Category Archives: General

Recovery Run Defined

By JRM | Published: May 17, 2011
Question:  If the act of running  induces physiological fatigue, is the term “Recovery Run” an oxymoron? Answer:  Yes, and No. As I’ve stated numerous times in my articles, training stress is relative; a 4 mile run over undulating cross country trails at 7 minute per mile pace may constitute nothing more than a warm up [...]
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Steady State Training

By JRM | Published: April 25, 2011
There’s more than one way to build aerobic capacity and power, and thankfully, not every approach to doing so requires the athlete to work at maximal effort (or, in other words, to suffer!).  Sometimes, employing a slightly slower, steady approach to your training  can yield not only notable gains in aerobic capacity, but in endurance [...]
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To Each His Own

By JRM | Published: April 4, 2011
A common belief amongst competitive distance runners is that in order to increase one’s fitness, one must run… a lot.  Although I will be the first in line to advocate the fact that success in distance running requires a steadfast commitment to a long-term, rigorous training progression, I will also caution that obsessing first and [...]
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Aerobic Engine Assessment Session

By JRM | Published: March 7, 2011
Whether you refer to yourself a competitive or recreational runner, the fact of the matter is, if you’re investing time and effort into your training program, your end goal is improvement.  As a runner, improvement means being able to run faster than you have before over a given distance and/or performing at a level that [...]
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Stoking the Fire

By JRM | Published: February 8, 2011
As a life-long resident of New England, I’ve seen my fair share of “bad” winters over the years. However; as any endurance athlete worth their salt will attest, poor weather conditions are not an excuse to skip out on valuable training time. Sure, shuffling training sessions around a bit or opting to cross train indoors [...]
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Disconnect to Reconnect

By JRM | Published: January 11, 2011
As many competitive endurance athletes will attest, the use of high tech gadgetry has become commonplace in the world of endurance training.  Whether it be a Garmin GPS, IPod, Foot Pod, Power Meter or heart rate monitor, you can be certain that a large percentage of today’s runners and triathletes rely heavily upon such devices [...]
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Metabolic Testing: Real World Example

By JRM | Published: November 22, 2010
My latest series of training tips have thoroughly examined the use of metabolic testing and analysis and its application for the endurance athlete.  In today’s training tip, I’ll provide a real world example of how said testing can help to differentiate the respective training approaches that two athletes might have to take despite training for [...]
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Metabolic Testing & Analysis: Number Crunching

By JRM | Published: November 8, 2010
In this week’s training tip, I will discuss how metabolic testing & analysis allows both coach and athlete to evaluate the various metabolic pathways responsible for aerobic energy production.  For the competitive endurance athlete, having a clear cut understanding of exactly “where” your energy is coming from and how much of it you are using [...]
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Metabolic Testing: Fine Tuning Your Metabolic Efficiency

By JRM | Published: October 25, 2010
Let’s assume that we have two race cars:  Car number one is a gas guzzling muscle car, capable of attaining and sustaining very high rates of speed in very short periods of time.  Car number two is a fifty-mile per gallon hybrid vehicle capable of traveling nearly 600 miles on one tank of fuel.  Both [...]
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Metabolic Testing: Determination of Aerobic Profile

By JRM | Published: October 11, 2010
My last training tip introduced the practice of metabolic testing & analysis and provided a general overview of how coaches and athletes can use it to help steer the annual training progression.  In this week’s tip, we’ll take a closer look at what metabolic testing can tell us about an athlete’s “aerobic profile” and how [...]
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