Search

It's been a little quiet, no doubt, but there are still people here. :-)

Yesterday I ran the Waterfront 10 Mile in San Francisco-- my most exciting race in a long time. It was overcast, wet, moderately windy, and mid-40s at the start, though it wasn't actually raining at t ...

http://www.runworks.com/images/bibs-500.jpg

If you've registered for a race recently, you may have been suprised by the entry fee. Even a low-key 5K race can cost $30, and many marathons have entry ...

http://www.runworks.com/images/runlog.png

Are you a numbers runner, focused on your distance and pace and always hoping to set a new PR? Or do you run for health, or simple enjoyment, without even ...

I don't know your build, but dropping some weight would probably make a big difference in your times. A gallon milk jug weighs 8 pounds. Imagine the effect of strapping one of those to your waist as y ...

I've never run it, but I understand it's crazy hilly. Is this your first marathon overall, or simply first Big Sur? What's your goal?

I ran 1:48:33 for the San Jose Rock 'n Roll Half Marathon today, a few minutes slower than I'd hoped, but still pretty decent considering my meager preparations. I went out with the 1:45 pace group at ...

Lucky bib number 2743 for tomorrow.

There's nothing like the first posting in a year and a half to get things going again! After another long period away from running, I'm back to a bit of regular weekly mileage, and planning for my fir ...

I think you meant www.runflux.wordpress.com. Worpress seems to be a domain squatting site.

Heart rate monitors are nifty devices, and I use one every now and then, but I also think they can be an u ...

Congrats on the triathlon!

Sorry to hear about your knee problems. Could it be IT-band problems? What's your stretching routine like? Is it both knees, or just one? Sounds like it's time to see a d ...

How's the humidity treating you? I was in Florida last weekend, and tried running a couple of miles along the beach. With temps in the 90's and high humidity, it was a real sweat fest!

Paintballs, are you serious? Ouch!!! Was there a huge mud pit everyone was trying to avoid or something?

I ended up finishing 11th out of 114 in the 21K race. Not too bad, although it's not a very ...

I did a pair of mountain races this weekend. It was a blast, but boy are my legs slammed!

Saturday was the Santa Cruz Mountains Trail Run, a hilly 21K trail race through some beautiful redwood fore ...

Sounds lovely, other than the tornado warnings!?

I just signed up for a trail half-marathon next Saturday. It's been a while since I did a trail race, and I'm looking forward to this one. It's thro ...

Saturday was a club race we call "Short Six", a 5.7 mile course I've done a couple of times before. I was mostly familiar with the route, and anyway I'd just be following the people in front of me, so ...

Nice race! Way to go, mrbill! (and mrsbill too!) That's a nice string of PRs and near-PRs, including your last two races.

Wow, those are a lot of bugs crawling outside. Yuck.

Why is this the las ...

Today was a day off for me. I've got a club race tomorrow morning, and I also did a 10K race on Memorial Day. My weekly mileage is still fairly low, but it feels more manageable. I'm thinking about ra ...

Mrbill, are you following a specific training plan, or just making things up as you go? How do you determine the format of your interval workouts?

A rough rule of thumb I've heard several times is ...

I did two back-to-back races this weekend, a first for me! Saturday was a 3.54 mile race with my running club, over some rolling neighborhood streets. My plan was to take it a little easy and save som ...

Good to hear. If you didn't have any issues after a 2+ mile run, then it sounds like it's in good shape!

I've got a couple races coming up soon, although nothing on the trails. I'm doing a 5K tomor ...

Nice blog, Rustyboy! Good luck with the training.

No more problems from your IT band, I hope?

Yeah, that was the first thing I thought when I saw the news about Catalina Island this morning. All your trail running favorites are going up in smoke! :-(

I saw it on the news-- looks pretty bad. Is the fire entirely within the park, or is it a much larger fire that just happens to include part of the park? Either way, it doesn't look good.

