Running Shorts

Here in Cincinnati it's the doldrums of winter. There's 9 inches of snow on the ground and it's been so cold that none of it is melting. And yet...spring marathon season is right around the corner. People here are in the thick of training for the Flying Pig, which is barely two months away. And on top of that, track season starts up in a couple weeks! High schoolers (and college athletes) all around the city -- around the country, really -- are about to dust off the cobwebs and start training some get-down speed. As a lifelong track nerd, nothing says spring quite like freshly melted snow on a March track. That's right around the corner. So with all that in mind, I wanted to pass along some motivation: You're not as good as your last race. You're as good as your best day, and that day has yet to come. Right off the bat, that may not sound motivating. You're telling me that I'm not as fast as I just ran? What the hell, man? But stop for a second. Th

I did it. I solved the world's problems on a recent run. Runners have a tendency to do that sort of thing. So the central problem is this: how do you make running a more popular sport? Wait, what? I thought running was already hugely popular? Isn't that what this whole "running boom" thing has been for the past 15 years? Aren't there millions of people who finish races every year? For the nerds (like me), check out some of the stats here . But that's precisely the issue. Running is a wildly popular activity, but it's a fairly unpopular sport . Meaning, people all over the country participate in running -- they go for a run, join a training group, sign up for a road race, etc. -- but very few people follow the professional side. And what's really interesting is that as more and more people have taken up running, fewer and fewer people have been following the pros. Media coverage of the sport, while once a mainstay in Sports Illustrated and on ESPN