Injuries
A while back I wrote a piece titled, “If It’s Not Hard, It’s Not Hard Enough.” In it, I addressed the irony that people become endurance athletes because they want to do something hard, but many of them freak out when they discover that achieving their goals is harder than expected. In essence, they want […]
Read MoreIn late November 1950, at the height of the Korean War, United Nations troops under the command of Major General Oliver Smith were encircled and attacked near the Chosin Reservoir by a vastly larger Chinese force. Facing total annihilation if they tried to hold their ground, Smith’s men instead executed a fighting withdrawal, puncturing the […]
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I’ve always considered myself an injury-prone runner. I used to half-jokingly say that I had suffered more running-related injuries than any runner my age in the history of running, and it wouldn’t shock me if this turned out to be true. Between the ages of 28 and 48 I picked up no fewer than four […]
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On September 21, 2015, Cameron Bean was struck and killed by a passing car while running in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. He was 28 years old. I’d met Cam four years earlier while visiting the ZAP Fitness (now ZAP Endurance) compound for a writing assignment. A dead ringer for Conan O’Brien, Cam was a likeable […]
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I’ve never seen more runners starting over than I have within the last year. Many, like me, have had to start over after a bout of Coronavirus. Others have had to do so after race cancellations robbed them of motivation. Even outside of pandemic years, though, starting over is a common phenomenon in running. More […]
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I’ve been learning a lot about pain lately. My sudden interest in the topic was sparked by the collaborative work I’m doing with Ryan Whited on a book about self-managing athletic pain and injury. The new science of pain is utterly fascinating and completely contrary to prevailing beliefs about the deceptively familiar phenomenon. I credit […]
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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 […]
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