Running Shorts

Disclaimer: pardon my French. I don't want to win unless I know I've done my best, and the only way I know how to do that is to run out front, flat out until I have nothing left. Winning any other way is chicken-shit.                                                                                            - Steven Prefontaine, Without Limits Anyone who's been running any moderate amount of time - especially if you ran in high school - is probably familiar with Prefontaine. He's the gateway drug for young runners learning about the his...

Cincinnati is home to one of the more unique Thanksgiving traditions in the country: the Thanksgiving Day Race . Sure, most every city, town, and village has their own turkey trot in the morning; Cincinnati's is unique in it's longevity. Ever since 1908 (with only two years' exceptions), runners have dashed through the streets of Downtown and Northern Kentucky. This 104-year history makes Cincinnati's race the sixth-oldest race in the country - and the oldest in the Midwest. While in one year the race had less than ten runners, numbers now usually approach (or even top, if the weather is nice) 10,000. This year, due to some construction in the Downtown area, the 10k loop has changed (well, mostly just the first few miles and the home straightaway. ( Here is this year's course map ) Since I'm obviously not carrying a camera or anything while I'm racing, Dani and I drove the course this weekend and snapped some photos, thinking I'd take you on a tour ...

For the month of November, I've been working on 10k specificity. I had been planning on running the Rocket City Marathon in mid-December, but plans for that one fell through when the race director never received my elite athlete application. But no worries there, that just means I can put more emphasis on the Thanksgiving Day Race. This one is a Cincinnati tradition 104 years in the making. (It's actually one of the oldest road races in the country, behind the Boston Marathon) Because it's more of a local race, I'm not racing for prize money or compensation or recognition; I'm racing for pride and Cincinnati bragging rights. The Thanksgiving Day Race always brings out the best in the local competition, which makes it a challenge that I'm really looking forward to. And since I don't have to worry about any marathon training, I can really focus on the 10k distance. For the past month I've been working with a coach (more on that in a later post), and ...

After the cancellation of the race last year, this year's New York City Marathon had plenty of great stories. One of them was Meb Keflezighi, dealing with injuries and struggling to a sub-par race (something we've all been through), finishing with local sub-elite Mike Cassidy. In reaction to the experience, Cassidy wrote a fantastic reflection about the experience and about what it means to be a runner in general.  Here is the link from LetsRun . Read it. Cassidy is much more eloquent than me.

Stream crossing on the aptly-named Geology Trail Every time I run at Rowe Woods, I leave saying, "I need to come here more often." It's only a half hour away from my house (15 minutes if I'm leaving from Mariemont) and probably has the longest collection of trails within the I-275 loop. But then I remember that it costs $8 to get in (or $35 for a year's pass), and I don't know if I'd come often enough to make it worth the cost. That said, Rowe Woods has up over 16 miles of trails , all of which are well-groomed including many that are sidewalk-width (wide enough to run side-by-side with a partner -- a luxury you don't often get on trails). It is exceedingly hilly, which makes it tough to hold any decent pace, but for a run to go easy on the legs it's the perfect getaway within the city.

"Some days you've got it; some days you don't."  That's the first thing my dad told me after the race, and it's absolutely true. On this day, I just didn't have it. I ran 1:08:55, close to two minutes slower than three weeks ago, and finished a disappointing 5th place. Here are a few of the key take-aways from this race: This race was a classic example of the Two-Mile Rule. As John Parker Jr.'s passage from Again to Carthage  (awesome sequel to Once a Runner ) states, "you shouldn't try to figure out how you're feeling until two miles into the workout [or race, in this case]." If you've been running long enough, you've certainly had days where you walked out the door feeling terrible only to finish on fire; or days where you felt great your first steps only to slog through the rest of the run. In Detroit, I woke up feeling great and was even cruising the first mile or so. But once we got to two miles, about to go up the ...

To follow up with my 'State of the Sport' post from a couple weeks ago, I stumbled across this interesting interview with Nick Symmonds that addresses some of the issues I had touched on. During his career as a professional runner, Symmonds has consistently been the dominant American in the 800m (he finished second at this year's World Champs). He's also been an equally outspoken critic of the USATF-dominated track scene, as is apparent in the interview. I think he mentions some really interesting improvements; however, I don't really agree with him on everything (i.e., allowing gambling at track meets). Anyway, read the article (it's short) and see what you think about some of his ideas to improve the sport of running. I'm sure I'll be posting a lot on this sort of topic: how to improve the sport (both locally as well as nationally) and how to increase fan base and public support of the sport. Basically, how do we grow running out of its 'niche...

Two weekend ago, I drove with a friend to Columbus, IN to run events in the inaugural Mill Race Marathon  (and half marathon and 5k). Our old Xavier XC and Track team had a few people from Columbus, and they were the ones who talked us into the race. It ended up being a fun little reunion (and we also had a couch to crash on...instead of paying for a hotel room). As for the race: I finished in 1:07:11 (5:07-08 per mile pace) and placed 6th - one spot out of the money! ( Here's the link to the results) It was a flat course and the weather wasn't too hot, so it made for a fast race. That, and the competition...the race directors brought in a fair amount of local East Africans to go along with the tough regional competition. I went into the race with a specific plan: don't go out too hard; start off the first four miles by easing into half marathon pace, run five through ten at a constant effort, and then see what I have left for the last three. Overall, I was really plea...

