PR’s are great! Don’t get me wrong, I’m working on a few myself, but what if we started looking at more than just a row of numbers to measure our success. What if we challenged ourselves in new ways every once in a while. Let’s talk about racing for more than records can be just as fun and reinvigorating for you.

You may balk at the idea of it when you see it on your training schedule for 3-5 weeks, but base building is a vital part of training for any race distance. This is the phase of training designed to get you trained to train; without it you’re sacrificing potential gains and increasing the potential for injury.

Training for a marathon is well…a marathon. A lot can happen between the first day of training and race day. Consistency and smart choices go a long way to getting you there fit and ready to go. In my experience as a coach most runners tend to make pretty similar mistakes; knowing what they are and planning ahead can save you time and optimize your race day experience and results. Avoid these 6 common mistakes in your training:

Hi team! I hope you’ve had a strong spring season of racing and lots of fun miles. As we get into summer and make our transition to the next few months of training for fall races, I want to bring focus to our mental game.

Happy Women’s History Month! Thank you to all the women who challenged and broke barriers of the past so we can continue to build on their progress for the future. Although it’s a small part, I want to recognize just a few who have fought for the opportunity and rights of women in running and around it. 

Either you look forward to it, or you dread seeing it in your weekend workouts: The weekly long run. It’s a staple of training for most runners racing above the 5k (even then it can still be good for 5k and under athletes). But why do it? Why have to carve out 1-2.5 hours of your weekend to just slog some miles that mostly are slow?

Let’s be honest, workouts are hard. Some more than others; so wouldn’t it be nice to know why they’re so hard. 

Threshold or T Pace is an effort that’s basically at the edge or slightly over your aerobic capacity or lactic threshold. Past this point, your body can’t get enough oxygen to your running muscles and instead uses your non-oxygen energy systems (anaerobic) to meet its needs. Too much of this and you eventually bonk…hit the wall…feel the burn.

The secret, as you might have guessed, isn’t all that exciting. To build into your best runner you need to first have a clear goal of what success means to you and the consistency/discipline to work at it every day.

It’s ok to admit it, you’re not the only one. We’ve all done it at least once in our training lives. Stopping your watch when you walk on a run….taking longer breaks between your interval reps…taking a 30 sec break between your repeats instead of the whole minute planned in your training.

It’s the short (but loooonnngg) days of winter, and we’ve definitely had some cold day’s recently. The cold and snow can be an obstacle for most runners