80/20 Endurance Blog
It’s Not About the Food (It’s How You Think About Food)
Recently I had the opportunity to read a prepublication copy of a book by Bryan Green, who ran with Meb Keflezighi at UCLA and now cohosts (along with retired elite middle-distance runner Jon Rankin) the Go Be More podcast. Titled Make the Leap, the book is based on the premise that, as Green puts it, […]
Goal-Directed, Principle-Guided Experimentation
I’m working on a new project involving artificial intelligence and endurance training that I could tell you about, but I would have to kill you. Just kidding—it’s not that secret. In any case, the project has got me thinking about fundamental questions in endurance training. For example: What is training? Don’t snicker. The answer is […]
Here’s a Fun, Fast New Workout to Try: Decreasing Intervals
These are exciting times to be an endurance training geek. We seem to have entered a new period in which exercise scientists are taking the lead in coming up with innovative new workout formats. It makes sense. For many decades, humanity knew so little about how to train optimally for endurance performance that the majority […]
Repeat After Me: “I’m Injured and I Couldn’t Care Less”
Currently I’m reviewing the copyedited manuscript of my forthcoming book The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life, which is available for preorder. (Subtle, eh?) Chapter 6 tells the remarkable story of Jamie Whitmore, a dominant professional off-road triathlete in the 2000’s who later overcame a Jobian cancer ordeal […]
Got a Comfortable Training Routine? Good—Change It!
Leon Fleisher died recently. Man, what a life! Born in San Francisco in 1928 to Jewish immigrants, he started playing the piano at age four, and by nine he was proficient enough to become a student of renowned teacher Artur Schnabel. At 16, Fleisher made his Carnegie Hall debut, and by his mid-20s he was […]
As an Athlete, Should You Care What Others Think? (Hint: All One-Word Answers to This Question Are Wrong)
In March 2017, I gave a talk at Run Flagstaff, a running specialty store located in the city whose name it carries. During the talk, I mentioned an occasion when I got to hang out with 2:19 marathoner Yoko Shibui and her teammates on the Mitsui-Sumitomo women’s professional running team in boulder, Colorado. “Are there […]
Are You a Chosen One?
This article is about endurance sports, I promise. It’s just going to take a minute to get there. Are you familiar with Calvinist doctrine? At its heart is the concept of predestination. Calvinists believe that, at the beginning of time, God selected a limited number of souls to grant salvation and there’s nothing any individual […]
The Most Interesting Runner in the World
Following is an unpublished chapter of my book Running the Dream: One Summer Living, Training, and Racing with a Team of World-Class Runners Half My Age. It features my friend Tommy Rivers Puzey, who a couple of weeks ago sent me a series of alarming voice messages from a hospital ICU in Flagstaff, where he […]
Creative Goal Setting
Recently I received a text message from Matt Chittim, host of the Rambling Runner podcast. In it, he informed me that he is several months away from turning 40 years old and he wants to mark the occasion by pursuing the goal of breaking 40 minutes for 10K. His purpose in texting me was to […]
Rediscovering a Process Focus
There’s a runner I coach, we’ll call him Jeremy, who’s concerned about his weight. It’s not that he’s overweight and worried about developing type 2 diabetes or heart disease. Rather, Jeremy is light and lean but just not quite as light and lean as the elite trail runners whose ranks he aspires to join—and it […]
