The "Reverse Michigan" workout is an ascending ladder on the track—starting with a fast 400m, ending with a strong mile—interspersed with longer stretches of tempo running off the track between intervals. It's a great blend of speed and strength that can be beneficial to nearly any runner whether they're training for the mile, the marathon or anything in between.
I’m super excited to share the first episode in what will be a monthly series I’m co-hosting with Dinée Dorame of the Grounded Podcast. We’re calling it Common Ground and it will be a little bit of everything from two people who come from very different backgrounds and upbringings but share a mutual love of all things running (and podcasting, and music, and plenty of other stuff too). In these episodes we’ll catch up with one another about where we’re at in our respective podcasting and running journeys, we’ll discuss what’s exciting us in the sport, we’ll talk about issues in the community and industry, we’ll riff on music that we’ve been enjoying, take listener questions, and a lot more.
Hellah Sidibe is a former pro soccer player turned runner who strives to inspire and change lives through sharing his life experiences. Last year he became the first Black man to run across the United States, which he did in a quick 84 days, and he’s been running every day since May 15, 2017. His HellahGood YouTube channel has nearly 275 thousand subscribers and his energy and enthusiasm for running, life, and tackling big challenges is incredibly infectious.
Amy Leedham is my friend, she’s one of my athletes, she’s a wife and a mom, and a badass runner to boot. Amy told me about her nickname, The Punisher, and how it came to be, we dig into different elements of her personality and how they manifest in various aspects of her life, and we discuss how her relationship to running has evolved over the years, in particular the past two. Amy also describes the challenges she faced in returning to running after giving birth to her daughter Aila, she shares her best advice for other mothers who might find themselves in a similar situation, she told me how she’s developed a renewed sense of gratitude for being able to run, and a lot more.
Ted Metellus is the race director for the New York City Marathon. In this episode, I learned when running first came into Ted’s life, how his relationship to it has evolved over the years, and what it’s meant to him over the past two years that we’ve been navigating a pandemic. Ted told me about the path he’s followed in event operations, logistics, and management, what it’s like being a Black man in an overwhelmingly white sport and industry, what he means when he says that “you can’t teach care,” and a lot more.
Marius Bakken wrote a detailed blog post about the Norwegian model of lactate threshold training and lactate controlled approach to training that outlines the methodology followed today by folks like the Ingebrigtsen brothers and top triathletes like Kristian Blummenfelt and Gustav Iden.
I can’t remember if I’ve shared this before in the newsletter or not but Dieter Rams’ 10 Principles for Good Design is applicable to so many areas of life. I reference it often when designing training programs for my athletes. Number 2 is something of a guiding light for me: Good design makes a product useful.
81-year-old is doing well after a recent car accident and as usual, I found a lot of wisdom in this interview he recently did with Amby Burfoot for Outside.
The Millrose Games were on Saturday in New York City. I didn’t watch the event live because I was racing myself but I enjoyed this post-race show called After The Final Lap with Chris Chavez and Kyle Merber of Citius Mag and special guest host, 2016 Olympic 1500m gold medalist Matthew Centrowitz. It’s unscripted, insightful, and pretty entertaining on the whole. I mean, it’s worth it alone to watch men’s Wanamaker Mile champion Ollie Hoare trying to chug beer out of the winner's trophy on a live broadcast.
This past Saturday I raced the 1500m at the first of two winter all-comers track meets at Cal Berkeley’s Edwards Stadium. It was the first 1500 I’ve competed in since 2004 and my first proper track race at any distance since 2009 (save running every event at a different all-comers meet as a workout a few summers ago). I laced up a pair of spikes for the first time since 2006 and as I was doing so wondered for a brief second what the hell I was getting myself into.
