Run to Win

• I discussed what to look for in a new watch that you plan on working out with. I’ve bought some worthless watches before, so knowing what features you need can keep you from buying a second watch in short order. I also explained the difference between split times and lap times, which are common ways of breaking down workouts and races.
• Scott began our series on timeless exercises by describing how to do a Zercher squat.
• In running news, the Mystic Places Marathon was discontinued. This still remains one of my favorite races, but I will not be running it again. In other news, Complete Running created a new race calendar application.
• I read an interesting article that explained why man is the best runner in the animal kingdom.
• This week 2 years ago, I continued my animated series with how to do assisted pushups. I also continued sharing my thoughts on the New Rules of Lifting by discussing the eighteenth and nineteenth rules.

Two years ago, I ran the Mystic Places Marathon. It was one of my favorite marathons that I have run to date, and I figured that I would run it again some day when I was closer to my goal of running one in all 50 states.

Last year, the Mystic Places Marathon was renamed to the Mystic Country Marathon and Niantic Bay Festival.

This year, they have cancelled the marathon. Rather than a marathon and 10 mile race offered in tandem that go throughout town and into many different neighborhoods, they are putting on a two loop half-marathon that stays within the park in conjunction with a 5k that also stays within the park.

Here is the email that I received from the race director:
(Click here to continue reading…)

This week last year I mostly wrote about the race that I had run the weekend before, with a few news notes towards the end of the week.

• I wrote about the Mystic Places Marathon three times last year. After the initial article describing the race, I wrote about my race experience as well as my individual mile splits.
• The White Sox won the world series in baseball.
• I wrote about the weight lifting program that I used to use when I had not been lifting for a while. It works out well for first time lifters or people resuming weight lifting after having taken a lot of time off.
• Some German Olympic athletes went to the courts over having been forced to use performancing enhancing drugs before the Berlin Wall fell.

I also started tracking my website traffic this week last year using Site Meter. While not the most accurate system out there, it is a great tool for tracking the trends my website traffic has fallen into. I get much more traffic this year than I did last year, that is for sure.

The Mystic Places Marathon has a new name now: The Mystic Country Marathon & Niantic Bay Festival.

The course appears to be the same, so I imagine that not much else has changed about the race with the new name. I am sure that it is still a great (and quick) marathon course and thoroughly boring 10 mile course. Anybody in southern New England or along the northern Atlantic that is looking for a good marathon in the Autumn could certainly do worse for themselves.

If you have run it in the past, I imagine that they will be having some good deals on old apparel while they try to get rid of the old name.

Today was my first run back in just over a month. I wanted to take some time off after the Mystic Places Marathon and a heavy season of racing. I was a bit out of breath at the start of the run, but I think that that was due more to the 25-30 mph headwind I had starting out than it did to not being in shape. I went out a bit over dressed, but opening up the jacket and exposing my head cooled everything off but my arms. I ran a bit over 8 miles in about 68 minutes; the decision now is do I run again tomorrow? I am considering running a 5k, but I’m not sure if I want to jump right into something fast like that. It would be a good social occasion, however.

The Mystic Places Marathon last weekend was a bit quicker than I had intended to run. Check the full post if you want to see my splits. If you would like to see a few, I have pictures of the race online. (Click here to continue reading…)

I ran the Mystic Places Marathon this past weekend, and managed to knock almost 15 minutes off of my PR. My best race so far was in Cleveland where I ran a 3:07:05. My goal was to run under 3 hours, but I did not even run at 3 hour pace until mile 19. (Click here to continue reading…)

The Mystic Places Marathon was yesterday, October 23. Alene Reta and Dzmitry Sivou won the men’s race, coming in a minute apart at 2:25:51 and 2:26:56. Abeba Tola and Elivira Kolpokova won the women’s race in 2:46:21 and 2:47:05.
(Click here to continue reading…)