Running Shorts

File this one under old news. I've been working with a  coach for the past couple months now (since November), but I'm only getting around to posting it now. For the past two years, my coach has been myself. That guy sucked, so I fired him. All joking aside, I did like being self-coached. I learned a ton, nerded out on training literature, and overall found it to be a really good experience. However, at this point I don't have the expertise to take myself where I want to go, fitness-wise. I ran some good races but many more not-so-good races; I need some outside direction to help maximize the former. So now I'm working with Randy Cox , who is probably the best and most experienced coach in the area. He's the coach of Cincinnati's EarthDrummers racing team, and many of them (including my former Xavier teammate Becky Clark) have had great success with him. In addition, he's coached two local runners in recent years to the half-marathon Olympic Trials s...

*Cue obligatory New Year's Resolution post. Before I hop in on my goals for 2014, I wanted to write a quick note on goal-setting. Too often when writing goals, we focus on the wrong things, which only sets us up for disappointment. Namely, our goals are often outcome-oriented: I want to run X time or finish in Y place. Sometimes we accomplish these goals, sometimes we don't. The problem with this approach is that it limits the action time to one specific event on one specific day with many factors affecting the outcome that are out of one's immediate control (i.e., weather, competition, course conditions, etc.). We put the focus on the end result, but not on the process to achieve that end result. We hope to improve finishing time or place, but we neglect to specify the method we will use to achieve those results. Instead, goal-setting should be action-oriented. Focus on the means to reach an end. I know I want to run a certain time, so what are the everyday steps I n...