Ran 11 miles along beautiful Mission Bay today, picking up the pace for the last 2 miles. While much of the rest of the U.S. is starting to get colder, it’s getting hotter here in Southern California, with temperatures near 100 degrees (38 degrees Celsius for my international readers). I’ve never liked running in the […]
In the fitness industry, I hear the term “mix it up” a lot. Personal trainers, group exercise instructors, and coaches consistently tell their clients and athletes to constantly change the training stimulus to ensure adaptation—to “mix up your workouts.” In marketing their services, I see personal trainers say that when you train with them, “every […]
On a downhill portion about 9 miles into my 12-mile run on Sunday, a runner with gray facial scruff and a ponytail who looked liked he had been around the block more than a few times in his life, came up on my shoulder and passed me from behind. At first, I just let him […]
Ran in my second track meet this winter in San Diego. It feels weird to run in an outdoor track meet in 80 degrees in the middle of January, but hey, it’s Southern California! People think I’m spoiled, but I remember all those winters I’ve run in very cold conditions. I’ve run in double digits […]
Today was my first track meet of the season, an all-comers meet in Temecula, California. Because there’s no indoor track season in sunny Southern California like I had going to high school in New Jersey, there’s a lot of track meets that schools put on here in the winter to give high school runners a […]
Plateaus are boring. They’re flat, unchanging, predictable. As a runner, I admit it’s easy to get stuck in a rut. You get used to doing the same workouts, the same number of weekly miles. Sometimes, it’s hard to do more mileage, more speedwork. In sport, as in life, if you want to improve your performance, […]
Even though they’re often hard to figure out, I love women. And I love their physiology. People think it’s a little weird that a guy is so interested in estrogen. It’s not really all that weird. Nearly all scientists that study women’s physiology and many gynecologists are male. So I guess I’m not alone in […]
I was asked today if I could share some advice in my blog about how to learn to run at the correct speed. Well, of course I can! Most runners train haphazardly, without any real sense of purpose, and then are often disappointed with their racing results. When you train with a purpose and understand […]
A sport psychologist contacted me yesterday about contributing to my blog. Initially, I was reluctant. I thought, “Who is this guy? Is this just someone trying to ride my coattails and use my blog for his exposure?” Well, of course he is! But there’s nothing wrong with that. We all do it. I do it, […]
Well, it’s been more than two weeks since I ran through the streets of the Big Apple at the New York City Marathon. I’m still trying to make sense of the whole experience. The miles went by so fast that before I knew it, it was over. And then I was left with very sore […]