Last weekend the sub two-hour barrier was officially broken for the men's marathon. Kenyan Sabastian Sawe ran a 1:59:30 in London which he had been preparing for including his sponsor Adidas paying an extra $50,000 to anti-doping testing for the months leading up to the run to quiet skeptics. Yomif Kejelcha, just 11 seconds back also broke the two-hour barrier in his first marathon ever. And third place run will go down in history as being the most disappointing thing ever, beating the current world record, not quite hitting under two hours and being beaten by two others. At any other race his time would be worthy of a parade and splashed all over the news. 

This New York Times article gives some great reasons on why we are seeing this now including runners not waiting until their "faster" days on the track are over. Marathons pay MONEY. London paid five and six figure sums for winning and beating previous times. Who knows what Adidas sponsor bonuses are. So not only are the fastest runners coming out for the races, so are the "almost just as fastest runners" to be pace makers which are key for getting through the first parts of the race on target. Super shoes for both better training miles and faster recovery help and on race day these matter. The Adidas super shoe both sub-two-hour marathoners were wearing weighed less than your iPhone and have some type of foam that makes you spring. Better fueling and a whole lot of belief are also powering the speed.  I am looking forward to how many more people will be hitting this milestone in the near future. 

GET STRONG WITH ME
Strength Training for Runners is a weekly class. Join me on Wednesday night for a thirty-minute strength training session live to your screen and always free. Stay home, get strong.

MEANWHILE
While runners were speeding away in London, runners in Champoeg Park, south of Portland were participating in the Slug Run backyard ultra. From their website, "a backyard ultra is a deviously simple race. Runners just have to complete a 4.167-mile course within a one-hour cutoff. And then line up to do that again at the top of the next hour. And again the next. And again." The runners completed the course 77 times before there was just one left completing 78 laps and 325 miles for the win.  

WHAT I AM THINKING ABOUT 

• I ran three miles yesterday. Just a reminder of what most runners are actually doing. 
• Someone said care more about the number on your barbell than the number on the scale and I want that for us all.
• I am trying to eat 30 plants each week and so I am making a lot of lists and my smoothie is a very ugly brown but still delicious.  

​FIVE pounds. When the PT handed me a FIVE-pound weight and was uncertain if it was too heavy, I knew I was in for a world of trouble. He knows I can deadlift a human person and my 45lb kettlebell is not dusty, but here I was, staring down the FIVE mini weight. Now I have ten days before my next appointment to practice standing with my back to the wall, seventeen cues of how to stand correctly in my ear, while I try to lift this thing PROPERLY with my hip (because I can do it super wrong super well!). And by the way, this is level negative one. I started at level one, spent 10 days trying it without success and now, whomp whomp, negative one. My goal is level one right now and I am not thinking about how many levels this game may have. 

I am not trying to get out of pain (feeling lucky right now) and I can run which is great. I am trying to fix a broken system where some stronger muscles bully the others into doing absolutely nothing. I am trying to figure out how to run longer without muscle imbalances slowing my run into turtles all the way down. So right now, watch out five-pound nemesis, we got WORK TO DO. 

Speaking of weights, hoping you have your five (and ten and 25 and 35) pounders dusted off for Strength Training for Runners. Join me on Wednesday night for a thirty-minute strength training session live to your screen and always free. Stay home, get strong.

We do single leg work to try and help you avoid the physical therapy cycle BUT, if you need a PT (or massage therapist) in Portland or Bend, I have a list here. 

WINS FOR TECH

• Blind runner navigates a marathon using smart glasses. WOW, this tech is amazing as your guide no longer needs to be as fast as you or even be a runner. The runner, Clarke Reynolds, used Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, which have speakers and a camera, and the Be My Eyes app, allowing remote volunteers to see the path as he ran and guide him. 
• A robot in China recently won a half marathon finishing seven minutes under the human world record time. Now I am telling myself we are definitely using this tech for good in the world, RIGHT.  

RUNNING SHORTS

• Over 600 women broke the 3:00 hour mark at the Boston Marathon this year. Check out this chart of the exponential growth of super speedy women. 
• A few Chinese cities are offering property subsidies to marathon runners. Stimulate local housing markets? Neighborhoods with lots of runners sounds fun. You only get half if you don't finish the race. 
• Did you know there is an International Women's Sports Film Festival? There is and it is coming to Portland in May. Trail running content included. 

RUNNING WATCH

• The folks at Aravaipa Running are debuting a new movie dropping on YouTube April 23 called The Cutoff. I am not in love with the language describing those highlighted in the movie as "those fighting exhaustion, injury, and doubt as they race each checkpoint before the clock runs out." I mean, isn't that people at every finish point of the race, not exactly for the time running out but for their goal time to come and go.  Will hold judgement until I see it! 
• Watch the winner of the Boston Marathon, Sharon Lokedi's stride. Shoulders tall, big smile, huge kick, this is exactly what I look like in my dreams. Also, she is wearing some guys borrowed watch after forgetting hers and then he uploaded the race to Strava (with full transparency) which is rad. Watch had a PR for sure. 

