Recently I was running with a friend for the first time. I don’t mean it was the first time I had a friend to run with, I mean it was the first time I ran with this particular friend. Laura is fairly new to running and currently training for her first half marathon. Like most newbs she didn’t know how to run up hill so the hills were kicking her butt. I worked with her on our run and got her to the point where she wasn’t dreading hills. What follows will be some tips and pointers I’ve learned over the years about how to run up hills.   Hills are an important part of a training program. Hills are both speed work and strength … [Read more...]

Another runner asked me about recovering cause her legs were dead after her runs. Here's what I sent her. To some extent you are going to run on tired legs until race day. A large part of training is getting used to running/working out on tired legs. This gets you ready for the last leg of a race when you can't quite flush all the lactic acid out and you are getting tired. This is why the taper before a race is extremely important, heal up and be fully recovered for race day. Tips to help prevent this or deal with it: Hydration is very important. Water helps blood circulation and keeps your legs flushed out. To drink enough make sure … [Read more...]

I’ve enlisted the services of Ultra Running Coaches William Sichel and Shaun Brassfield-Thorpe (UltraFitnessTraining.com) to prepare myself for the McNaughton 200 mile trail race this May in VT. In an email discussion with these guys I posed the question about how many miles I should be running each week this far out from the race, and what the progression will look like as the weeks pass and race day approaches. I’ve always intellectually known that weekly mileage is a poor judge of fitness and training, but sometimes emotionally I forget this and use it as an easy benchmark to judge my training. I’ve described this to others in … [Read more...]

I was recently asked about speed drills that can be done by a fellow runner that doesn't have access to a track. Here are some drills that can be done without a set distance like a traditional track work out requires. These all fall under the Fartlek (speed play) category. I intentionally leave off any distances, number of reps or pace. This is highly individualistic and should be figured out with a coach if you have one or through doing the speed drill the first time with the intent of learning how to do the drill, the next time start building. 30 Minute Drill This is a great fartlek. Pace yourself so you have enough left in the tank so … [Read more...]