Running Shorts

Now that it's the heart of fall racing season and I'm getting antsy not  being able to race, I thought it'd be a good time for the first in a new series of posts. I write a lot about various aspects of training that go into race day and I also recap race efforts fairly often, but I haven't written much about the strategy and tactics  that go into each competition. In fact, not many people do talk about tactics. If anything, they get a bad rap in running circles -- as in a sarcastic, "oh great, another tactical race." When you hear people talk about tactics, they do so in a negative tone: a tactical race is one that is slow, where the runners just jog around for 90% of the time until someone finally sprints to the finish. Sit-n-kick. Of course, this is  one tactic (an effective one, at that) and one you see often in championship-style races, where place matters more than time and most athletes are of about the same fitness caliber. But race tactics can be m

With Cincinnati's very own Queen Bee Half Marathon coming up, I wanted to get this out there: I absolutely abhor all-women's races. I don't think they should exist. I don't even think they should be called races. I'm not going to link to any race websites because I don't want to give them the dignity. They may be worse than color runs and other novelty events in my book. Before you call me a sexist and a male chauvinist pig, hear me out: I don't think all-women's events are necessary any more . This isn't the era of race directors physically pulling Katharine Switzer out of a race specifically because she's a woman; rather, women make up the majority of participants in running events today. Thirty or forty years ago, when road running was an all-male endeavor, women's-only events definitely had a place. But now, nearly every race is a majority female affair. Road races are already women's races -- making some specifically only  for wo