In the quiet pre-dawn hours, as I glide along the empty running path with shadows flitting past under the feeble light of the moon, I feel fast. My watch, however, tells a different story. My splits during these runs are usually slower than I’d expect based on my effort. It’s not just that I’m up […]
A few years ago, I crossed an unseen boundary and entered the land of middle age. The shift came slowly, then abruptly, and there I was, at 48, the new guy in a place whose inhabitants talked about poor sleep, unfaithful bowels, and watching soccer instead of playing it. I adapted to these strange ways […]
As a runner, you probably spend winter months logging chilly miles or hitting the treadmill to get ready for one thing: summer running season, when we can trade puffy jackets for t-shirts and toe the line at races and runs we’ve had our eyes on since last season. When you ramp up the mileage, knowing […]
(All illustrations: Brendan Leonard) Brendan Leonard’s new book, Have Fun Out There Or Not: The Semi-Rad Running Essays, is available now. The post A List of Semi-Liquid Energy Gel Alternatives, for Some Reason appeared first on Outside Online.
Over the past four years, a new breed of heavily cushioned running shoes modeled on Nike’s Vaporfly line have rewritten the road-running record books. Soft-bottomed shoes, it turns out, can be exceptionally fast. But the hot new debate about the Vaporfly’s performance advantages has managed to push aside an older conundrum that should be of […]
What do you carry when running for nine days and 145 miles through the Swiss Alps? As little as possible, friends and I learned last September while tackling the Via Valais route from Verbier to Zermatt. Athletes instead lean hard on the excellent Swiss hut system, and the occasional valley hotel, for most food and […]
More than two years after nearly every other brand entered the super-shoe fray, Altra has arrived on the scene with its unique entry into the modern marathon-racing genre. After ten runs in the Vanish Carbon, my initial assessment is that this light, peppy, comfortable, well-balanced, and smooth-riding shoe was worth the wait. First, some background. […]
One day a while back, I was out on a run, thinking about nothing in particular, just enjoying moving through the world, looking at trees, getting my heart rate up a little bit, and I decided I was going to try to run the final mile in less than 7 minutes and 30 seconds. I […]
Parenting through a two-year pandemic has been a lot like achieving anything tough outdoors: challenging, sometimes overwhelming, a few tears, but in the end, rewarding. Now it’s time to reward the women who hold it all together. We asked the moms, mother figures, and caregivers of Basecamp—a Facebook group for folks interested in the outdoor […]
In the fourth century B.C., the Greek philosopher Aristotle laid down some key principles of running form. “Runners run faster if they swing their arms,” he wrote. “There is in extending the arms a kind of leaning against the hands and wrists.” Modern coaches explain it a little differently, but they still generally believe that […]