Last month I sent the below letter to the editor to the team at Runner’s World magazine saying why I thought the May 2012 issue may have been the best ever. Having worked in publishing before for a consumer publication I am familiar with the volume of letters that come in as well as the limited space in a magazine to print all of them. So I’m now taking the liberty of publishing my own letter. Continue reading
My home page on RunningAhead shows the graphs and charts I selected.
A while ago I went on the hunt for the perfect online training log and I decided to use and review as many as possible in my search. I started with RaceNation and moved on to use and review the Runner’s World training log. The list of logs I planned to review included probably half a dozen to 10 different sites and next up was RunningAhead. My original intent was to use each log for one month, give it a review, and move on. I started using RunningAhead in June (2009) and have yet to try another online log. I love RunningAhead, am very comfortable with it, and have now built a nice history of work-outs on the site. Is my search for the perfect online training log over? Quite possibly. Let me tell you why. Continue reading
Intervals involve hard runs for short times or distances followed by recovery jogs so it's helpful to have a watch to time each interval. Photo by Michael Lokner.
Until recently, the last time I ran intervals was during track and field practice in high school. I’ve read plenty of articles about interval runs and there are some great folks on Twitter to learn from whose focus is interval training. The last few weeks of my triathlon training plan have included threshold interval work-outs. According to the plan this means to run for three minutes at 5K pace followed by a three minute jog. The first session I repeated this three times and the next three sessions I was to repeat four times. Each interval session begins and ends with a little over a one mile jog which happens to be the distance from my house to the local track, quiet convenient!
The first round of intervals were eye-opening. Even though I’d been preparing my body for speed with strides and tempo runs, attempting to maintain what I thought to be my 5K pace for three minutes was much more challenging than I thought it would be. I’m sure that part of the problem is that I still don’t know my actual 5K pace. My goal pace is 8-minute miles but I have not measured that on the track. I measure my 5K pace by my form, the length of my stride, the little extra push from my arms, and my breathing. I’m so familiar with my 9-minute pace that I feel like I can tell when I’ve pushed past that to something faster and that is what I consider my 5K pace. Continue reading
Tempo running requires focus and concentration to keep pace; just like the tango. Photo by Tango Store.
There are any number of ways to label a run and of course, you don’t have to label a run just to go running. However, in training, it’s very helpful to understand what the labels mean in order to get the most out of each work-out and maximize your performance. When I first started running the only terminology I recalled where words leftover from high school track–sprint, relay, and cross country. Until recently, my running vocabulary has been minimal at best. At some point I plan to put together a glossary of terms that I have come to understand and that seem to be an integral part of any article, website, blog, or coaching program related to running.
For now though, I’d like to focus on tempo runs. There are five types of runs on the Runner’s World triathlon training schedule and they each have a relatively helpful description. Some of the runs have the same descriptions as what one can select on many online training logs, interval and tempo for example. Even though I’ve trained for a number of races over the years, this is really the first time I am making a serious effort to follow the suggested variations in running. Rather than stick with my 9-minute pace, if the schedule tells me to run strides, I run strides. If it says hills, I run hills. And now most recently, it said to run tempo. Continue reading