#NewYearsResolutions #TrainSmarterNotHarder #Endurance #RunEasy #Recovery #TrainingPhilosophy It’s that time of year again. We’re all setting goals and resolving to get better in one way or another. I know I’ve written about goal setting before (Goal Setting), so I figured I would offer a different piece of advice that hopefully will help some folks. I recommend learning how to run easy. Running easy isn’t sexy and cool like committing to doing 2-5 miles of speed work at leas

#Injury #TrainSmarterNotHarder #Recovery #TrainingPhilosophy #CrossTraining I have a very distinct memory of my high school coach pronouncing “Running is not pain free” at the start of the cross country season one year. What he was trying to impress on the new runners was that training for endurance athletics is fundamentally an uncomfortable process. He was also pretty fond of saying it takes a special kind of stupid to be and endurance athlete because of said discomfort, an

#TrainingPhilosophy #TrainSmarterNotHarder #TrainingWhileSick #Recovery Try as we might, we all get sick every now and again. Hopefully it’s infrequently and we recover quickly when we do. But how do we modify our training schedule when it happens? There are plenty of “heroes” out there that push through injury and sickness, never missing a workout or taking a day off that wasn’t already written into their training plan from the start. As much as it can make us feel like a ba

#TrainSmarterNotHarder #LittleThingsMatter #Recovery #TrainingPhilosophy #EarnYourMiles #CrossTraining #Running #Triathlon We all know how important it is to warm up, cool down, stretch, ice, cross train, do our drills, and get the core work in. But who has time for all that, right? I mean, we run/Tri because we like to run, bike, and swim. Quite honestly, even if we had infinite amounts of time, we still wouldn’t WANT to do all those little things. But if we want to be able

#Running #Triathlon #Recovery #TrainingPhilosophy When it comes to improving as an endurance athlete, consistency is king. Obviously getting out the door and actually doing the work is the first part of that. The second part is being able to do it. If we get hurt, or we haven’t recovered from the last hard effort, we aren’t going to be able to do the “quality” work. Without recovery there is no progress. We don’t actually get fitter while doing our harder or longer quality wo

#TrainingPhilosophy #Consistency #Recovery #MarathonTraining Consistency is the single most important factor when it comes to continued development as an endurance athlete. So why would we ever intentionally step away from training? That would be self-defeating if we want to get better, right? Not necessarily. Eventually, if we’re training hard, we’re going to make a mistake or not do some aspect of our recovery homework and something is going to start to give. Repetitive mot

#Training #Recovery #Injury #TrainSmarterNotHarder #Running #Triathlon #Marathon Something like 80% of runners suffer some kind of injury each year. Most of these are pretty minor, but sometimes they can take us out of commission for more than a few days. Hopefully this doesn’t happen to you, but if it does, be careful when you start easing back into your normal training routine. Here’s the general guidelines I give to athletes when they ask me about how to get back to where

#Endurance #Training #Marathon #HalfMarathon #Recovery #TrainSmarter “The marathon is long. No one wins. Some just survive it better than others.” I’m not honestly sure where I first heard this sentiment, but it’s true. The marathon always wins. It breaks down all of our carefully erected mental safeguards and barriers. It grinds our bodies and reduces our brains to mush. It extracts one hell of a toll on our bodies. And it is imperative we remember this. It’s really common w

#TrainSmarterNotHarder #Recovery #Training Given the number of folks coming down with a bug or the flu lately, I thought I would take this opportunity to get into the basic rules of how to tell if you're ready for a workout. Let me start by saying that having a good idea of your normal resting heart rate is a good idea. I’ve known folks that check it first thing in the morning, every morning, before even getting out of bed. All kinds of things can affect your resting heart ra

#TrainSmarterNotHarder #Training #Recovery #NoDaysOff #Running #Triathlon Jerry Rice was once asked if he ever takes a day off. His answer was a very resounding NO. He didn’t take days off, because recovery was an integral part of his overall training plan. There is the image in our heads of the athlete working HARD in the gym, at practice, or wherever they get their workouts in. And it is important to work hard. But it is important to remember what the goal of a workout is.