A few Saturdays ago, I cheered at the O'Gara's Irish Run 8k in St. Paul, where I happened to start chatting with a very nice gentleman who was also cheering. Come to find out, his wife is 53 year old Wanda Gau! Wanda is a very accomplished athlete who has a fascinating story. She didn't even start running until she was 40. Now she is winning her age group, running 6:24 min/miles at an 8k. Continue Reading
Interview with an Elite: Tina Muir
A few weeks ago, I linked to an article from Runner's Connect about pool running. Enough of you read that article that the Runner's Connect community manager, Tina Muir, reached out to me to share some more information about Runner's Connect. Tina Muir! OMG! Well, I just had to ask her for an interview and was pleasantly surprised that she agreed. If you aren't familiar with her, here's a Continue Reading
Guest Post: Pacing My Wife to Her First Boston Qualifier
By Dustin Benson So I agreed to spend three wonderful hours and thirty+ potentially more dramatic minutes pacing my wife to qualify for Boston at the Phoenix Marathon. Should you find yourself in a similar situation, I bet you'd like to know how to handle it. Why? I was very fortunate to have a successful race last fall at the Richmond (VA) Marathon. We had great weather, my Continue Reading
Weekly Recap: Five Weeks Until the London Marathon
FIVE weeks until the London Marathon! Yikes. I have to admit, I'm pretty anxious to get back into real training, especially with the race so close, but my coach is being very conservative. He only wanted me to run every other day this week and always short/easy runs. If I made it through the week running pain-free, he would start to add mileage back to my schedule. So, here's how the past Continue Reading
Fitting Remarks: How Not to Date a Runner.
The other day, a friend of mine sent a group text to a bunch of runner gals about a first-date fail, where she ate twice as much as the guy she was out with and she ate it twice as fast! That text started a barrage of testimonies of other bad first dates specifically for runners. Apparently there are a lot of things you shouldn't do if you want to date a runner. This same group of friends gave Continue Reading
Six Weeks Until the London Marathon & The Unveiling of The Mural!
As I shared in last week's recap, I have been sidelined a bit by injury but am still feeling hopeful for the London Marathon in 6 weeks. I am fortunate that my injury is pretty minor; just a level 1 stress "reaction", which is basically a bruised bone, not a fracture. The recovery is usually fast; I took this entire week off of running and am feeling back to 100%! I spent the past week Continue Reading
Training for the London Marathon…and Pool Running
Training for the London Marathon has started out a little differently than I had hoped! Let me recap last week for you: Monday: Hiked Camelback Mountain in Phoenix, about 2 hours Tuesday: Rest. Returned to Minneapolis Wednesday: More rest. Thursday: [solidcore] with Tom as the teacher. He's one of the owners- awesome, awesome class! I go to Arms & Abs at solidcore a fair amount, Continue Reading