Motivation: Earthworms beware, you are about to be crushed

It wasn’t a particularly good day for the earthworms in my neighborhood.
One moment, so it feels, we’re pounding out the miles and training for marathons, the next we’re chasing a new baby around the living-room floor, or just taking a break for the off-season. For whatever reason, there are times when we runners let it [...]

Motivation: Just take that first step

It seems like every day, I have someone that is asking me how to get started; how to keep going; how to keep after their goal? How should they start their training? How can they get motivated to run today? How should they do their track workout when they’re so tired after work?
The answer is [...]

Guest Writer: On being slow and loving it

A good friend of mine named Terry read my piece on “being slow and loving it.” In the article, one of the points that I was trying to make is that sometimes if we’re too obsessed with speed, we may miss some other important part of the experience. Terry wrote a comment on the posting [...]

Motivation: I’m gettin slow and I love it

I just came from a lunch meeting with my good friend and colleague Coach Dean Hebert. Dean and I have been collaborating for some time and you may have noticed the link to his new blog from my blog. Coach Dean is a very performance oriented coach and we got to talking today about my [...]

Motivation: Without fanfare

Yesterday afternoon I received the most amazing text from my friend Karl Johnson. The message read:
“40 miles, 8 hours and 16 minutes. Time to taper and binge drink for a month . . . just not in that order. Work is going to be awesome in the morning.”
What is amazing about this message is not [...]

Motivation: Pushing beyond your comfort zone

What does it feel like to run a marathon? I’ve often said that I can’t put it into words or describe it. That it’s just something that you have to experience to understand.
Anyone that has ever run a marathon understands this immediately. It’s something that you can’t put your finger on.
Running a marathon [...]

Friday Fun: What’s the worst that can happen?

I have been thinking a lot about the pre-race jitters that I wrote about two days ago. I made a comment in that post about the fact that much of the anxiety about races comes from worrying too much about things that can go wrong – things that are out of your control. We really [...]

Motivation: A great literary reference

I always love it when I find something that would be inspiring to runners in a movie or book. Here’s something that I think is fitting for both veteran and beginners marathon runners out there. I love how it speaks to our long adventure and the fact that we are seeking something - and perhaps [...]