The goal at the start of 2019 was to hit 500 miles running this year. Tonight’s run pushed me up to 602 miles for the year, with a couple of weeks left to go.

150+ miles more than any prior year

Through the mid-summer time I was only averaging 42 to 45 miles a month, which was barely keeping me over the pace mark week to week. I would log my runs and watch the moving plus/minus number I track and see myself float above...

This was a busy one. Between the All Hands earlier in the month and the week off for the holidays, those are brutal to maintaining the routine (though great to get a break and spend time with both workmates and family, respectively).

Here are the stats with one month left to go:

Once I...

The big achievement this month was the culmination of the half marathon training, ending October by finishing my first one.

The other notable movement was surpassing the 500 mile goal, which happened on this run and I didn’t even realize it at the time. I was able to knock out the mileage...

Today I finished my first half marathon. Felt great until about mile 10 when things got a lot harder. The final mile was painful, but I got it done and even ended up pushing it to under a 10 minute mile average pace (a goal I decided to shoot for around mile 8 when I was still feeling good and thought I could push myself).

• Finish Time: 2h 09m
• Average Pace: 9:52 / mile

Time for a week off!

🏃🏾‍♂️ Eliud Kipchoge Breaks 2-Hour Marathon Barrier

An amazing feat:

On a misty Saturday morning in Vienna, on a course specially chosen for speed, in an athletic spectacle of historic proportions, Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya ran 26.2 miles in a once-inconceivable time of 1 hour 59 minutes 40 seconds.

⚾️ What the Future American Ballpark Should Look Like

An architect’s manifesto on how teams can rethink the design of baseball stadiums:

Fans want to feel that the club has bought into them, and a bolder model of...

In September the training push continued for the half marathon. I did a personal record 88 miles in the 30 days, for an average of just about 3 miles per day the whole month. Somehow I’m not dead yet, but the aches and pains were there to prove it.

I think I’ve got the...

I’m almost at the two-month mark since upping my mileage at the beginning of August. I did about 72 miles in August, up from an average of less than 50 per month the prior months of the year. With 3 days left in September I’m over 80 miles, with a couple of runs left to do:

A few notes on how that’s gone so far:

• Slowing down my pace has been essential to push the activity durations higher (obviously, to lower the average HR).
• After the first couple...

This month I made a concerted effort to kick it into a higher gear with the running. Mid-month was the start of the Strava training plan I’m going to try and follow for race preparation.

The longer mileage is feeling good. I wasn’t sure what to expect when doing longer times with only single...

Our SNI running club on Strava keeps expanding. We’ve got 12 members now and counting. Two people are committed to marathons in the fall, and two of us to half-marathons.

Somewhere in reading about marathon training I read that the community aspect of the training plan is one of the most important: finding a group of people around you for mutual support and motivation along the way. Proper training (aside from the physical effort) is time-consuming and requires consistency to get 4 or more activities in per week, without falling off the wagon. It certainly helps to have the visibility...

When I committed to the half marathon for October, I also enabled one of Strava’s Summit training plans to keep me honest on the times and distances I should be ramping up with as I prep for that race. My personal goal isn’t to hit some target time in the half; it’s mostly to finish in a comfortable time frame. I chose a plan that has a 10-week training course, 4 activities per week with rest days and/or cross-training in between.

Over the last 3 weeks I’ve been trying to manage my activities...

I’ve committed myself to running my first half marathon, coming up in October. This sort of happened on a challenge from a couple folks at work. I didn’t really intend to throw something like this into the schedule that could interrupt my regular goal progress, but in looking at Strava’s training plans, their half marathon one starts mid August and scales up in a way I think I can tackle relatively comfortably. It starts off with easy runs in the 40-60 minute range, with weekend long runs up to 75-90 minutes. I’ll need to bring the...

I had surprisingly good results on goals this July given how much was going on all month.

On the exercise front, I was able to get the same quantity of runs in even though we started out with the holiday weekend, which always makes sticking to patterns and habits challenging for me. Plus all...

Wearables have become such a big market these days that there’s a wide variety of options to pick from if you want to monitor activity metrics. From the basic Fitbit step counters to more ruggedized outdoor watches to full-blown smartwatches, there’s a device for everyone.

I’ve been a devoted user of Garmin’s activity tracking watches for years now, starting out with the Forerunner 220. A couple of years ago I upgraded to the fēnix 5 model, one of their highest-end watches.

I used the 220 model...

🏃🏻‍♂️ Everything You Need to Know About Rhythmic Breathing

I tried this out the other night on a run. The technique makes some intiutive sense that it’d reduce impact (or level it out side to side anyway). Surely to notice any result you’d have to do it over distance consistently. But I’ve had some right knee soreness that I don’t totally know the origin of, so thought I’d start trying this out. I found it takes a lot of concentration to keep it up consistently. I’ll keep testing it out.

So that’s a wrap on the month of June. This was my best month so far in terms of a consistent plan and feeling more productive with staying on target. Even with an out-of-town trip to visit the Cape and Jacksonville for a few days, which threw a brief wrench into the running plan, I was still able to climb enough above the target line get to my highest mark so far.