The half marathon is the fastest growing running distance in the United States. While U.S. marathon participation has doubled over the last ten years, half marathon participation has more than quadrupled in the same time. The plethora of springtime half marathons creates ample opportunities for New Year’s resolutions and training plans that start during – or at the end of – the winter holidays. For many, just finishing a half marathon is quite an aerobic challenge, … Read entire article »

As runners, there are three very related things we’re almost always aware of: distance, pace and time. We often up our speed and our distance in an effort to decrease our times in races. The one thing we can never run away from, however, is that no matter how fast we are, running takes time. For an elite runner, it’s a full time job that usually involves a cycle of sleeping, eating and running repeated … Read entire article »

Having already dealt with easy running to gain a base of aerobic fitness, fast repetitions to improve running economy, longer intervals to improve aerobic capacity and tempo runs for the lactate threshold, I turn today to the least known form of training. There’s really no good name for it. Jack Daniels calls it “marathon pace training” but it’s useful even for those who aren’t planning on running a marathon. To others, it’s known as “high … Read entire article »