If you've been paying attention to the running world this past month, you might have noticed that there's been a lot of discussion on the supposed decrease in the competitiveness of road races. These articles and blog posts have all tried, in some way, to wrestle with the state of our sport. How do people in this country feel about the sport of running? What are some things we athletes, race directors, and fans need to do better to promote the sport? And since, after all, this is a running blog, I figured I might as well weigh in. It all started about a month ago when Competitor Group (which hosts races nationally, including the Rock 'n' Roll Marathon series) announced it was eliminating its support of elite athletes at all of its events in North America. Then Toni Reavis posted an article about the "dumbing down, slowing down" of road races across the country. In it he made some very intriguing points about the growth of rec runners in road races and th...

...well, technically it began this past Saturday, with the Hudepohl 14k . This year I placed 3rd with a time of 43:08. Except that I didn't actually run a 43:08. The next day I received an email from the race director saying, basically, that the cones were marked wrong at one place and the top four runners actually (and accidentally) ran about a third of a mile short. Basically, add on another minute-to-minute-and-a-half to my time. Except maybe not exactly. A 14-kilometer race translates to 8.6 miles; however, according to the race's course map , the actually distance of this race is closer to 8.9 miles. That's about a third of a mile long. What lesson should we take from this? Finishing time is essentially irrelevant. I ran somewhere between a 43 and 45 minutes for the full 14k. On the fast end, I ran 4:57 pace, which is right on target for the half-marathon Olympic Trial qualifier (just add on another 7k). On the slower end, I ran 5:10 pace, which is a time that te...

Such is the end of June and beginning of July, with all the festivities surrounding Independence Day. While my mileage and general training haven't been the most intense since the marathon in April, I wanted to get into decent shape for two 5Ks in the span of a week -- partly because I wanted to see what I could do in a 5K, and partly because they both offered potential monetary winnings. Who am I to turn down the chance to win some prize money? Race #1 June 29, 2013 Hyde Park Blast Elite 5k 15:39...9th place I'll be honest, I thought I was in better shape than this. And even more disappointing, the top 6 earned money, so I was 3 spots out. I mean, I knew I wasn't in PR shape, but this time is abysmally slow. I was never wiped out after the race (in fact, I recovered immediately and felt like I could've done it again), but at the same time I had no gears beyond 5-minute pace. I wasn't all that tired, but I don't feel like I could've run any faster. Tw...

About a month ago I took a little trip to the bay area for a fun race - Bay to Breakers 12K in San Francisco. Both of my roommates were out of the country, I was out of a job, and two old teammates live in the bay area - perfect conditions for a destination race. As competitive runners, we often take our races very seriously. And that's not necessarily a bad thing; it leads to faster and faster times. Of course, it's easy to get burnt out on endless racing; it can feel like a chore. We sometimes forget that our sport is actually a lot of fun. And that's the benefit of having a destination race every once in a while. Sure, it's still a race ...but more than that, it's a vacation. It's a novel stimulus. It's fun. That was Bay to Breakers for me. I didn't run all that great: I finished 16th in 39:58, about the same pace I went through 18 in Boston. But boy, was it an experience. Bay to Breakers has a bit of a reputation as a party that thinks it...

I'm more than slightly ashamed it's taken me this long to post my race recap from the Boston Marathon. Now that it's summer and I'm not teaching, I really don't have an excuse. But the most shameful of all? Runner's World  - the most rec runner of all the rec runner magazines! - beat me to it. (My critiques of Runner's World is a topic for a whole 'nother post) Never again do I ever want to be beaten by anything associated with that publication. I should say that I (like many other Boston participants, I suspect) are torn about the race. Torn between conflicting emotions of pride and guilt. On the one hand, I'm very proud to have set a ten-minute PR that Patriot's Day. On the other hand, I can't help but feel guilty about being proud, because I know time and place and performance should all be secondary to the greater issue of terrorism and lives lost and bodies maimed. So I'm a little conflicted between how I feel versus how I'm ...

So it turns out that training for a marathon while student-teaching full time is actually very time consuming...who knew? Anyway, that's my lame excuse for being terrible on updating the blog in recent months. Today was my last day teaching for the semester, so hopefully I'll have more time to post more often about my training. That's the goal anyway. Here's what to look for coming up: (For real. I promise. Seriously though.) Boston race recap. My reaction to the bombings. My plan for training in the future. Well sorry for the absence, I really am going to try to make an effort to be more regular in my posting from now on.

Sorry for the digital absence. I've been doing my student teaching this semester, and (surprise surprise) I'm actually really busy. But I am still training for Boston! I'm not always getting in as much mileage as maybe I should be, but I have been getting in some quality workouts. On the right side of the page I've updated my racing schedule for this spring, so check that out. There are some unique races in there and also some destination races, so maybe I'll be coming to a race near you! Anyway, I'm going to be trying to make an effort to post more regularly and keep the interwebs updated on my training. If you're a regular reader, you've heard that before.