A gray November sky promised rain. The strong breeze hinted at the gale force wind that would come in the evening. I parked at the usual spot, the Green Pond Road trail head that’s become New Jersey’s version of overcrowded Adirondack trail heads. I shrugged into my hydration vest and […]
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On Saturday, 3 August, I raced the App Gap Challenge, a 7.25 kilometer roller ski race in Fayston, VT. Starting near German Flats Road on Vermont Route 17, the race goes westward, finishing on top of Appalachian Gap. You know it’s steep when there are signs advising danger to trucks […]
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There’s a rock ‘n’ roll lyric for every occasion, and for the Whiteface Sky Race on 21 July, it was “Sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug.” I was definitely the bug. Two years ago, I didn’t think my knees would tolerate anything like this, but a couple of […]
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Respect the process. Over Memorial Day weekend, I drove to northern New York to run the Patch Sprint. I wrote about the race last year. The spirit and camaraderie of all those who’ve camped at Pok-o-MacCready is just really impressive, and I tried to catch that in the video below. I […]
Read More →On Saturday morning, I went back to the pain cave. Only this time, I wasn’t racing or doing an interval session in the woods. It was the return of the bane of my existence: a VO2 max / lactate threshold test on a treadmill. Since I’m not an elite runner […]
Read More →Consistent strength training, as well as hard aerobic efforts, yield results for runners and other endurance athletes. On 20 October, I ran the Skeleton 5 km race at Morris County’s Central Park. A light overnight rain stopped around 6 AM, leaving the trails damp and muddy in a few places. […]
Read More →As a personal trainer, you’d think I know to avoid overtraining. But it doesn’t always happen. In my previous post, I wrote about the 2018 Patch Sprint, which was one my best-ever races, up there with my personal best in the Lake Placid Loppet. The six weeks following was a […]
Read More →Twelve miles in, at the foot of Poke-o-Moonshine, I still felt good. The finish of the Patch Sprint was on the summit. A mile and a quarter, with 1280 feet of elevation gain, meant 35 percent grade in places. Time to dig in. The trail up Poko, as it’s sometimes […]
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