Running Shorts

(You can find all this information under the "COACHING SERVICES" tab above, or on the Featured Posts link to the right of the page.) Coach Tommy Kauffmann Do you need some guidance in your training? Are you targeting a specific race for a peak performance? Looking to build the foundation for a successful track or cross country season? Above all, do you want to get faster? Then let me help you! Starting this year (2018) I will be offering coaching services to individual athletes. Sure, you could use a canned plan from a book or some other resource, but if you're really trying to maximize your performance then you need to adopt a more individualized approach. Pre-written training plans are often too general and too rigid to truly create your best race; they lack the individuality that all athletes need and they aren't adaptable to the vicissitudes of daily life. As a coach, I'll adapt training to your specific situation: we'll fine-tune and...

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...

Now that it's the heart of fall racing season and I'm getting antsy not  being able to race, I thought it'd be a good time for the first in a new series of posts. I write a lot about various aspects of training that go into race day and I also recap race efforts fairly often, but I haven't written much about the strategy and tactics  that go into each competition. In fact, not many people do talk about tactics. If anything, they get a bad rap in running circles -- as in a sarcastic, "oh great, another tactical race." When you hear people talk about tactics, they do so in a negative tone: a tactical race is one that is slow, where the runners just jog around for 90% of the time until someone finally sprints to the finish. Sit-n-kick. Of course, this is  one tactic (an effective one, at that) and one you see often in championship-style races, where place matters more than time and most athletes are of about the same fitness caliber. But race tactics can be m...

In trying to capture the running spirit of days past, I've been especially interested in reading about some of the historic greats. Ah who am I kidding? I'm always interested in learning about running history, but allow me to indulge myself a bit. My interest in doing this particular one was piqued after reading a thread on the r/running  subreddit (yes, I'm a redditor) that was about New Balance shoes. New Balance recently launched a new line of shoes named " Vazee ," and the poster mentioned he had no idea where that name came from. Turns out the name is in reference to a French slang term, " vas-y ," which essentially means "Go!" or "Go for it!" Having worked at a running store, I'd heard this spiel before, but I had to learn more. Not only is the name a fancy French word, but it is also a reference to a popular cheer for former mile world record-holder Michel Jazy (the rhyme really is catchy, it's easy to see why it be...

This week I want to feature the Fast-Finish Long Run . I've written about n ot doing easy long runs before , and this is one that can be a staple of your training no matter what distance you're training for. A Fast-Finish Long Run is exactly what it sounds like: a long run where you run the last portion of it fast. It could be as simple as closing out the final 15-20 minutes of a run (no matter the distance) at an up-tempo, aerobic threshold-type effort; or it could be as tough as the marathon-specific session of 10 miles easy straight into 10 miles at marathon pace. The Fast-Finish fits anywhere within that spectrum. The point of a long run is to build up aerobic endurance, but sometimes we end up just slogging around at a slow pace, not really stimulating any aerobic gains while just beating ourselves up. Adding on an up-tempo finish at the end can stimulate that aerobic stamina without being too destructive. (Sometimes, running faster can be less stressful on the body t...

So take this with a grain of salt: I haven't raced a marathon in nearly three years, and of the two that I've finished neither have been particularly noteworthy. When I was in college, the 10,000m folks on Xavier's team had a saying about the 10k on the track: "controlled aggression released over 25 laps." For those who've never had the distinct pleasure of racing the track 10,000, you're not really missing out. On a bad (or even mediocre) day, it consists of a special kind of hell involving monotonous, mind-numbing misery. When you're off your game, the laps drag by. When you're on, they fly. Keeping that attitude ("controlled aggression released over 25 laps") helped keep us present in the race. Staying patient, racing in the moment, not thinking too far ahead ( don't think about the finish before the final mile... ) combine to create a positive experience. You focus on the race at hand -- not the finish -- and the results will ...

One of my favorite places to do workouts and strides and general fast stuff is the track at Withrow High School in Hyde Park. No, it's not because of the newly renovated surface. No, it's not because it's a perfect 10-minute warmup and cooldown jog from my house. No, it's not because I'm a nerd and it has markings for both a 1600 and a mile. No, it's not because the school building forms a perfect "L" around the homestretch and first turn, sheltering the field from any drastic wind. No, it's not because I spent four years during college running workouts there. Actually, wait, that is part of it. The reason I love Withrow's track so much can be summed up like this: it's a true public track. If you've ever been to the track, then you know how packed it can get with people using it. And it's not just Withrow High School teams and random individuals -- the track is also regularly used by many other local high schools witho...

