1. Stretching is not going to prevent you from getting injured. Have you ever run with a dog or watched a horse race? If you have, you probably noticed something interesting—none of these animals stretch before or after they run. Stretching before a workout seems to be something that only humans do. Whether stretching […]
It’s been a while since I’ve written a blog, mostly because I’ve been busy with my new coaching position at La Jolla High School. This job is part-time with full-time hours! But it’s a great place to work. If you’ve never been to La Jolla, California, book a trip to go… it’s beautiful! I love […]
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 […]
Coach Jason’s Thanksgiving Fact of the Day Ever wonder what the difference is between your turkey’s white meat and dark meat? It’s the difference in muscle fiber types. The dark meat of your turkey dinner is composed of slow-twitch endurance muscle fibers and therefore contains lots of myoglobin (the protein that transports oxygen inside your […]
With 5 weeks to go until the New York City Marathon, I’ve started to include some interval training in my marathon preparation. Once per week, I’m going to the track to push my heart rate to it’s maximum to attend to my VO2max. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? Given the popularity of VO2max and it’s […]
I love the heart. When I speak at conferences, I often make the joke that, as a distance runner, I have a great capacity to love because I have a large heart. That one-liner always produces a few laughs from the audience (but has seldom helped me to get a date). One of the most […]
I love magic. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a magician. One of my favorite illusions is Metamorphosis. First performed by Houdini, an assistant ties up the magician in a sack and locks him in a metal trunk. The assistant then stands on top of the trunk, and raises a curtain in […]
10 weeks until the New York City Marathon! I’m enjoying the end of my recovery week. Only 35 miles this week, after the last two weeks of 50. Next week, I’m building up to 55 miles, including one acidosis threshold run of 4-5 miles, one long tempo run of 9-10 miles over rolling terrain a […]
There has been a lot of commotion lately about Tabata training. Everyone in the fitness industry is using it. It’s based on the research of Izumi Tabata and his colleagues at the National Institute of Fitness and Sports in Japan. The protocol they used, which was based on the training that Japanese speed skaters were […]