Running Shorts

Suffering from post-Olympics withdrawal? Turn on USA channel to find Law & Order instead of table tennis? Don't know what to do without sports on 24/7? Unsure of how to schedule out a day that doesn't revolved around a combination of live streaming, DVR recording, and spoiler avoiding? Yeah, me too. Which means it's the perfect time to talk about the Olympics that just happened! One week out, here are four of my biggest takeaways -- two about Athletics in general and two about the distance slate specifically. 1. Athletics (because that's what the rest of the world calls it) remains the premier event in the Olympics.  While in America NBC played up the swimming and women's gymnastics competitions -- because American dominance plays into the "America #1 heck yeah!" narrative -- the Athletics events were by far the most prestigious of the games. From the iconic marathon final on the last day (with the medal ceremony at the closing ceremony) to the Wor...

With the Olympics starting this week (!), I thought this would be the perfect time for a three-part series about the state of the sport. After all, this is the one time every four years when people outside of the insular track world actually care about athletics. It would be easy to come up with a list of complaints about the sport; however, I'm deciding to take a positive outlook (on both the topic and my own running performance), so instead I'm going to fix running (and jumping and throwing) in three easy steps. The Marathon Major Model When it comes to road racing, only one event really matters: the marathon. Oh sure, every other distance from one mile on up may be contested and may be competitive, but the only one that people really care about is the marathon. It's the standard by which all other distance races are judged. As it currently exists, the Abbot World Marathon Major series is actually the closest thing athletics has to a fully professional circuit....

With the Olympics coming up in a couple of weeks, I thought this would be the perfect time for a three-part series about the state of the sport. After all, this is the one time every four years when people outside of the insular track world actually care about athletics. It would be easy to come up with a list of complaints about the sport; however, I'm deciding to take a positive outlook (on both the topic and my own running performance), so instead I'm going to fix running (and jumping and throwing) in three easy steps. A New Calendar of Competition This proposal to fix the sport is going to focus on track and field; specifically, the outdoor competition schedule. Or, rather, the lack thereof. The current calendar is...a mess, to put it mildly. Once every four years there is an incredibly important global championship -- the Olympics. In odd-numbered non-Olympic years, there is another global championship, albeit somewhat less meaningful. In even-numbered non-Oly...

With the Olympics coming up in three weeks, I thought this would be the perfect time for a three-part series about the state of the sport. After all, this is the one time every four years when people outside of the insular track world actually care about athletics. It wold be easy to come up with a list of complaints about the sport; however, I'm deciding to take a positive outlook (on both the topic and my own running performance), so instead I'm going to fix running (and jumping and throwing) in three easy steps. Shamateurism to Professionalism Athletics exists in a state of shamateurism . On the one hand, it is a professional sport, in that individuals athletes can make money from it (how much they actually make is appalling, but still...). On the other hand, athletics is governed by amateur rules that directly limit the ability of its professional athletes to make money. It's this weird, nebulous purgatory that definitely isn't amateur but isn't fully profes...

For those of you deep in the running industry, you may have heard the story that's rocking the US domestic track and field scene. For those of you who haven't read about it, Nike is suing 800m runner Boris Berian for breach of contract. Letsrun has great coverage of the story; here's a link to it. (Sidebar: When is there not  some off-track story rocking the track world? Jeez.) I'm not going to go into my opinions on the story or rehash any of the details here, but I think it brings up an important issue in the sport that everyone wants but no one actually talks about: sponsorship . Every athlete enters to the post-collegiate world wanting some sort of sponsorship, even though just the word "sponsorship" has a nebulous definition. Does it mean a full, professional-scale salary? Gear and a small stipend? Performance bonuses? A pair of free shoes here and there? A logo on a jersey? The real definition is all of the above, which is incredibly confusing. E...

Ok now, before I get any complaints about being arrogant or an elitist or anything like that, let me first give my definition of an "elite runner." The way I think of it, in the running world an "elite" is anyone who places competition before participation. Elite runners range the gamut from full-on professionals to the local fast post-collegiate runners; the term to me also includes high school and college xc and track athletes as well as masters and age-group competitors. More than meeting a certain time standard, being an elite runner is more about having a competitive mindset. So now that that's out of the way, let me also say this: while elite runners are often the most visible athletes to the general public, they do make up a minority of the running community. People are often intimidated or put-off by elites, thinking that the faster runners judge anyone slower than them as inferior, less worthy, "not a real runner," etc. Of course, when you a...

Alright. It sucks to write about this stuff. If you're a runner, you've probably heard about this by now. If not, here's the brief (real brief) synopsis of the report that's rocked the sport in the last couple weeks: basically, Alberto Salazar, Galen Rupp, and the Nike Oregon Project have been accused of various levels of doping over the past decade-plus. David Epstein wrote an article in ProPublica here , and the BBC produced an hour-long documentary which is on YouTube . If you haven't read or watched those yet, do it. Salazar and the NOP have long been known for using every resource at their disposal to get the best results out of their athletes: underwater treadmills, anti-gravity treadmills, team houses fit to simulate altitude, the best coaching staff that Nike can pay for (and Nike has a lot of money). However, in elite running circles, there have long been rumors swirling about NOP using drugs and supplements in ways that push the boundaries of the rules...

