On my recent flight from Jakarta, Indonesia, I watched the movie Saving Mr. Banks. Perhaps I live in a bubble, but all I knew about the movie is that it stars Tom Hanks. I had no idea what the movie was about. What I found even more interesting about the story of how Mary Poppins […]
I finally made it to Jakarta, Indonesia to speak at the Indonesia Fitness & Health Expo after missing my connecting flight in Tokyo and having to spend the night. Don’t know if it was the fried potato or the water that came in a glass, but I spent half the night in Tokyo with […]
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 […]
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 […]
As I discussed in a recent blog post, and is worth reiterating here, runners literally have large hearts–specifically, the size of the left ventricle, a condition called left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH). If you’ve ever had an EKG, you can see whether you have LVH: See the two biggest points on the EKG–one pointing up […]
February is National Heart Month. Heart disease is the number one cause of death among men and women. Everyone knows someone who has had heart disease. My father died of a heart attack when he was 51 years old. My twin brother and I were only eight years old. This is one of my favorite […]
I’ve been talking to a talented runner where I live in San Diego for over a year about working with me as her coach. She waffles back and forth about going through with it. Part of all her waffling is financial; she can’t afford it. But even when I have offered to coach her pro […]
Today I ran a hill circuit I created in Balboa Park in San Diego — a variety of bounding and sprinting drills to the top, turn left and jog to recover across the flat portion at the top, sprint down, turn left and sprint and across the flat portion at the bottom, and start the […]
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, […]
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 […]