Follow Jurek and take a break

I was going to write something about taking a break and the importance of full recovery, but ultramarathon champion Scott Jurek says it all so much better in his blog: Gimme a break! 

Food for though: if someone like Jurek needs to take a good break from it all, how about you? Now is a good time to do something else, whatever it is.

HURT is over!

H.U.R.T. 100 Mile Trail Endurance Run is done and over once again. What an incredible race! The sheer craziness of every finisher is amazing me. 

I could do perhaps half of it, if I was lucky, and on a very good sunny day. This race is guaranteed to hurt 100%!

The vid below is from 2008.

3 hill workouts to improve your performance at any distance

Coach Brad Hudson, author of Run Faster - From The 5K To The Marathon, was recently featured on hill training in the RT Radio issue of the Running Times magazine.

Coach Hudson generally recommends the following three types of hill training to improve your running performance at any distance:

• short, steep hill sprints (for example, about 10 x 10 seconds)
• longer, less steep hill repetitions (for example, 5 x 500 meters)
• uphill progressions (at least 10 minutes of uphill running at the end of an otherwise easy run).

Hudson's book is recommended for more comprehensive information.

Heelless running shoe design

Outliers: secret to success?

Malcolm Gladwell has come out with yet another succesful book called Outliers: The Story of Success. It's a big hit everywhere right now. 

He has been recently on Charlie Rose. And on almost every other show and channel as well.

The Science of Sport blog adressed the major dilemma Talent vs Work.

I guess the million dollar question is: is there a simple secret to success, and can a book like this help us learn how to use it? 

First, there's obviously a 'lie' hidden in the middle of Outliers.

Having said that, I believe (oops there goes that lie again :-) Outliers is onto something relevant in stating that 10,000 hours is a minimum time of practice required to excel in anything. 

I'd like to add that the younger you start the better. Just think about Tiger Woods and other successful athletes. 

Our conclusion must be that the attitude of plain old persistence plays a starring role in most success stories. 

Now Malcolm Gladwell himself has certainly become one of those outliers he has been studying. He must have spent at least 10,000 hours writing bestselling nonfiction books!

DaneGer Zone: 52 weekends, 52 marathons!

Dane is a guy who ran 52 marathon races in 52 weekends in 2008 - and raised $52,000 for charity. 

I just learned from this incredible feat while listening to a recent The Competitors Radio Show podcast featuring Dane. 

Check out his blog DaneGer Zone. 

Shoebox is 100% recycled. But wait, there's more...

treehugger

From marathon hamster to Mr Relax

This is me in 2008: a marathon hamster. I set a goal of running more than a marathon once a week and I did it.

This is me in 2009: Mr. Relax. That doesn't mean a couch potato though. I'm going to hang on to the new lean me by running daily. I'll also do a yoga type thing daily.