Destination racing is an exciting opportunity to experience a new environment and running culture while collecting a new medal. However, it is essential to understand travel's impact on your race day, especially when it involves running at a different elevation.

Training is hard.

Regardless of the end goal, avoiding the struggle of fatigue catches up. In these moments, it is vital to take a step back and remind yourself why you are in this position in the first place.

Here are some questions to spark inner dialogue and refine your why.

Fatigue.

This word is terrifying, humbling, restricting, and concerning, yet aptly describing marathon training.

Every time I set out to marathon train, I resonate with this word. This word becomes my friend, my pursuit, and the biggest damn annoyance.

Pacing is a common struggle among runners. In many of our minds, our pace is synonymous with our value as runners. We misconstrue years of work, innate talent, discipline, new beginnings, and progress as variables attached to mile splits. Let me remind you here, your value as a runner is not equated with your pace per mile.

Carbohydrates are gold to the runner, providing the energy needed to power through miles. When carbohydrates are digested, they are broken down into glucose molecules, released into the bloodstream, and used by muscles as fuel.

To those of you who are running the Chicago 13.1 - it’s taper week!

Tapering is a technique used to reduce the volume of training in the weeks leading up to the race to allow the body to fully recover from the hard training of the cycle and prepare for peak performance on race day.

Is there a way or a time to be justly selfish?

The build-up to a race is the perfect time to be righteously selfish.

Running is a repetitive sport. Regardless of the pace, terrain, incline, or weather variation, it’s constantly in forward motion. How do we increase awareness of our efficiency as runners, improving our running economy?

I write Block 1 - Building the Base in every training plan as the first spreadsheet sent out. While specifics differ from athlete to athlete, the intention remains to start building from the base up.

After months of design & planning, April 8th finally arrived.

I went to Paris for the first time a year ago. From that point forward, I was hooked. Between the food, green spaces, architecture, culture, and sites - it’s a runner’s paradise.

This week I begin classes for getting my RRCA (Road Runners Club of America) Run Coach Certification Level II. To start the conference, we were given this prompt.

As a coach, I find it only fair to share with you. I look forward to developing my philosophy more, but these are the pillars I coach by now.

While in Paris, I visited a friend who had been living there for several months. When I asked how she felt about her choice to be in the city she longed for, she simply said, “it’s not that big of a deal.”

Time, what a funny thing. We can be so greedy yet so foolish with it. Time is not something you can hold onto. It is free, yet, you must be aware of its presence and power.

Pain is a certainty of life; to suffer is not. Runners are often instructed to dig deep and enter the pain cave. So why do we never talk about what to do when you are there? Or what is the pain?

That’s the whole point of coaching, to not go into it alone and to have a plan that honors precisely where you are when you start

I thought I would talk more about running when I started this pursuit.

Discomfort can also be disguised as discernment, leading the strong-willed individual out of alignment with the core self.