Running Shorts

...when you completely bomb a race? What do you do when your pour your heart and soul into training and come up empty on race day? What do you do when you're in the shape of your life, but it doesn't show in the results? What do you do when, on the biggest stage of your career, you choke? Do you give up? Do you sulk? Do you wallow in self-pity? Do you hang your head in defeat? No. Hell no. You race again. You rest, recover (physically and psychologically) and then you get after it. You don't let all that training go to waste. You don't let that disappointment consume you; you use it for fuel. You pour gasoline on the fire that's still burning -- faintly, smoldering, but still burning. You don't let that fire go out. You're better than that failed race. You race again, and again, and again; until your feet are bleeding and you physically can't push your legs one...more...stride... These races are validation and vindication. Validation for the

Hey blogosphere, sorry for the month-long hiatus. I got a little-stitious in the lead up to Indy Monumental and was worried that I was doing a little too much talking (well, writing) and not enough training. This is the race report I posted on reddit recapping the race, so I thought I'd re-post it here as well. Hey reddit! I'm mostly a lurker here, but I raced Saturday morning in Indianapolis and wanted to share. The TL;DR: I ran 1:04:33 for the half marathon, which qualifies me for the US Olympic Marathon Trials in LA this February. I also got 3rd overall, which was pretty cool, too. So anyway, here goes... But first, a shout-out to the staff at Monumental Those guys know how to put on a top-notch race. It's so refreshing to here the rhetoric coming out of the organization that says, "we're trying to be a professional event; we understand that most people want a fun event, but we also understand that some people want to come and  race  the damn thing; we

So I've been waiting a few days to post this so I can sort of digest the result and deconstruct the race a bit. I wanted to take a step back and look at it analytically, not emotionally. Anyway, here's the result: 56th place, 1:05:45. No Olympic Trials B Standard. See official results here. The immediate (and lingering) gut emotional response is one of disappointment. That's why I wanted to wait to write up this race recap. In my mind, this whole fall training cycle was geared towards peaking for this specific race. When I surprised myself and ran 1:05:28 in Indy a few months ago, I figured I set myself up perfectly to improve at this race -- 10 more weeks of training and there's no reason my fitness shouldn't improve. I even hit a killer workout just over two weeks before the race: 4 x 2 mile in 10:00, 9:56, 9:52, 9:50; the fastest I'd ever done that workout and 4:57 per mile (sub-1:05 pace) on lockdown. And my race splits started right where I wanted the

Winter is the time most people relax and take stock in their fall racing season. Whether training for a marathon, a cross country season, or even a series of road races, racing often winds down as the temperatures drop and the days get shorter. Thanksgiving often mark a last hurrah, one final chance to see what you've got in your legs, before retreating back into the winter slog of base training for the spring. Not for this guy. I still have one final race on my schedule this training block: the USA Half Marathon Championship hosted by the Houston Marathon on January 18th. As it's name suggests, it's one of the premier half marathons for American athletes. I'll most likely be racing against some runner named Meb and other people like him. I'm going to get my ass kicked, and it's going to be fantastic. Wait...what? This race attracts the best runners in the country, and -- just being realistic -- I know I'm not quite at the level where I can mix it

Here's my recap of this past weekend's half marathon at Indy Monumental . Results are here . First I'll do the play-by-play, and then I'll give my overall reactions to the race. The day started off with less-than-ideal conditions -- starting line temperatures hovering around freezing with a steady (sometimes gusting) wind. It was a solid 10-15 degrees colder than it has been at any point this fall, so I was bundled up with a hat, gloves, and a light long sleeve under my singlet. Fun stuff. If the temperature and wind did anything, though, they slowed the really really fast guys down. So instead of people gunning for times below 1:04, everyone was content to settle into the pack and run relatively relaxed 5:00 per-mile pace (which is a 1:05:30 finishing time). From the time the gun went off, there was a pack of close to 15 guys, all running consistent 5:00 miles. Our first mile was 5:04, and then at every next mile interval we were right on pace (give or take a few s

WHAT'S THE WORKOUT? 20 minutes at aerobic threshold pace (slightly slower than marathon pace), then 6 x 40 second hill repeats at 3k effort, and finally 4 x 200 at about 34 seconds. WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS? This is a classic tune-up workout. With a race in a week, I don't need to get in any more fitness work, but it's a good idea to reinforce some of the positive steps I've made through my training. I'm a very aerobic runner (meaning I respond best to long-distance effort-based work. The 20-minute AT (run near my marathon pace), is enough to stimulate my aerobic fitness without taxing my body too much (in a typical base-building session, the AT would be 60 minutes). The hills and the 200s are very similar in purpose to one another. While the AT targets aerobic endurance, the latter two parts of the workout target the opposite end of the fitness spectrum -- neuromuscular coordination. They reinforce efficient running form (especially the hills) while improving run

This is the first in a hopefully-weekly segment covering the different workouts I'm doing as part of my race preparation. Before I get too far involved, I should mention my basic philosophy on workouts: no one workout is going to make your season; however, one overdone workout can ruin it . The key is to keep everything within a certain level of moderation (as Arthur Lydiard put it, "Train, don't strain") so that each successive workout builds on the previous one. A successful program of workouts should fit together like pieces of a puzzle, building the race you want to run when you want to run it. That said, I thought it'd be cool to give you an idea of the type of work I'm doing, the rationale behind it, and how it all fits together over the course of a season. WHAT'S THE WORKOUT? 4 x 2 Mile at around my lactate threshold (aka, tempo) pace on a bike path. Negative split the intervals as follows: #1 - 10:05-10:10; #2 - 10:00-10:05; #3 - 9:55-10:00; #4

So now that it's mid-September (what?!), I just realized I should probably post my planned fall racing schedule. My last race of the spring was the Hyde Park Blast ( read about it here ), which ended on a bit of a downer. Trying to push through a nagging hamstring injury, my spring races didn't end as well as I hoped they would. Since then, I've taken about 2 months away from racing, instead getting in some quality training. My hamstring is fully recovered and healthy, my mileage is back up in the 90+ per week range, and I'm running regular 20 mile long runs, 60 minute aerobic threshold runs, and hill repeats. Training's going great, and I've been feeling great during it. With that said, I've actually technically started my fall season. Two weekends ago, I ran the Zero Prostate Cancer 10k here in Cincinnati. This year was the first year this race has offered prize money: $250 for both the men's and women's winner of the 5k and the 10k. I chose t