Fast Track Top 50 IL finishers at Boston Marathon

Congrats to our runners that ran at the Boston Marathon 2010.

Women's Open:

10. Dick Pond Athletics Fast Track Racing Team (Illinois)

9:37:04

Marinangeli, Jean	2:58:10
Aubert, Jacqui	3:09:48
Burke, Rachel E.	3:29:06
Wasielewski, Grace	3:40:07
Bailey, Sarah	3:42:35

Men's Open:

20. Dick Pond Athletics Fast Track Racing Team (Illinois)

8:26:27

Breese, Steve	2:47:32
Jeromin, Matthew F.	2:49:16
Ancona, Matthew	2:49:39
Thor, Matthew J.	2:52:41
Kane, Steven G. Jr.	2:52:46

Men's Masters:

23. Dick Pond Athletics Fast Track Racing Team (Illinois)

9:03:17

Sweney, Brian	2:47:45
Gunby, Craig	3:02:02
McGovern, Kelly	3:13:30
Sellars, Jerry T.	3:21:17
Przybyla, Mark	3:34:35

Cross Training

I was curious what folks do for cross training. I'm dabbling here and there with Yoga, spin, lifting, and the biking or stationary bike. There are benefits of each but I'm finding it too easy to get carried away with the cross training, and not spending enough time running.  I'm trying to spin twice a week, do yoga once a week, and do weight lifting once a week while running four days a week.

Does anyone have ideas on how to balance this?

Training Ideas: General Strengthening

No, not this type of general.

It's no secret that runners aren't the greatest "athletes" in the world. Sure, our hearts could probably power nuclear submarines, but put us on a soccer field or a basketball court and the results won't be pretty.* Am I implying that runners need to have 40" vertical leaps, big biceps and finely tuned fast-twitch muscle fibers? Certainly not. However, runners do benefit from maintaining efficient form/technique, which requires a relatively balanced muscular profile, particularly in the core and hips. Unfortunately for we obsessive-compulsive runners, you don't build the necessary stabilizing muscles by simply running--you need some sort of supplementary training.

A friend of mine recently told me about Coach Jay Johnson, a coach and writer for Running Times who has a great website. After doing it for about two weeks, I've quickly become a fan of Jay's general strengthening routine. I'll leave the explanation to the linked website, but the routine focuses mainly on core strengthening and hip strengthening/mobility and only takes a few minutes. (I also found a handy, printable PDF diagram of the hip-blasting Myrtl routine that's a big part of this program.)

What do you do for strengthening? I'd love to hear your ideas and feedback, especially from the wily veterans out there.

*This certainly isn't true for all runners, but the point that I'm making is that runners typically have very developed "running muscles" and not much else.

"Why Start a Fast Track Blog?" or "How Bored are You?"

If you're like me, training with Fast Track / Dick Pond is much more than simply running with a group of other runners. It is that, but there's also a certain social bond--one that I'd almost label as camaraderie--that often develops between us runners. We don't just run: we talk about running, we eat breakfast together after running, we drink beer together after running--sometimes we even get married after running. To be sure, we are still just a running group/team/what-have-you, but the social aspect of this running group is undeniable, and that is the impetus for starting this blog.

My two main topics for this blog will be race recaps and training ideas. As a kid, I used to love reading my name in the newspaper after my travel soccer games. It was usually something along the lines of "So-and-so and What's-his-name scored for the Aces ... Matt T. played solid defense," but seeing your name in the paper when you're 10 years old makes you feel like Michael Jordan. This blog will never be the Daily Herald, but it's always fun to see your name somewhere, and I'll try to highlight all the people who participate in our races, whether you run a 30-minute 10K or a 90-minute 10K. That said, I'll probably need a little bit of help with this, as I'll probably miss a race here and there. Guest/co-authors will certainly be welcome on this site, which leads to my next topic...

I want this to be a social place. If you don't already have a Google account, sign up for one. It only takes a couple of seconds, and it will let you post comments on this blog. I mentioned that I want to share training ideas here, and if you're like me (that's twice!) you're always searching for a new element to add to your training. I'm admittedly not an expert on running (I just started during the Summer of '08 as soon as I was done with college soccer), and while I do read quite a bit about it, I'd love to hear training ideas from the rest of you.

So that's about it. I'll try to write newspaper-style articles about each race, and I hope to have some engaging discussions on here. After all, it's not very fun typing to myself.

Happy training!