Running Shorts

Monday:  2 miles -- slow Tuesday: 3 miles -- slow Wednesday: Off Thursday: 8 miles Friday: 12 miles in 1:20:28 Saturday: 7 mile marathon effort tempo in 41:17 Sunday: Off TOTAL : 32 miles in 5 days Well this week was slightly less sucky. I had made up my mind to start off this week running, and I did on Monday and Tuesday...but all I had energy for was 2 and 3 miles, respectively. I was spent after each one. But hey, when you can run in a t-shirt in February, you take advantage of it. By Wednesday I knew I needed to be responsive and take the day off, and on Thursday I felt exponentially better. Not back to normal energy levels, but at least enough to run something of substance. Same deal with Friday. One of the keys to establishing aerobic endurance is to alternate longer, slower days with shorter, faster days (see Lydiard explained here ). That's going to be my general plan going forward, and since I had felt a kind of normalcy back in my running I wanted to p...

Not racing for all of the last fall season got me thinking: do we race too often? Like most running-related questions, the answer is simple; but unfortunately, that's where it gets complicated. I decided to break this down into two parts with two different answers. And really, I think these parts speak to the divide between the competitive sport and the participant activity. The first one (this one) is a scholastic edition, focusing on high school and collegiate cross country and track athletes. The next one will cover more of the road, trail, and ultra racing scene. So. Do scholastic athletes race too often? Yes. Absolutely unequivocally 100% in the affirmative. Ok sure there are a select few elite NCAA teams who have the luxury of resting their top athletes for most of the season until conference champs and NCAAs (then I think the case could be made for racing more), but the vast majority of the rest do, in fact, race too often. Think of the high school team which, duri...

Well, this has easily been the worst training stretch of my life. Four months of constantly off and on running, never more than 45 miles in one week. No workouts, no races; no summer or fall season at all for me. But you know what? That's okay. I've been very lucky to (prior to this) never have missed more than three weeks at a time for injury. I suppose I was due for something more serious sooner or later, and I'm at least happy that it came immediately after  the Olympic Trials instead of before . Now that I'm slowly getting healthy and returning to jogging (not quite running yet, and definitely not training), there are a few lessons I've taken from this experience that I want to share. Listen to your body. When you feel something wrong, stop running -- don't try to run through it. My threshold for something wrong is this: does it change your stride? If so, then you're injured and you should not run. If not,  then you're probably just sore or ach...

"Connective tissue is what gets all runners in the end ." Bruce Denton, Once a Runner It may not be the end, but connective tissue is what has laid me up for the past month. After the disaster of the LA Trials, I just wanted to race again. I did; four races in five weeks: two 5ks, one 10k, and then a 10 miler. All of it was leading up the Flying Pig Marathon, redemption day. That all unraveled at the end of March with a tight Achilles that just got worse the more I ran on it. For most of April, I was down from running 95 miles a week to running just three days per week: one normal run, one workout, and one long run. I was trying to do just enough  to get to marathon day okay. But if there's one thing I learned for good (which I knew already, but chose to ignore), it's that you can't fake a marathon. You're not just racing against yourself and your competitors; you're also racing against the distance. On that day, the marathon won. Flying P...

"Quenton, this is where you find out. This is the time and place. All the rest is window dressing. ... You can do very nearly anything. Haven't you figured that out?"                                                                                                  - Bruce Denton, Once a Runner If you've read this blog before, you know how I often preach training at a controlled effort. Strides should be run at a relaxed fast effort. Interval workouts should be finished feeling like you could do one more . Et cetera et cetera. And I stand by the philosophy that most of your training should be controlled. Most of it, but not all of it. Every once in a while -- maybe once or twice a season MAX -- you should think about running a workout where y...

So I haven't posted much in the last month or so. Truth be told, I haven't had much to post about. Here's how it's been going: I posted after US Half Champs that I was taking a much-needed break, which I did and it was fantastic. Rest is a very powerful training tool, and something that most people seriously neglect. After a week or so of not running (I typically get antsy taking any more than a week off), I started back up fresh and super-motivated. Finally, after getting my training back on track last year and with the Olympic Marathon Trials a year away (at that point), I was committed to return to the marathon two-year after my last one. I knew I could build off of my half marathon fitness and throw down a real solid marathon. Maybe not an OT qualifier, but at least a positive experience under my belt to prepare for the trials. I was going to do the Flying Pig Marathon , here in Cincinnati. While I have been critical of that race in the past, they are makin...

Last week, I didn't run one step. It was fantastic. Actually, since the Houston race 11 days ago, I've only run three times, all this week. Like I said, it's been amazing. Usually runners are pretty obsessive-compulsive, Type-A personalities. We'll do anything to get in the prescribed mileage for the day, including getting up crazy early or running late at night. Sometimes we even plan our day around the run...or two, if it's a double. And then, when we're injured, days off make us neurotic and paranoid. I can't run which means... I must be losing fitness. I'm getting out shape. I've gotta find something to do. Yoga. Swimming. Walking. Something. Anything... Being forced not to run is worse than the actual grind of daily training. But every once in a while we need to take a step away from running. More importantly, we need to take a step away from training . Going into Houston, I was starting to feel worn-down during my runs. Worse, I was...