Today was gray with rain threatening, so I decided to take my own advice and use the treadmill. If you remember, we learned already that our ability to run faster is determined by two factors: stride rate and stride length. For now I am working on increasing my stride rate (also known as turnover or cadence).

Increasing Stride Rate

Today was my easy run, so it seemed like a good opportunity to work on increasing my stride rate before tomorrow's long run. I set the treadmill at a comforta...

Running the 5K in the Huntsville Half Marathon - Oct 17, 2009

I'm writing this after my first run using the running tips mentioned in the previous article to help me run faster. To refresh your memory, the initial objective is to increase stride rate until it's 90 strides per minute or better. (For clarity, one stride is from point of contact of one foot to the next point of contact of the same foot, so a stride rate of 90 means that your left foot hits the ground 90 times in one minute.)

O...

So far, I never met a runner who wanted to run slower – everyone wants to know how to run faster! As a permanent back-of-the-pack runner, I accept the fact that most runners run faster than me. I look in envy at the elite runners streaming in to the finish while I'm still getting started.

I just read a great article by Steven Bentley of Bentley Coaching on Running Efficiently. In a nutshell, he points out that to run faster you need to improve your running efficiency. Most of this artic...

After all the rain we have had lately, yesterday and today have been beautiful again, with temperatures ranging from 50F to 75F, dry and sunny with light winds. I was able to really enjoy my long run yesterday: it started cool, but was quite warm enough by the end. However, at the end I felt quite tired and was feeling a little pain.

Pain at the end of a run is always a warning sign, and an indication to figure out what caused it. When I did an easy run today, the pain was still there, but ...

Nutrition is one of the major components of fitness. Unfortunately, we get so much misleading and conflicting information that is tough to know what we need to consume for optimum fitness.

Good nutrition facts abound in the sports literature (Runners' World, for example, carries several excellent articles each month), but we still see plenty of bad information being reported.

Every month, it seems, someone announces a new diet, each one claiming to correct all the errors of the previous die...

After all the rain and cloudy weather we've had for the past few weeks, yesterday dawned clear, cool and calm! What a difference – low humidity, no cloud, no rain, no wind – doesn't get much better than that! The result was that, after 390 had signed up for the race by Friday evening, a bunch more showed up and we had over 500 runners all told.

And what a great run it was. I found I had time to chat with a couple of runners on the way (mostly while we were walking up the steeper hills!)...

1. A new series on Nutrition Facts for Runners starts tomorrow in the Members' Newsletter Service.  So if you're not yet a member - sign up now before you miss it!
2. I have added a new page on Healthy Deals. This page is updated daily, so you'll need to check back regularly. 
   

Do you run for exercise or for weight loss? If you are currently training for a race, the answer is most likely neither one. But when you are not actually in training you might set a weight loss goal: just don't attempt to train for a race and lose weight at the same time.

Actually, when we talk about weight loss we really mean fat loss. I could stand to lose a little weight, but it's really the fat around my belly that is the problem. As you probably know, if I were to lose that and repla...

I have always been blessed with perfect knees. Beautiful they're not, but they have always functioned perfectly. I have seen other runners with their knees strapped and wondered whether they should really be running, wondered whether they were making their injury worse, and been thankful that I never had knee pain.

Until today.

I had been a little “off color” for the last few days, but today I felt well enough to run again. I decided I would set the intention of a long, slow (LSD) ru...