I did it. I solved the world's problems on a recent run. Runners have a tendency to do that sort of thing. So the central problem is this: how do you make running a more popular sport? Wait, what? I thought running was already hugely popular? Isn't that what this whole "running boom" thing has been for the past 15 years? Aren't there millions of people who finish races every year? For the nerds (like me), check out some of the stats here . But that's precisely the issue. Running is a wildly popular activity, but it's a fairly unpopular sport . Meaning, people all over the country participate in running -- they go for a run, join a training group, sign up for a road race, etc. -- but very few people follow the professional side. And what's really interesting is that as more and more people have taken up running, fewer and fewer people have been following the pros. Media coverage of the sport, while once a mainstay in Sports Illustrated and on ESPN...

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...

2:02:57. It's official: the marathon has been figured out. The marathon has always had an element of mystique about it: super fast speeds for super far distance. No one really knew how to race it, and even fewer people truly understood how to train for it. In case you hadn't heard, Dennis Kimetto broke the former world record of 2:03:23 in Berlin this weekend, running the above-mentioned time. Oh yeah, and the second-place finisher, Emmanuel Mutai, also ran under the old record time, finishing in 2:03:13. How ridiculous has the marathon become in the past 5 years? Here are some stats: 2:02:57 is 4:41 pace per mile and 14:34 pace per 5k. My road 5k PR is 14:33 . One of his 5k splits was 14:09, faster than I've ever run a 5k (I ran 14:13 on the track once in college). The second place finisher (2:03:13) also broke the previous world record. Talk about bittersweet: you just ran a world record!...But you finished second, so it doesn't actually count . Kimetto ...

I'm not a cyclist. I'm not a cycling fan. I've never ridden in a cycling race, and I couldn't name many of the top cyclists in the world. I spent no more than $250 on a used road bike, which I use more for commuting than training. For 49 weeks out of the year, I could care less about cycling. But for the other three weeks, it's all I have on TV. The Tour de France is awesome, and NBC Sports Network's coverage of it is fantastic -- enough to make a fan out of me, at least for a few weeks. For four to five hours a day, for 21 straight days, they broadcast and cover each stage live. And you're telling me we can do the same thing for two-hour footraces only three times per year? (Chicago, New York, Boston) Here's what, to me, makes the Tour so compelling to watch: 1. The commentators are incredibly well researched and knowledgeable about the race course and the riders in the field. They know everyone and their results (and they let you know), not jus...

About 10 days ago I drove down to Nashville for the Music City Distance Carnival , which is a very unique event of mid- and long-distance track races. It's a really cool atmosphere that brings together youth, post-collegiate, masters, and professional runners contesting distances of 800 to 5000 meters. In an endless slog of road races, it's fun to change things up and experience the speed of the track, which I have definitely missed since college. It turns out the 'speed of the track' wasn't all that speedy for me. I ran 14:47 (I was hoping for about 30 seconds faster) and placed 12th. The good news, though, is that I didn't get lapped. I came into the race really confident after a 14:33 road 5k PR two weeks earlier, so I felt I was really primed to run 14:20. I could be happy with 14:20...it's right near my college PR, and to get back there after focusing on longer distances would be a good sign. However, it just wasn't meant to be this weekend. I...

...Okay, now on to the play-by-play of the race. Warm-up Got up crazy early, but at this point I actually feel pretty darn good. Had my Honey Stinger waffles, hydrated with a little water, and just generally tried to stay relaxed. Also, I didn't have my normal pre-race #2 issues, so that was a pleasant surprise. Miles 1-3 Gun goes off, and I feel great. I mean, like perfect. Today's my day. First mile: 5:02. Effortless. Next mile, looking at the clock: 5:00. Third mile: 5:04. I can run this pace all day. Only problem: I'm running this all by myself. The pack of Africans and a few Americans was gone before 2 miles. There are a couple stragglers off the back, focus on getting them. Miles 4-6 Nope. Not my day. I was just kidding with that first 3 miles. The stragglers aren't coming back; actually, they're running away from me. I'm struggling to maintain low-5 pace at this point...it's gonna be a grind the second half of the race. Miles 7-10 The lone...

Before I get to the actual race, let me go through the weekend itself. I chose this race partly because of the American Development Project where they really take care of the runners. And boy did they take care of us. They treated us like athletes, making sure we had everything we needed to focus on race day. The weekend started at the race's host hotel, where the runners received a complementary hotel room. I was sharing the room with another guy doing the same thing as me...of course it was a little awkward sharing a hotel room with someone I'd never met before, but after four years of four-people-to-a-room in college, I was pretty used to it. At the host hotel there was an Athlete Hospitality suite on the top floor, stocked with water and snacks, where the elite contingent could relax and hang out. The race directors had our bib numbers at the suite, saving us the headache of going to the expo and packet pickup. For the marathoners, there was also a place for their pe...