And by 'easy long runs' I mean long runs (no matter how long) done at an easy effort; long slow distance, or LSD is how some people term it. But first, a caveat: long slow runs still have their place in the running world, but can we please stop doing only long slow runs? LSD runs are great in two situations: 1) when you are building your mileage early on in base training, and 2) as a low-key aerobic maintenance session during your peak competition season -- your focus should be on race-specific workouts, so long runs shouldn't be enough to tire you out. At any other point in the heart of your training? Change it up. Why? Because always and only doing long easy runs is the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result. Listen, I know consistency is important to train well, but so is variation. If you want to improve, you have to mix things up bit, you have to challenge yourself and push the limits of your comfort zo...

Alright, so now that cross country season is starting to gear up (first day of official practice for the high schoolers in Ohio is Monday!), I thought it'd be a good time for another post geared towards the scholastic runners. Not that this topic isn't applicable to everyone else out there, but I think it'll resonate most with the former type of runners. Showing up at practice, no matter what team you run for or who your coach is, you can bet one of the first things you will run through are the classic form drills. High knees, butt kicks, A-skips, B-skips, high skips, carioca, backwards running; the list goes on. You've probably already done some of those and you probably also do some other not on that list. And if you're in school, you'll probably do them just about every day from Day 1 without any more specific rationale than, "they improve your form." But do they improve your form? In my opinion, the answer is no. So you do you really need to ...

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...

How did you first get into running?  It's a pretty innocuous question, but it's one that every runner gets asked at some point in his/her career. And, if you really take the time to think about, it's a really interesting question. How did you get into running? Out of all the sports there are to choose from -- basketball, baseball, football, soccer, etc. -- why did you end up just running? For me, I was always running. Both my dad and uncles were runners; competitive in high school and college, but also age-group competitive once us kids came around. I grew up with runners are role models, so the sport was something I was drawn to. But I was also a bit lucky: Mariemont had a recreational track program for elementary kids. Just like everyone played SAY soccer, little league baseball, or rec basketball growing up (I did all those things, too) my neighborhood also had a youth track team. So every spring we would "practice" one evening per week and then spend al...

Here in Cincinnati it's the doldrums of winter. There's 9 inches of snow on the ground and it's been so cold that none of it is melting. And yet...spring marathon season is right around the corner. People here are in the thick of training for the Flying Pig, which is barely two months away. And on top of that, track season starts up in a couple weeks! High schoolers (and college athletes) all around the city -- around the country, really -- are about to dust off the cobwebs and start training some get-down speed. As a lifelong track nerd, nothing says spring quite like freshly melted snow on a March track. That's right around the corner. So with all that in mind, I wanted to pass along some motivation: You're not as good as your last race. You're as good as your best day, and that day has yet to come. Right off the bat, that may not sound motivating. You're telling me that I'm not as fast as I just ran? What the hell, man? But stop for a second. Th...

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...

File this one under more-serious-less-fun articles . It's kind of depressing, but it's something that I'm passionate about and feel needs to be discussed. If you haven't read about it already, the New York Times wrote a pretty good summary of what's going on in the NCAA. And there's more about it here . But let me just give you the TL;DR version: the athletic departments of the Big 5 conferences (Big 10, Big 12, Pac 12, SEC, and ACC) now have the authority to essentially play by their own rules - they can pay athletes a living stipend, increase the value of their scholarships, give out health insurance, let players contact agents, etc. From the second article, it also gives athletes the rights to royalties that the NCAA was making off of their likenesses (mostly from video games). Sounds great, right? More power to the athletes, let them get paid, stick it to the man! And it is great... if you play football or basketball, and if you play one of those spo...

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...

After focusing most of the winter and spring on base fitness geared towards the Pittsburgh Half Marathon, I'm now making the transition to more shorter and faster work focusing around running a quality 5k. This is the first time in a while (maybe since college) that I'm really making a concerted effort to train high-intensity VO2max/5k specific fitness. After last summer's disappointing race in June/July, I'm really looking forward to redeeming myself. Here's what's already happened and what's on tap: Lou Cox 5k Monday, May 26 - Memorial Day, Dayton, OH. 14:33, 3rd place. Whoa. Not really expecting this. Huge road 5k PR (old one was 14:45 at this same race three years ago), and fastest time I've run since college. Ran very even, consistent splits, and maybe even a bit negative for the last mile. It was one of those races where I didn't feel all that much pop in my legs warming up, but once we got a mile in, I was able to find a good groove and p...