Some of you may remember that two years ago, I attempted to climb Mount Shasta during a two-day mountaineering adventure on skis. Long story short, the mountain chewed me up and spit me out, and I lef ...

That's great! I'm really glad to hear that your IT appears to be healthy and happy again. Wow, 2:22 of mountain running sounds like a pretty hardcore way to get back into things after several months o ...

Hal Higdon's is a well regarded training plan, although I've never used it myself. Two books with good training plans are Daniels Running Formula by Jack Daniels, and Advanced Marathoning by Pfitzinge ...

Those are gorgeous photos! That park looks like a great place to run. Being from the East Coast originally, I do miss the feel of a good old deciduous forest with leaves, rocks, and a stream rolling t ...

Congratulations Bill! Sounds like a great race. Splashing through the mud... I'm envious. Got any more races on your calendar?

Congratulations to your girlfriend! Has she got any future races planned? Do you often run together? It must be great to have a built-in running partner.

I've been going to my Saturday club workouts semi-regularly for the past couple of months. Today was a 2.75 mile race on a rolling course, at which I managed an 18:49 time (6:52 pace). Those were my f ...

Wow, Sleeping Giant Park looks beautiful! I miss New England.

I took the day off today, after doing 12 on Sunday and a 4.7 mile race on Saturday. I've been keeping about 30 mpw for the past months.

Obligatory race photo, with the Golden Gate in the background:

http://www.fasttwitchpro.com/nuts07/slides/IMG_2072.jpg

I drove into San Francisco early this morning for the Across the Bay 12K race. It was cool and calm along the waterfront as we boarded the buses that would take us across the Golden Gate, to the cours ...

Sad, but true. I happened to catch an episode of the gameshow "Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?" recently. Boy was that funny. One contestant didn't know what country was to the north of the Unite ...

12 miles today along my old "long run" route that I hadn't visited in months. I felt a little fatigued on the return leg, but overall it went pretty well. That's 33 miles for the week, my best in quit ...

I ran a 5.74 mile modestly-hilly route called the "Short Six" with my running club. It was supposed to be a race-level effort, although I probably did it about one notch below that. For most of the ra ...

After a long absence, I'm back with my running club, and it feels good. I originally joined last spring, and at first I went to the weekly workouts pretty regularly. They're a friendly, positive group ...

Amazon.com is now carrying the Forerunner 205 for $186, with a $50 rebate, for a net price of $136. That's pretty tempting... I may pick one up.

Mfox, are you still happy with yours?

Ran 4 miles at a pretty easy pace, with 6x100m strides. Felt fairly tired afterwards, but much better than yesterday. Tomorrow's a rest day.

Ran 4 easy miles at a glacial pace, but still finished feeling pretty wiped out. I need more rest.

Hey Rustyboy, did I miss an injury story? Why all the cross-training?

Did about 5 miles up and down a medium-steep trail, at a pretty poky pace.

I ran 9 miles this morning, but it was tough. I'm doing a 12K (about 7.5 miles) race in two weeks, so I want to get in at least a couple of runs as long or longer before then. Coming off of yesterday' ...

5.7 miles around the neighborhood, thankfully neither cold nor snowy. I wasn't feeling too great, though, and ended up walking about half the time. My energy level was very low.

An automated program that first encountered something like 5+5 would likely be stumped. But as soon as the spammer noticed that lots of sites were starting to use a test like that, it would be pretty ...

I spent some time de-spamming Runworks today. If you visited in the last couple of days, you probably noticed the appearance of a whole bunch of posts about what Lindsey Lohan is doing with Catherine ...

I ran about 4.5 miles at lunch time, medium-easy pace. I'm trying to get in shape for a 12K on March 18.

Great race report! Man, you are nuts doing a hard workout and Saturday and following it with a half-marathon on Sunday! Sounds like you handled it like a champ, though.

Do you think using your Fore ...

Went for an easy 4 mile run, but I was feeling extra sore and stiff. Maybe two races in two weekends on a poor base wasn't such a great idea. I ended up walking for a while, and finished about 3 miles ...

