. He’s obviously a runner and I actually loved this book. Wait, did I just say that about a novel? Not two weeks ago Christina, one of my Tempe runners, lent me this novel on running. One - I really don’t like novels and two, I really don’t like novels. By the [...]

The “Hard” Part of Hard-Easy

I previously wrote about the easy part of the hard-easy pattern of training. Here are some issues I’ll address regarding the hard part of training.
How hard is hard? How much is too much? What are the effects on your body from hard workouts? What else impacts what “hard” is?
Hard can be subjective. For some people, breathing [...]

Identfying Your Self-Talk

In a previous post I reviewed the importance of our self-talk and how it can affect performance. Recognition is a critical first step to improve our self-talk. This is actually easy to do. Take out a piece of paper and make two columns. On the left side list the different aspects of training, racing or [...]

Faith in your Training Take II

In my first post on this topic I posed that belief in your training program and your coach is an essential element to success. If that “coach” is you then you have to believe in how you apply all the information you have found. If you coach others, it’s critical to build confidence in your [...]

Self-talk and Performance

It’s fascinating to listen what runners tell themselves. “I’m not a hill runner.” “I hate the heat.” “I always run bad in this weather.” “I can’t go out that fast.” “I’m not good at this distance.” And from triathletes of course we hear the likes of “I’ll never be a strong runner/cyclist/swimmer.”
This is called self-talk. [...]