Running shoes are wonderful things. They protect your feet from nails and broken glass, allow you to run on concrete, and are particularly useful in ice and snow. While protecting your feet, however, running shoes also treat them like planks that only bend a bit at the ball of the foot.

In last month’s column, we discussed the hard-easy principle, and that sometimes the best plan is to train hard two days in a row followed by two or more recovery days. Two specific situations in which back-to-back hard days can be effective are during weeks when you are racing, or when you are so busy during the Monday to Friday work week that you must get in most of your high quality training during the weekend. Or, you may have a race on Saturday, but still need to get in

Training at high altitudes has been popular among runners since the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. From the results of those Games it was obvious that to compete well at high altitude it is necessary to train at high altitude. It is not clear, however, whether training at altitude provides an advantage for competitions at sea level. The few well-controlled studies have found mixed results when athletes train at altitude to prepare for sea level races. Yet, places such as Bould

Age is less kind to some of us than others. High school reunions often dramatically illustrate this point. Among runners, declines in performance plague some runners in their early thirties, while others (notably Carlos Lopes who won the 1984 Olympic Marathon at age 37, and then ran 2:07:12 at age 38) remain at their best much longer.

After months of toil, you’ve accomplished your marathon goal, and are blissfully content. After a few days, however, the initial euphoria wears off, and post-partum depression sinks in. You ask yourself the terrible question, “what now?” Last month, we looked at ways to improve your recovery after running a marathon. This month, we look at the next stage, how to re-motivate yourself and safely resume training after the marathon. Specifically, which types of workouts to do, wh