Good race mrbill! Who's jalashkar, your running nemesis? It's always great to have someone like that to help spur you on.

Congrats on beating last year's time!

Here's a photo of the father and daughter team:

http://www.runworks.com/templates/runworksClean/images/photos/Alice_and_Dad.jpg

After last week's half-marathon, I threw myself straight into another race this weekend. It's a benefit for the local schools whose course winds through a maze of neighborhood streets. 8K is nearly ex ...

I've got a half marathon coming up this weekend (NYRRC - Bronx Half Marathon) and I'll think I might be able to muster a 1:48 finish.

Good luck! I hope the cold weather doesn't freeze you out!

I finally got back in the saddle today with my first race in many months. I've run this half-marathon four times in a row, with times of 1:37, 1:44, 1:32, and most recently 1:33. Even though my recent ...

Did a few miles of easy hiking on Saturday. Today I'm planning 11 in the rain. Yum!

I did an easy 4 mile run at a blazing 9:12 pace. I need to cram in a few runs before the half-marathon on Feb 4, so I don't come completely unglued.

You look great! I would have thought that was a photo from early in the race. Nice finish!

Rustyboy, I am sincerely impressed. An outstanding race! And 50 miles... I don't even like to drive that far! :-)

That is truly an impressive achievement. After having done several marathons, I fin ...

Aha! The values that Daniels gives for easy runs are about 3-4% slower in his 2nd edition, as compared to the 1st. I never noticed that before. I don't recall it being mentioned in the text either. Th ...

Can you tell me the race distance/time you entered into the calculator to get that VDOT? I'll double-check the math.

The calculator is a curve-fit to the data from the VDOT tables in Daniels' firs ...

I've read a couple of interesting discussions recently about running in minimalist shoes: basically racing flats, or some other lightweight shoe. Most everyone today wears cushioned trainers, with rai ...

Thanks! I managed another 4 easy miles today. Another easy run or two this week should help fight the holiday weight gain. :-)

My athletic efforts run in cycles, and after a couple months of near-zero running, I think it's time for me to get my groove on again.

In the ten weeks since the Wineglass Marathon, I ran just 24 m ...

Wow, fantastic! That sounds like a dream race. Congratulations on the spectacular finish, sub-5:00, and all-around ass kicking run!

And 19 milers on Saturdays followed by 26 on Sunday... I am very ...

Belated good luck wishes! How did it go?

Still sitting in my butt here. But after mfox's JFK report, I think I'll haul myself outside tomorrow morning and hit the trails again.

WOOOOOOOOOT!!! Congratulations mfox, you did it! Not that I ever had any doubt of course. Excellent job, nicely paced, and under your time goal. I agree with Rustyboy: your report has got me excited t ...

I should be a tub of lard, but I'm not. I seem to have been lucky enough to get "thin" genes, if such a thing exists. For a year, I ran all the time, and ate all the time, and maintained my weight aro ...

Attention Runworks shoppers! Today I'm introducing a change to Runworks' format, replacing the generic news bites on the front page with my personal running musings. Nobody (including myself) seemed v ...

Since the Wineglass Marathon on October 1, I've run just three times, for a total of 11 miles. So I guess you could say I'm taking it easy! The urge to train has left me for now, but I'll probably get ...

Excellent race! It sounds like it was a beautiful morning for it. Fall racing is the best. You kicked it down in the last mile, and raced to catch the guy ahead of you, giving it a good fight. Congrat ...

Good luck mrbill! I'll live vicariously through you guys, while I cool my heels for a while...

I think you're right, but I'd still think someone was a little crazy if they gave me a card or shouted at me to cross the street while running. Normally I run on sidewalks here, so it's not too much o ...

I haven't run in weeks, so I haven't got much to contribute to the daily report. But I did sort of enjoy Yasso-style 800s, even though I've always had a tough time with track work in general.

