Running Shorts

This is a post for all you high school track and cross athletes looking to make the leap to the next level. This is a post for all you collegians at that level, shooting for the next step. This is a post for all you post-collegians eyeing the next Olympic Trials. This is a post for all runners, of all ages and abilities, who want to PR, PB, BQ, OTQ, or any other acronym you can think of. You want to get better? You can put away your training manual. Set aside the Hanson's program, or Pfitzinger, or Daniels or Higdon or Galloway or anyone else who writes a mass program. Most importantly, if you own Run Less, Run Faster : burn that crap. There is only one Way. Here it is: You need to run more. How much more? I don't know, but definitely more than you're doing now. Could be 30 miles a week. Could be 120. That part's up to you. It can't be that simple, can it? It is. For real. Running is a simple sport; stop trying to make it more complicated than it nee...

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...