Hi all!
Last week I was captivated by images of Des Linden, a favorite runner of mine and winner of the 2018 Boston Marathon, running the Marathon Des Sables in Morrocco. If you aren't familiar, the Marathon Des Sables is a six-day stage race where competitors carry all their gear, not just their food, but everything. Water and shelter are the only things provided so runners are carrying decently heavy packs while running through soft sand dunes. 
I was captivated because it just seems SO, SO far off from a race a very fast road marathoner would want to do. Turns out this journalist thought the same thing and captured it in pictures and in this article here. Despite looking at her posts and some articles, I don't have a sense of WHY she picked that event. I know that one of the stages is 100k and twice the distance of her furthest race. I know she doesn't owe anyone the why of her decision. And neither do you. 
My most successful athletes sign up for races that pull them. Sometimes there is no "good" reason, it just is a whisper in their ear that turns into a song that won't get out of their head and they need to try it. Sometimes they have seen someone else and it motivated them to also give it a try. If you have a song in head for a race that is calling but you think it is too far, too "unlike" you, too anything, see what happens if you keep listening. It may take you somewhere! 

​COACHING WITH ME
If you are interested in coaching for your next fun race idea, GET ON MY WAIT LIST. I currently do not have any coaching openings, sorry summer racers, BUT there will be openings this summer. Let me know!

There is always space for you in Strength Training for Runners. Join me on Wednesday night for a thirty-minute strength training session live to your screen and always free. Stay home, get strong. 

TALKING ABOUT FLOSSING- AGAIN
I get a lot out of this Substack, Run Long, Run Healthy. It highlights research on running and gives some narrative on the implications for runners. The studies are almost always on men which is frustrating and honestly, infuriating, but that is a different post. This week's post included a study of fascial flossing, the use of a voodoo strap I mentioned here a few weeks ago.  "After the intervention, gliding improved in the flossed leg but not in the control leg. That was one of the clearest findings in the study. The range-of-motion results were also favorable. Both legs improved in ankle dorsiflexion after the treadmill run and intervention period, but the flossed leg improved more. That suggests some of the gain may have come from the general warm tissue effect of running and moving around, but flossing added something extra on top."

DISQUALIFIED
An athlete at a recent Ironman 70.3 event posted a video where he was dumping a bunch of gels out of his tri suit, claiming races were expensive so he was getting maximum value. Then Ironman disqualified him from the event, scrubbing his name from the results. WOW. 

THE HIDDEN COST OF COMFORT
So many things to consider in this article, but this one was eye-opening for me. "There’s even early research that points to our perfectly temperature-controlled environments contributing to the obesity epidemic. One study found that after just one month of sleeping in cooler conditions, subjects showed a 42% increase in brown fat volume and a 10% improvement in insulin sensitivity. We’ve muffled our body’s internal thermostats, shutting down our thermogenic system because it’s not needed anymore. We spend 90% of our time indoors where it’s constantly between 68 and 74 degrees year round." 

Fourteen years ago, I ran a 50K where everything clicked. My body showed up, my training showed up, my mind showed up. I ran beyond my expectations and set a big PR. It was a rare alignment of the planets.
And yet, out of 60+ races I have done in my racing life, that day stands out.
There’s one 100-miler I’m deeply proud of. One marathon where I still think, “was that even me?” But then there is the race where I panicked because I didn’t have enough water and watched my “good time” dissolve in real time. The too many races where I moved so slowly it felt like I had stopped mid-race to knit a sweater. And then there are the many, many races that fall into that forgettable middle ground of fine, meh, unremarkable.

If you are an endurance athlete, this may sound familiar.

Most of the athletes I coach carry similar stories. A few shiny happy highs, a handful of real bummers, and a long stretch of unremarkable races that didn’t quite meet expectations. And the thing is, when you choose a sport/life/hobby like running and you pair it with a personality that is driven/focused/perfectionist, satisfaction becomes elusive.

When you train so hard and for so long it makes expectations rise. Mistakes feel less acceptable. And then what for many people and even for you in the past would have been the raddest day ever becomes the "oh whatever". You don’t just want to just finish, you want to SHINE! And most days, it doesn’t all come together because the thing we are doing is so damn hard.

So, if your next race feels meh or your time seems like you stopped midrace to bake a cake, you’re not doing it wrong. You’re doing a TOUGH sport. Keep chasing the alignment of the planets!

And keep chasing strength. Join me on Wednesday night for Strength Training for Runners. Live to your screen and always free. Stay home, get strong. 

ROAD VS TRAIL
Love this graphic from Semi-rad on road vs trail. ROAD: "I am going to eat a big meal after my race." TRAIL: "I am going to eat a big meal during my race." 

SQUAD GOALS
Growing up women's sports had a every woman for themselves feel to me. It seemed like women had to fight each other for a small piece of a pie that was not made for them. While there are so many examples of how that has changed in recent years, this brought me to tears watching it, reflecting on it and I am still cutting onions the day after. Yeah, Jordan Chiles is incredible BUT the WHOLE TEAM behind her with her routine memorized, doing the moves and cheering her on, THAT is the energy I hope you are all bringing to your group runs and to your friend's A-races.

FIX YOUR FEET
Some resources that will really help when it is time to fix your feet or prep them for a long race. 

• https://www.wser.org/foot-care/ Great videos for correctly taping feet. 
• Salty britches ointment for chaffing is pretty great. 
• But in desert places, I like to use Two Toms Blistershield. 

NEW PRODUCT ALERTS

• Skyflasks from HydraPak. For fast fueling in a handheld. 
• These Peak Performance layers are new to me and seem effective. 
• I used a Mountain Hardware Airmesh hoodie in Sweden and I have never had such a light yet warm layer, the only thing I brought that wasn't wool. 
• Potatoes, in a bag for endurance endeavors. 
• A mother-daughter team is reinventing the gaiter. But it is puffy? Seems more for a hiker who lived through the aerobics craze and wants to go back there. But it is a new concept for sure!