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Preamble. The car thermometer dipped to 16 degrees Fahrenheit as we drove 8 miles down a dirt road into Camp Eagle. I’d expected 28, so this was a bit of a surprise. It didn’t bother me though. We’d been training in cold weather. I’d brought extra layers, a buff, gloves, a hat, an emergency blanket […]

I’ve been doing a lot of work to educate myself on exercise physiology. I not only feel that it’s my responsibility as a coach to learn these things but also I just am so curious about the capacity of human performance. Studying my own training and performance is one way to explore questions I have

My immediate reaction post-adventure was, I never want to enter the canyon again. The next day, feeling mostly normal and without enough soreness, I thought more that there is unfinished business in the canyon and started looking for flights back. And now, a few days afterward, I don’t feel the need to ever go back,

We had run these trails a few times in our preparation for the race, and those runs were quite tough for me… I generally just had very heavy legs and thought the trails were way too technical to find a groove. But I went into the race with no expectations for how the trails would

Left foot. Right foot. Left foot. Right foot. Left foot. Right foot. Left foot. Right foot. Wow, two races in a row that have inspired Tim Tollefsen vernacular to run through my brain. We raced the Loon Mountain Vertical Kilometer (VK) this past weekend. A VK race is usually straight up a mountain with an

Whew! What a finish to a whirlwind of a month in which I traveled every weekend and somehow also did Farmers Markets every Tuesday. I’m so privileged and grateful and amazed I get to do these random things. SO many people were involved in making this happen. When you get to these long or multifaceted

The trails in Marin were the first trails I’d ever ran on. The Marin Ultra Challenge (MUC) 50 miler was the first trail race I did. It sounds silly and exaggerating, but this MUC 50k race felt like a homecoming, in a hilly trail-running way, at the same time intimidating and comforting. My training in the few

Volunteers at trail races are usually awesome, but I have to say that the TARC (Trail Animals Running Club) volunteers are really a step up. This was my first race with them, and I am so happy I found this small trail running community on the east coast! The nothing-fancy, local, volunteer-based nature of this

An “aquabike” is a triathlon without the run. I was signed up for the Pilgrimman Half Triathlon. But when my shin started flaring up 10 days out from the race (right as I was beginning to taper… ugh), I realized I should seriously consider dropping the run. So aquabike it was! The distances were the

Accompanying video on my YouTube channel: Core Essentials. Core is essential to both activate (before training) and strengthen (separately). A strong and active core helps with injury prevention and efficiency of movement. The core core exercises: