Feet Move Forward

This past week in my training can be summed up with this photo: Post long run Sunday morning Planned- 55 miles Actual- 56 miles Monday Rest Took an Intro to Yoga class. Tuesday 8 miles w/ 10x100 meter strides Set out early in the morning and knew almost immediately it was going to be a bad run. It was really hot and I just wasn't feeling it. I quit after 5 miles and hit the treadmill at Life Time Fitness that night to finish up my three remaining miles and strides. Via Here's the thing: Running fast on a treadmill (sprinting) is HARD. I think my balance needs work because I always feel like I'm going to fall off.  Any tips? Wednesday 12 miles 12.17 miles; 1:37; 8:03 average pace Got an early start and ran the lakes to ensure that I'd have enough water. Struggled on this run. Combo of heat, lack of sleep, not eating beforehand and mental stress. Ran the second half faster than the first, which is always good. Thursday 5 mile recovery ...

Off the recommendation of several people, I picked up the book  Advanced Marathoning a few months ago.  I love reading about anything related to running or training so this book was a welcome addition to my ever-growing library of Runner's World, Running Times, Women's Running, and essentially any book that has "run" in the title. For the past two years, I've been writing my own training plans. In all of my prior marathon training, my weekly mileage never surpassed 50 miles a week. I also wasn't cognizant of my pace during runs and would run all of them at the same speed. With the goal of running a sub 3:10 marathon this year, I knew that I would have to shake something up with my training. For the past few months, I've been working on building a consistent base of 45 miles (+/-) a week. I've been feeling really good and decided to start the 55-70 mpw plan with the hope that the additional miles will bring my fitness to a higher lev...

Last Thursday night I ran The Bear Run , a 5-mile race up Grandfather Mountain in Linville, NC. This is Grandfather Mountain. It's supposed to look like the side profile of a man's face: his chin at the bottom, nose, eyes and eyebrows. Use your imagination. Anyway, it's roughly 1540 feet up from where we start in the town of Linville. I ran this race two years ago while I was living in North Carolina. At that time, I did some intensive hill training with a local running group and thought that I was as ready as ever to run. That year I ran the Bear in 53:00 minutes. This year I hadn't done any specific hill training, at least not regularly, and therefore didn't have any goals for this race. I was just running for fun. The race started at 7pm and had over 800 registrants trying to get into two parking lots at the base of the mountain. Thankfully my habit of being ridiculously early to races paid off and we were one of the first cars in the lot. Spectators we...

Or the Henderson Independent. But I'll take it. Records fall at Kraut Fun Run For the second year in-a-row, the womens course record for the Sauerkraut Days 5K Fun Run fell and for the third year in-a-row Andrew Gerdts took home the mens title. Jessica Eibs, a member of the Sibley East cross country team, took ninth overall and set a new womens course record with a time of 19:52. Eibs outlasted previous course record holder Hannah Schroeder who finished right behind Eibs at 11th with a time of 19:57. Schroeder also bested the previous record set by her in 2010 of 20:48. For the third year in a row Andrew Gerdts took home the mens title with a time of 17:28. This was five seconds off the mens course record set by Gerdts in 2009 at 17:23. Gerdts was challenged for much of the race by local Sam Straub. Straub hung with Gerdts for about two and a half miles before fading.    Straub finished with a PR at 17:49. Straub was followed by Alex Wischnack at 18:12, ...