If there's one time in which distraction is easy to come by in running, it's when running on vacation. Sometimes, that distraction prevents the running; when you're spending six to 12 hours walking around theme parks, museums, national parks or shopping districts, it's easy to sleep through a scheduled run and stay in the hotel bed or cabin cot. But if you can yank yourself out of the bed, you win that holiest of training trophies: new scenery.

We visited Mendocino on the northern California coast earlier this month for a few days. I brought my trail shoes and expected to get in two runs -- a 3-5 mile tempo and a 10-mile easy run. The longer distance would have been better on the first day because I was fresher coming into it. The first morning, however, followed a long night with heavy beer and light sleep. There would be no running that morning.

But the second night was better, and the second morning worked.

Continue reading this post »

I'm running my first-ever half marathon on Saturday morning, and it's a big one: the Brooklyn Half-Marathon, organized by the New York Road Runners.

Training for this has been a long process but without ever doing this before, I have been a bit lost at times. It's difficult to tell your friends you can't hang out because you need to run in the morning, and it's also hard to account for rapid changes in weather and the crucial need to bring water on lengthy jogs in the heat.

With only four nights of sleep between me and destiny, I come to the Stride Nation community for their final pieces of advice.

This week, I have been doing the following:

• Cut out alcoholic beverages
• Increased water intake (drinking as much as possible)
• Trying to sleep more
• Doing some light running today and tomorrow, but taking two consecutive days off before Saturday
• Ready to buy some Gu and eat it before/during the half

Since I started running in the summer of 2008, I've never done any trail runs.

Until Sunday.

I'm signed up for the North Face Endurance Challenge half marathon -- it will be both my first relay and first trail race -- so I figured I should get some practice. And I'm glad I did. Because it is hard.

Full disclosure: I had a few beers Saturday night, and a probably-too-late-in-the-evening dinner from Taylor Gourmet. And I didn't get out the door until the afternoon, when it was sunny and near 80 degrees. And I didn't feel great (see: aforementioned beers and sandwich). But I think it would've been hard regardless.

The uneven terrain, loose footing, constantly having to see where my next step was going to land -- everything about it was just ... different than what I am used to. But perhaps more than anything it was the ups and downs -- literally -- that I really found challenging.

Continue reading this post »

Mail-in registrations for this year's JFK 50-Mile Race in Boonesboro, Maryland opened up on May 1st. Given my recent struggles with my lower legs, I'd kind of given up on the idea of running the race this year. A funny (?) thing happened this past week: I've had a couple pain-free weeks of training, and a good friend of mine put a Facebook status up about possibly registering for the race. The combination of those things resulted in me giving him a call, making what is essentially the equivalent of a suicide pact, and dropping my registration in the mail on Wednesday evening. Just like that I've been pulled back in.

Over the course of the next thirty weeks I will be trying like hell to get back into shape, lose the extra ten pounds that I'm carrying around on my frame, and figure out how in the world I'm actually going to cover fifty miles in under twelve hours. Having a friend along for a lot of the run will help, but I have no idea how far along we'll stay together: he'll be coming off an Ironman three months prior to the race so will likely be in far better shape; I'm a stronger runner than he is. Our plan as of now is to run the race together as long as we can and just finish. Whether we'll manage either of those things won't be known until mid-November.

Continue reading this post »

Spring race season is hitting its peak, and it feels like summer has taken hold of the weather. Races, training, time off this week? Let's discuss!

Continue reading this post »

I'll run in the rain till I'm breathless

When I'm breathless I run till I drop -- Led Zeppelin

On Saturday I went out for a short run. It was cool and began raining after a few minutes: slow at first, increasing as I ran west into the storm front. By the time I turned around, I couldn't help but notice that I was smiling -- even as the rain got into my eyes and wrested my contacts away from my corneas. The rain cooled me off, but more pronounced than the physical cooling was the overriding calm that it brought. With that calm came a feeling of being centered that often requires a few hours of running.

It's a calm that I have only experienced a few times. The first time I recall while running was a few months into my initial training for a half marathon. I wore shorts and a long-sleeved technical tee and got caught in a deluge. I think I ran three miles, an out-and-back up a long hill. The rain really hit right when I got to the top of the hill; halfway back down I spotted two guys my age running up to their front porch. Upon seeing me jogging down the hill, they stopped and stared with the sort of incredulity that a sopping wet white boy in a mostly black neighborhood deserves: I looked absurd.

Continue reading this post »

2k12 is flying by. Another week on the docket, this the last of April -- how'd you do?

Continue reading this post »

Boston was last Monday, which means we all got a highly-distilled dose of inspiration. How long did that inspiration last for you?

Continue reading this post »