A belated congratulations on NY as well. I am blown away by how you're able to pack in all these marathons in such a short time. You must be in the shape of your life!

Good luck mfox! Sounds like your restesd and ready to go. I think you made the right call by skipping the flu shot too.

Kick some butt tomorrow!

Way to go mrbill! You really kept it together the whole way, not slowing much at all even in the last few miles. Excellent job! Congratulations, and enjoy some rest before your next race.

OK, I guess 2:59 is not exactly getting your ass kicked, but it's quite a bit slower than the numbers a lot of people had been throwing around. I'm not sure how hard he trained for this, but from what ...

Congratulations again! So that's three sub-4:00 marathons in a single month? You must be feeling super-fit by now. Way to go! As for me, I've only run 2 miles in the month+ since the Wineglass Maratho ...

Way to go mfox! That part of the country certainly is beautiful, although I've never run there. Great to have family support all along the course too.

You are certainly piling up the marathons this ...

Awesome! I can't even really imagine what it must be like to do one of those 100 milers, but if I were there, that cozy cabin at mile 75 would have looked mighty inviting. Way to go pacing Bud and Tod ...

Hey mfox, OldManRunner, what were you race numbers? Did you get any decent photos? Here are mine, including a lovely one of me stopping my watch at the finish line:

http://www.brightroom.com/view_ ...

Good luck mrbill! Do you have a goal time for Chicago? It sounds like your training has gone really well.

We chatted, and when I asked him if he ran ultras, he responded, "No way! Those races are for people like YOU!"
Ha! That's great.

Wow, 26 miles of tricky terrain, in the dark. My hat's off to you ...

I ran the Wineglass Marathon in Upstate New York yesterday. It was my 8th marathon, but my worst marathon preparation, so it was really a test of how much you can expect from a decent base but half-as ...

Way to go mrbill! There's nothing like coming in way better than you'd expected! Sounds like you're in great shape for the full marathon in 12 weeks. And way to kick it in at the finish... is that 7:1 ...

In fact Jurek won the race, in a little under 23 hours. 246k??? Wow. That's impressive. That's almost six standard marathons back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back.

Heh, join the club of the pathetic summer trainers! Actually, it sounds like your training was still pretty strong despite your injury. It sounds like you were able to fall back on your swimming and b ...

106 degrees?? Man, I think I'd hit the shade and drink a beer if it ever reached that temperature for a race. :-)

Good luck to you both. I didn't know Chicago had a half-marathon. Is it part of the ...

I haven't heard of the World Athletics Finals before. Sounds like the Ryder Cup: USA vs Europe.

From a brief reading, I'm guessing that track and field's best athletes mostly didn't compete here. ...

Good luck with the move, Terry. I can relate to having a new job interfere with running-- that's been a lot of my story for the past couple of months too. Now get back on the trails and drop those pou ...

Better. But I'm not sure my 10K race will be as good a predicter of marathon performance as it should be, since I haven't done as much long-distance training. We'll see!

Oh, and I checked the Banana Chase results: 9/38 in age group, 43/391 overall. Not too shabby considering.

Well you dealt with it much better than I probably would have. Good luck with the 50-miler training! Which race are you doing again?

Yes, Wineglass is my last planned race. I may do some shorter ra ...

Wow, that really stinks! I've heard that the swimming starts in large triathons can be pretty chaotic and dangerous. I'd be pissed if I put a lot of training into an event, and then got knocked out ju ...

What could be more fun than chasing after a bunch of giant bananas? With a marathon coming up very soon, I decided I needed to squeeze in some last-minute hard workouts to complement my meager diet of ...

Ah, once again I've become a running slacker. When I should have been marathon training, my weekly mileage descended from the 50s, to 40s... to the teens. Ugh.

Today I did the weekly workout with m ...

There was some discussion here last year about Billat's 30-30 workout, an alternative to the traditional interval workout for boosting VO2Max. Active.com wrote up a great article recently about the 30 ...