Jon's Jibber-jabber

Florida has a running race series called Best Damn Race.  It is an awkward title for a race that is really family friendly but this series does pride itself on being the Best Damn Race.   Colloquially known as BDR, there are varied distances and locations from Jacksonville to Orlando to Coral Gables.  My wife knows and has worked with the series race director.  This year they did a "leftover" 5k.  This race in Safety Harbor was to get rid of all of the extra shirts and medals from previous events.  You get to pick your shirt and you get to pick your medal.  First come, first serve.  BDR races are also remarkably inexpensive with their pricing tiers.  We ended up registering for this 5k for $13 each.  Fully supported with free beer, liquor, and food afterward, this really was the Best Damn Race. Being June, this is expected to be a hot race.  It has really become oppressive over the past few weeks and 0-dark thirty running sea...

I picked up Matt Fitzgerald's 80/20 Running because my wife had begun to delve into Fitzgerald's nutrition books.  The 80/20 running philosophy has been quoted by a number of coaches I know and has appeared in many places now in the literature. Over the course of my career, I have dabbled in several different methods and am never one to dismiss or support something without giving it a shot.  I began to read the book with an open mind as I typically try to do with all advice books.  This book is really no different than the plethora of already available running training books such as Hal Higdon, the Hansons, Jeff Galloway, and others who have developed "magic formulas" to help runners get better (or more precisely, faster).  Fitzgerald sets out from the beginning to prove to readers that the 80/20 method is the optimal method for improvement.  Period.  Science shows it and Fitzgerald will lead you to the promised land.  Where have I heard this be...

As I've said in earlier posts, I am retired from the ultra distance triathlon (also known as Ironman, full or 140.6).  Retiring truly means that I have no foreseeable plans to do another one in my lifetime.  This is not to say that it won't happen.  How many sports stars, actors, or others have "come out of retirement" to pick something up again?   But here I am not talking about retiring but instead focus on taking sabbaticals.  Athletes take off-seasons when racing is slow.  This is especially true of triathletes, where in most of the country, water temperatures are too cold to swim during the winter.  In Florida, there is not a true off season as south Florida remains warm year-round but summer is often this state's off-season with temperatures routinely in the high 90s.  It just gets too hot to really train or race.   This year, I decided not to take an off-season but to take a sabbatical.  I use that term to mean that for triathlon ...

Last year, a friend of mine and I signed up to race IRONMAN 70.3 Florida (Haines City) together.  We nicknamed it "Swampman" since the swim has been known to have terrible water quality.  And it is middle Florida so no ocean or gulf waters but stagnant lake water.  This race has a reputation of being hot and humid as well.  But it is a local race for me and it is only 30 minutes from Walt Disney World so friends can travel and stay there if needed. The local clubs and athletes tend to do this race since it doesn't require travel, much like the Maryland athletes tended to always do Eagleman.  So this race wasn't too far for me.  I convinced a friend of mine from Massachusetts to come down and race with me.  She's a much better athlete than me so it wasn't so much a race with me as it was me chasing her down in futility.  But it would be a fun weekend for us without too much pressure or trouble, given the earliness of the race.   Race We...

Last year, my wife wanted to buy something where she did not have to reach down for her water bottle.  She is not the greatest bike handler and was uncomfortable reaching down for the bottle off of the down tube.  At that time, she did not have aerobars and vertical bottle mounts for the handlebars were not practical for triathlon.  You can use them on your beach cruiser but it is inconvenient on a road bike.  So we picked up a Speedfil.  The Speedfil standard model fits on your downtube where the water bottle goes but has a tube straw that goes up to your handlebars or your aerobats.   The Speedfil is meant to be used in aero like a between the arms (BTA) bottle but resides on your frame.  This way, it can hold a much larger capacity than anything that could be mounted to the bars.  The current model holds about 40 ounces of liquid.  It has a sliding groove for the screws allowing for adjustment of placement on the tube to account for va...

Last year, we signed up for the First Watch Sarasota Half Marathon because of a very good promotional price they were running.   Sarasota is about an hour and ten minutes south of our house so it is a local race to us.   We had heard good things about it and several people we know were going to do it.  We discovered soon that this year the race fell around spring break and hotel prices were out of this world.  Being so close, we decided to stay at home and drive down.    Race Week  Since this was a training run, I did not taper.   In fact, this was an increased volume week for me.  I had increased my swimming this week but unfortunately had a long bike set up for Saturday afternoon.  Having no choice, I did the bike hoping my legs would be recovered enough to at least finish this race.  Race Day Ok so races that fall on the "spring forward" day are evil.  I recommend not doing this.  Ever.  Because we lost an hour, mo...

Author Matt Fitzgerald is well known in the running circle.  He has served as a writer for Triathlete and has written numerous articles and books on the endurance sports world.  I have an interesting relationship with Mr. Fitzgerald's work, loving some and less-than-loving others.  This latest book in his collection, "How Bad Do You Want It?", deals with the mental aspect of the sport.  In particular, this book centers on several key challenges that athletes face and techniques to potentially overcome or avert them.   Fitzgerald has written on this before with Brain Training for Runners and through other articles.  This book, however, has a different feel.  It is not so focused on "brain training" but on talking through concepts of mental issues and using anecdotal examples.   Fitzgerald doesn't limit himself to his familiar genre of running.  Here he draws from other sports such as rowing, cycling, and even winter sports.  There is some...